Mccarthyism, the fuel for keeping the fire of Cold War continuously burning in the USA

To what degree did McCarthyism influence, and was influenced by, the Cold War here in the United States?

McCarthyism influenced the Cold War by setting off a few minor nukes that caused for a huge explosion. The United States has hated Communism for a long period of time because we didn’t agree with what it did to the people under it and the evilness that resulted from it. The Cold War, which was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union, was a war that was fought in the name of Communism.

Initially, the Soviet Union and the United States of America were allies and had no direct issue with one another, although the Soviet Union was Communist during WWII, where they fought as allies. Senator McCarthy, who was a dangerous and detestable man who some can blame for starting the Cold War was the main person behind the collapse of the Soviet Union and the United States’ friendship because of his actions.

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McCarthy claimed to “identify several Communist threats”, which turned out not to be real, but because we were unaware of the validity of his claims at the time, our opinion and perspective on Communism was nowhere near positive.

The whole reason for the Cold War was our negative connotation with the idea of Communism and the mindset that we had towards Communism. We hated Communism and everything it stood for, which is why we spent so much money and time on trying to stop the spread of it in later years.

McCarthyism is to blame for all of the results of us loathing Communism because it was Senator McCarthy who caused everyone to believe that Communism was horrible because of the accusations he made to the public. To make matters worse and intensify our hate for Communism, McCarthy prompted us to become TERRIFIED of Communism. Through the “Hollywood 10”, McCarthy really caused America to exhibit our hate and terror for and of Communism. The Hollywood 10 was a group of ten Hollywood actors who wouldn’t answer any questions that pertained to Communism. As a result of this, because America was now so afraid of Communism and hated the idea of it, since they believed that these 10 actors were Communists, they were blackballed from Hollywood and couldn’t find any acting gigs. So, not only did McCarthy destroy the Soviet Union and the United States’s relationship, he destroyed ten actor’s careers as well. To add on, McCarthy also created the Loyalty Board to ensure that no government officials were undercover Communists, which resulted in two hundred people being fired and two-thousand people quitting. Also, McCarthy passed The Smith Act to scare people from being Communist by imprisoning people for twenty years if they published, printed or taught anything Communism. Everyone followed McCarthy’s lead and took a stand against Communism and wanted NOTHING to do with it.

When we noticed that Communism was spreading to other nations, our fear and hate for it intensified even more. For example, when China adopted Communism, we thought that it would spread to other countries (Domino Theory). Also, when Russia obtained the nuke in 1949, we became even more terrified because we knew how much mass destruction the bomb could do and there was a possibility that if we engaged in an altercation with Russia, we would lose and we would be taken over by a Communist nation. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when South Korea was invaded by North Korea and we thought this would spread Communism throughout Asia. McCarthy decided that this was a huge threat to the spread of Communism and decided to tighten his grip even more because of the fear of Asia becoming Communist. McCarthy was the definition of an anti-communist and seized any opportunity to influence America to hate it even more.

McCarthyism had a huge influence on the Cold War and the events that led up to the cold war. He used governmental and psychological tactics to make America believe that Communism was based on the ideals of evil, thus causing us to see it as something equivalent to Satan. We were so afraid of Communism, which we tried to stop every country from adopting it by engaging in different wars and playing mind games. McCarthyism was the brainwashing of a nation and the cause of America’s involvement in the Cold War and the Cold War in its entirety.