History UsefulNotes / JosephMcCarthy

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Prior to that he had been a relatively undistinguished Senator, having earned criticism for supporting corporate subsidies and, bizarrely, accusing American military prosecutors of torturing Nazi SS officers accused of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre Malmedy Massacre]] into false confessions.[[note]]In fairness, [=McCarthy=] responded in part to real, credible accusations of forced confessions, beatings and other abuse against German prisoners of war. However, it soon became apparent that these ''specific'' charges were exaggerated, if not invented completely, and [=McCarthy=] became widely ridiculed for harping on the topic long after its falseness became evident.[[/note]] Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democratic Party had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1931 (except for the eightieth session of 1947–49), the White House since 1933.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democratic administrations of perpetrating “twenty years of treason” and, naturally, supported Republican candidate UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower in the 1952 presidential election, which he won. In office, Eisenhower pursued a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn’t quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower’s presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn’t like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Prior to that he had been a relatively undistinguished Senator, having earned criticism for supporting corporate subsidies and, bizarrely, accusing American military prosecutors of torturing Nazi SS officers accused of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmedy_massacre Malmedy Massacre]] into false confessions.[[note]]In fairness, [=McCarthy=] responded in part to real, credible accusations of forced confessions, beatings and other abuse against German prisoners of war. However, it soon became apparent that these ''specific'' charges were exaggerated, if not invented completely, and [=McCarthy=] became widely ridiculed for harping on the topic long after its falseness became evident.[[note]] Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democratic Party had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1931 (except for the eightieth session of 1947–49), the White House since 1933.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democratic administrations of perpetrating “twenty years of treason” and, naturally, supported Republican candidate UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower in the 1952 presidential election, which he won. In office, Eisenhower pursued a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn’t quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower’s presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn’t like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democratic Party had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1931 (except for the eightieth session of 1947–49), the White House since 1933.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democratic administrations of perpetrating “twenty years of treason” and, naturally, supported Republican candidate UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower in the 1952 presidential election, which he won. In office, Eisenhower pursued a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn’t quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower’s presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn’t like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

* A rabid anti-communist Senator Gallo (a rooster) appears in ''{{ComicBook/Blacksad}}'', secretly leading a project to ensure the American government is safe in the event of an all-out Russian nuclear attack. When Blacksad gets mixed up in this, he blackmails Gallo into releasing him, but ends up painted as having sold out others to save his skin.
* Appeared as an antagonist in ''Film/GoodNightAndGoodLuck''. Some audiences complained that "[[YourCostumeNeedsWork the actor playing Joseph McCarthy]]" was "[[PoesLaw too over-the-top]]". The film used actual archived footage of the real [=McCarthy=].

* A rabid anti-communist Senator Gallo (a rooster) appears in ''{{ComicBook/Blacksad}}'', secretly leading a project to ensure the American government is safe in the event of an all-out Russian nuclear attack. When Blacksad gets mixed up in this, he blackmails Gallo into releasing him, but ends up painted as having sold out others to save his skin.

* Footage of [=McCarthy=] is also shown on the television in the movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'' not only to help [[TheFifties set the time period]] but set the stage for the plot (fear of communists/possible collusion with them motivating many of the blackmail victims and, supposedly, Mr. Boddy) -- though in the end [[CatchPhrase communism turned out to be a]] [[{{Pun}} red herring.]]

-->-- '''Edward R. Murrow''''s attack on [=McCarthyism=]

To be clear, he had ''nothing'' to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC), or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but [=McCarthy=] wasn’t actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', which is to say, a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin (as its full name suggests)]] was a committee of the other house of Congress, the ''House of Representatives''. What makes him representative of this era is the fact that these pre-[=McCarthy=] investigations were far less controversial (at the time that is, opinions about HUAC, for instance, are far more critical today) and more popular than Tailgunner Joe's antics, and [=McCarthyism=] represented the point where elite and public opinion turned solidly against the RedScare with [=McCarthy=] alienating other anti-communists from the hardline platform that they had once advocated, but having been co-opted by [=McCarthy=], were no longer acceptable. [=McCarthyism=] is largely a disagreement about means rather than ends (anti-communism remains mainstream and has bi-partisan consensus), and the means advocated by [=McCarthy=], i.e. militant anti-communist advocacy of political consistency and paranoid overreaction of the same, were not original to him. He simply took it [[UpToEleven to the extreme]] and discredited it permanently in American mainstream politics.

Under Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] served on the Senate Committee on Government Operations during which he investigated the Voice of America, the US government's radio program, where he ruined many careers via televised interviews that included highly personal and aggressive interrogation. He, alongside Roy Cohn (who worked as his chief counsel), also monitored the libraries in American embassies overseas and began crusading against books and authors that were considered communist, which eventually led to {{book burning}}s by [=McCarthy=] supporters at home ([=McCarthy=] didn't order any directly, it must be said). [=McCarthy=] attacked government employees, librarians and other state officials, codifying [[AntiIntellectualism the anti-intellectual climate]] of the time. It became clear that he was burning his bridges when [=McCarthy=]'s staff director, J. B. Matthews, started claiming that [[ARareSentence "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen."]] [[EveryoneHasStandards Even McCarthy was reluctant to support a potential breach into the First Amendment]] and many of his fellow senators were taken aback by this attack on the American clergy. While [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]], arguing by the "logic" that since homosexuals were vulnerable to {{blackmail}}, they could easily be used by the USSR to spy on the United States and so known and suspected homosexuals had to be ferreted out to better gauge their loyalty. Some historians have argued that this “Lavender scare,” as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the Red one, as it marked the birth of the first real homophobic policies at a state level. Needless to say, the fact that [=McCarthy=]'s own staffer Roy Cohn turned out to be a closeted homosexual himself only served to tarnish his crusade and reputation posthumously (though Cohn always denied this).

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anti-communist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. That December 2, the Senate voted to censure [=McCarthy=] by a 67–22 margin, with six abstentions. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats present, while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. The Kennedy family was generally friendly to [=McCarthy=], and he was godfather to UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy's first daughter, Kathleen. Out of family loyalty, JFK tended to avoid speaking about him and refused to denounce him publicly.[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion.]] He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout.]][[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated. [=McCarthy=] was still a sitting senator at the time of his death, so a special election was held to fill the vacancy in the Senate. Ironically, his seat was taken by William Proxmire, a liberal Democrat and future opponent of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. At the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, an attempt was made to reconstruct him, with the 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed (though not nearly as many as [=McCarthy=] or HUAC argued). The general view is that, if anything, [=McCarthy’s=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed that the KGB shared a similar opinion. [=McCarthy=] had a history of mendacity, having doctored his military record to appear more heroic than he was and using that as a cudgel to attack his opponents,[[note]]His nickname "Tailgunner Joe" comes from the fact that he had flown on bombing missions as an "observer" but exaggerated that to claim he served as a tailgunner, which he used when he ran for the Senate in 1946. During that campaign, he called his opponent, Howard [=McMurray=], a war profiteer, based on zero evidence.[[/note]] and it is more accurate to see him as someone who exploited preexisting anti-communist fervor than someone interested in dealing with actual communists in a competent fashion.

Joseph Raymond "Tailgunner Joe"[[note]]He acquired that nickname while serving in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. Senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which became (and remains so to this very day) a byword for political demagoguery that uses the rhetoric of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor to undermine his opponents by questioning their loyalty to the state and their personal convictions without offering proof. During his lifetime, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label.]] [=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then.

To be clear, he had ''nothing'' to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]], or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but [=McCarthy=] wasn’t actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', which is to say, a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', which is to say, the House of ''Representatives''. What makes him representative of this era is the fact that these pre-[=McCarthy=] investigations were far less controversial (at the time that is, opinions about HUAC, for instance, are far more critical today) and more popular than Tailgunner Joe's antics, and [=McCarthyism=] represented the point where elite and public opinion turned solidly against the RedScare with [=McCarthy=] alienating other anti-communists from the hardline platform that they had once advocated, but having been co-opted by [=McCarthy=], were no longer acceptable. [=McCarthyism=] is largely a disagreement about means rather than ends (anti-communism remains mainstream and has bi-partisan consensus), and the means advocated by [=McCarthy=], i.e. militant anti-communist advocacy of political consistency and paranoid overreaction of the same, were not original to him. He simply took it [[UpToEleven to the extreme]] and discredited it permanently in American mainstream politics.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1931 (except for the eightieth session of 1947–49), the White House since 1933.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing “twenty years of treason.” Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican candidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower led a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn’t quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower’s presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn’t like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anti-communist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. That December 2, the Senate voted to censure [=McCarthy=] by a 67–22 margin, with six abstentions. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats, while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. The Kennedy family was generally friendly to [=McCarthy=], and he was godfather to UsefulNotes/RobertFKennedy's first daughter, Kathleen. Out of family loyalty, JFK tended to avoid speaking about him and refused to denounce him publicly.[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion.]] He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout.]][[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated. [=McCarthy=] was still a sitting senator at the time of his death, so a special election was held to fill the vacancy in the Senate. Ironically, his seat was taken by William Proxmire, a liberal Democrat and future opponent of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. At the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, an attempt was made to reconstruct him, with the 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed (though not nearly as many as [=McCarthy=] or HUAC argued). The general view is that, if anything, [=McCarthy’s=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed that the KGB shared a similar opinion. The fact is that [=McCarthy=] had a history of mendacity, having doctored his military record to appear more heroic than he was and using that as a cudgel to attack his opponents,[[note]]His nickname "Tailgunner Joe" comes from the fact that he had flown on bombing missions as an "observer" but exaggerated that to claim he served as a tailgunner, which he used when he ran for the Senate in 1946, during which time he called his opponent, Howard [=McMurray=], a war profiteer, based on zero evidence.[[/note]] and it is more accurate to see him as someone who exploited preexisting anti-communist fervor than someone interested in dealing with actual communists in a competent fashion.

!!Joseph [=McCarthy=] has been portrayed in:

* In general, works of fiction dealing with [=McCarthyism=] tend to opt for a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of [=McCarthy=] rather than actually naming him. A notable example of this is ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'', in which the [=McCarthy=] analogue turns out to be a Soviet agent sowing discord on purpose, perhaps building from Truman’s and Eisenhower’s comments.

Joseph Raymond [=McCarthy=] (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. Senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which became (and remains so to this very day) a by-word for political demagoguery that uses the rhetoric of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor to undermine his opponents by questioning their loyalty to the state and their personal convictions. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label.]] [=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then.

To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]] and UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but [=McCarthy=] wasn’t actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', which is to say, a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', which is to say, the ''House'' of ''Representatives''. What makes him representative of this era is the fact that these pre-[=McCarthy=] investigations were far less controversial (at the time that is, opinions about HUAC, for instance, are far more critical today) and more popular than Tailgunner Joe's antics, and [=McCarthyism=] represented the point where elite and public opinion turned solidly against the RedScare with [=McCarthy=] alienating other anti-communists from the hardline platform that they had once advocated, but having been co-opted by [=McCarthy=], were no longer acceptable. [=McCarthyism=] is largely a disagreement about means rather than ends (anti-communism remains mainstream and has bi-partisan consensus), and the means advocated by [=McCarthy=] i.e. militant anti-communist advocacy of political consistency and paranoid overreaction of the same, were not original to him. He simply took it [[UpToEleven to the extreme]] and discredited it permanently in American mainstream politics.

Under Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] served on the Senate Committee on Government Operations during which he investigated the Voice of America, the US government's radio program, where he ruined many careers via televised interviews that included highly personal and aggressive interrogation. He, alongside Roy Cohn (who worked as his chief counsel), also monitored the libraries in American embassies overseas and began crusading against books and authors that were considered communist, which eventually led to {{book burning}}s by [=McCarthy=] supporters at home ([=McCarthy=] didn't order any directly, it must be said). [=McCarthy=] attacked government employees, librarians and other state officials, codifying [[AntiIntellectualism the anti-intellectual climate]] of the time. It became clear that he was burning his bridges when [=McCarthy=]'s staff director J. B. Matthews started claiming that "[[ARareSentence The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen]]." Even [=McCarthy=] was reluctant to support a potential breach into the First Amendment and many of his own colleagues in the senate were taken aback by this attack on the American clergy. While [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]], arguing by the "logic" that since homosexuals were vulnerable to {{blackmail}}, they could easily be used by the USSR to spy on the United States and so known and suspected homosexuals had to be ferreted out to better gauge their loyalty. Some historians have argued that this “Lavender scare,” as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the Red one, as it marked the birth of the first real homophobic policies at a state level. Needless to say, the fact that [=McCarthy=]'s own staffer Roy Cohn turned out to be a closeted homosexual himself only served to tarnish his crusade and reputation posthumously (though Cohn always denied this).

Ultimately, an emerging new medium called television brought [=McCarthy=] down. In early 1954, Edward R. Murrow’s ''See It Now'' series broadcast an episode condemning [=McCarthy=], a risky move at the time. [=McCarthy=] appeared on a later episode to respond, predictably not addressing a single point made against him and instead [[AdHominem accusing Murrow of being a communist]]. That same year, the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings investigated the U.S. Army for potential communist subversion. The television coverage of the hearings gave the American public a good, long look at [=McCarthy=], and they didn’t like what they saw. The Wisconsin senator came off as bullying and the hearings have become known for a ShutUpHannibal moment, when Joseph Welch said, “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator, you’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Welch’s words were met with applause from the rest of the room.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anti-communist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats, while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. The Kennedy family was generally friendly to [=McCarthy=], and he was godfather to Robert Kennedy's daughter. Out of family loyalty, JFK tended to avoid speaking about him and refused to denounce him publicly.[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion]]. He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout]].[[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated. [=McCarthy=] was still a sitting senator at the time of his death, so a special election was held to fill the vacancy in the Senate. Ironically, his seat was taken by William Proxmire, a liberal Democrat and future opponent of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. At the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, an attempt was made to reconstruct him, with the 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed (though not nearly as many as [=McCarthy=] or HUAC argued). The general view is that, if anything, [=McCarthy’s=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed that the KGB shared a similar opinion. The fact is that [=McCarthy=] had a history of mendacity, having doctored his military record to appear more heroic than he was and using that as a cudgel to attack his opponents,[[note]]His nickname "Tailgunner Joe" comes from the fact that he had flown on bombing missions as an "observer" but exaggerated that to claim he served as a Tailgunner, which he used in his actual senatorial campaign, during which he called his opponent a war profiteer, based on zero evidence.[[/note]] and it is more accurate to see him as someone who tapped into preexisting anti-communist fervor than someone interested in dealing with actual communists in a competent fashion.

* Played by Peter Boyle in the 1977 television movie ''Tail Gunner Joe''.[[note]][=McCarthy=] acquired that nickname while serving as a Marine in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[/note]]

* Footage of [=McCarthy=] is also shown on the television in the movie ''Film/{{Clue}}'' to not only help [[TheFifties set the time period]] but set the stage for the plot (fear of communists/possible collusion with them motivating many of the blackmail victims and, supposedly, Mr. Boddy)--though in the end [[CatchPhrase communism turned out to be a]] [[IncrediblyLamePun red herring]].

->''"[=McCarthyism=] is Americanism with its sleeves rolled."''
-->-- '''Joseph [=McCarthy=]'''’s attempt to [[InsultBackfire reclaim]] the term he inspired

->''“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”''
-->-- '''Edward R. Murrow'''’s attack on [=McCarthyism=]

To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]] and UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but this man wasn’t actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', which is to say, a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', which is to say, the ''House'' of ''Representatives''. What makes him representative of this era is the fact that these pre-[=McCarthy=] investigations were far less controversial (at the time that is, opinions about HUAC, for instance, are far more critical today) and more popular than Tailgunner Joe's antics, and [=McCarthyism=] represented the point where elite and public opinion turned solidly against the RedScare with [=McCarthy=] alienating other anti-communists from the hardline platform that they had once advocated, but having been co-opted by [=McCarthy=], were no longer acceptable. [=McCarthyism=] is largely a disagreement about means rather than ends (anti-communism remains mainstream and has bi-partisan consensus), and the means advocated by [=McCarthy=] i.e. militant anti-communist advocacy of political consistency and paranoid overreaction of the same, were not original to him. He simply took it [[UpToEleven to the extreme]] and discredited it permanently in American mainstream politics.

Under Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] served on the Senate Committee on Government Operations during which he investigated the Voice of America, the US government's radio program, where he ruined many careers via televised interviews that included highly personal and aggressive interrogation. He, alongside Roy Cohn (who worked as his chief counsel), also monitored the libraries in American embassies overseas and began crusading against books and authors that were considered communist, which eventually led to {{book burning}}s by [=McCarthy=] supporters at home ([=McCarthy=] didn't order any directly, it must be said). [=McCarthy=] attacked government employees, librarians and other state officials codifying [[AntiIntellectualism the anti-intellectual climate]] of the time. It became clear that he was burning his bridges when [=McCarthy=]'s staff director J. B. Matthews started claiming that, "[[ARareSentence The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen]]." Even [=McCarthy=] was reluctant to support a potential breach into the First Amendment and many of his own colleagues in the senate were taken aback by this attack on the American clergy. While [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]], arguing by the "logic" that since homosexuals were vulnerable to {{blackmail}}, they could easily be used by the USSR to spy on the United States and so known and suspected homosexuals had to be ferreted out to better gauge their loyalty. Some historians have argued that this “Lavender scare,” as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the Red one, as it marked the birth of the first real homophobic policies at a state level. Needless to say, the fact that [=McCarthy=]'s own staffer Roy Cohn turned out to be a closeted homosexual himself only served to tarnish his crusade and reputation posthumously.

* In general, works of fiction dealing with [=McCarthyism=] tend to opt for a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of [=McCarthy=] rather than actually naming him. A notable example of this is ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'', in which the [=McCarthy=] analogue turns out to be a Soviet agent sowing discord on purpose, perhaps building from Truman’s and Eisenhower’s speculations.

Under Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] served on the Senate Committee on Government Operations during which he investigated the Voice of America, the US government's radio program, where he ruined many careers via televised interviews that included highly personal and aggressive interrogation. He, alongside Roy Cohn (who worked as his chief counsel), also monitored the Libraries in American embassies overseas and began crusading against books and authors that were considered anti-communist, which eventually led to BookBurning by [=McCarthy=] supporters at home ([=McCarthy=] didn't order any directly it must be said). [=McCarthy=] attacked government employees, librarians and other state officials codifying [[AntiIntellectualism the anti-intellectual climate]] of the time. It became clear that he was burning his bridges when one [=McCarthy=]'s staff director J. B. Matthews, started advocating that, "[[ARareSentence The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen]]." Even [=McCarthy=] was reluctant to support a potential breach into the First Amendment and many of his own colleagues in the senate were taken aback by this attack on the American clergy. While [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]], arguing by the "logic" that since homosexuals were vulnerable to {{Blackmail}}, they could easily be used by the USSR to spy on the United States and so known and suspected homosexuals had to be ferretted out to better gauge their loyalty. Some historians have argued that this “Lavender scare,” as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the Red one, as it marked the birth of the first real homophobic policies at a state level. Needless to say, the fact that [=McCarthy=]'s own staffer Roy Cohn turned out to be a closeted homosexual himself only served to tarnish his crusade and reputation posthumously.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anticommunist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. The Kennedy family was generally friendly to [=McCarthy=], and he was godfather to Robert Kennedy's daughter. Out of family loyalty, JFK tended to avoid speaking about him and refused to denounce him publicly[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion]]. He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout]].[[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated. [=McCarthy=] was still a sitting senator at the time of his death, so a special election was held to fill the vacancy in the Senate. Ironically, his seat was taken by William Proxmire, a liberal Democrat and future opponent of UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. At the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar, an attempt was made to reconstruct him, with the 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed (though not nearly as many as [=McCarthy=] or HUAC argued). The general view is that, if anything, [=McCarthy’s=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed that the KGB shared a similar opinion. The fact is that [=McCarthy=] had a history of mendacity, having doctored his military record to appear more heroic than he was and using that as a cudgel to attack his opponents[[note]]His nickname "Tailgunner Joe" comes from the fact that he had flown on bombing missions as an "observer" but exaggerated that to claim he served as a Tailgunner, which he used in his actual senatorial campaign, during which he called his opponent a war profiteer, based on zero evidence[[/note]], and it is more accurate to see him as someone who tapped into pre-existing anti-communist fervor than someone interested in dealing with actual communists in a competent fashion.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' satirized [=McCarthy=] as Simple J. Malarkey, a trigger-happy bobcat who joins the Jack Acid Society, the strip’s version of HUAC (doubtless the fervently anticommunist John Birch Society inspired the name).

* Parodied on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', with famous ventriloquist dummy Charlie [=McCarthy=] accusing fellow puppets of un-American activities.

'''Joseph Raymond [=McCarthy=]''' (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which became (and remains so to this very day) a by-word for political demagoguery that uses the rhetoric of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor to undermine his opponents by questioning their loyalty to the state and their personal convictions. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label.]] [=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then.

'''Joseph Raymond [=McCarthy=]''' (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which became (and remains so to this very day) a by-word for political demaogery that uses the rhetoric of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor to undermine his opponents by questioning their loyalty to the state and their personal convictions. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label.]] [=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anticommunist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. The Kennedy family was generally friendly to [=McCarthy=], and he was godfather to Robert Kennedy's daughter. Out of family loyalty, JFK tended to avoid speaking about him and refused to denounce him publicly[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion]]. He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout]].[[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated.

* Played by Peter Boyle in the 1977 television movie ''Tail Gunner Joe''.[[note]][=McCarthy=] acquired that nickname while serving as a Marine in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[/note]]

'''Joseph Raymond [=McCarthy=]''' (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which evokes a combination of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label.]]

[=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then. To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]], or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but this man wasn’t actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', which is to say, a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', which is to say, the ''House'' of ''Representatives''.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1931 (except for the eightieth session of 1947–49), the White House since 1933.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing “twenty years of treason.” Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican candidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower led a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn’t quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower’s presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn’t like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anticommunist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats while the Republicans were split evenly.[[note]]Fun fact: the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time.[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion]]. He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout]].[[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [=“McCarthywasm”=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis, which his alcoholism probably caused or at least exacerbated.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. There are some who disagree with this consensus, however. The 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed, has inspired some conservative commentators, most notably Ann Coulter, to argue that [=McCarthy=] has been VindicatedByHistory. Others argue that, if anything, [=McCarthy’s=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed that the KGB shared a similar opinion.

Incidentally, while [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]]. Some historians have argued that this “Lavender scare,” as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the Red one.

-->-- '''Joseph [=McCarthy=]'''[='s=] attempt to [[InsultBackfire reclaim]] the term he inspired

->''"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."''
-->-- '''Edward R. Murrow'''[='s=] attack on [=McCarthyism=]

'''Joseph Raymond [=McCarthy=]''' (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which evokes a combination of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label]].

[=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anticommunist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often MisBlamed for everything that happened back then. To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]], or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but this man wasn't actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', a.k.a. a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', a.k.a. the ''House'' of Representatives.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the government for twenty years,[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1930, the White House since 1932.[[/note]] under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing "twenty years of treason". Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican candidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower led a strongly anticommunist foreign policy, but [[NoTrueScotsman it wasn't quite anticommunist enough for McCarthy]]. A year into Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn't like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

Ultimately, an emerging new medium called television brought [=McCarthy=] down. In early 1954, Edward R. Murrow's ''See It Now'' series broadcast an episode condemning [=McCarthy=], a risky move at the time. [=McCarthy=] appeared on a later episode to respond, predictably not addressing a single point made against him and instead [[AdHominem accusing Murrow of being a communist]]. That same year, the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings investigated the U.S. Army for potential communist subversion. The television coverage of the hearings gave the American public a good, long look at [=McCarthy=], and they didn't like what they saw. The Wisconsin senator came off as bullying and the hearings have become known for a ShutUpHannibal moment, when Joseph Welch said, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's words were met with applause from the rest of the room.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anticommunist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats while the Republicans were split evenly. Incidentally, the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and [[NeverMyFault declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion]]. He continued to rail against the red menace, but [[DeaderThanDisco he had lost his nationwide fame and political clout]].[[note]]Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [="McCarthywasm"=].[[/note]] [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, officially from hepatitis that his alcoholism probably exacerbated, if not caused.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. There are some who disagree with this consensus, however. The 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed, has caused some conservative commentators, most notably Ann Coulter, to argue that [=McCarthy=] has been VindicatedByHistory. Others argue that, if anything, [=McCarthy's=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll. The release of the Mitrokhin documents showed the KGB shared a similar opinion.

Incidentally, while [=McCarthy=] is best known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]]. Some historians have argued that this "lavender scare", as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the red one.

* In general, works of fiction dealing with [=McCarthyism=] tend to opt for a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of [=McCarthy=] rather than actually naming him. A notable example of this is ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'', in which the [=McCarthy=] analogue turns out to be a Soviet agent sowing discord on purpose, perhaps building from Truman's and Eisenhower's speculation.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' satirized [=McCarthy=] as Simple J. Malarkey, a trigger-happy bobcat who joins the Jack Acid Society, the strip's version of HUAC (doubtless the fervently anticommunist John Birch Society inspired the name).
* Played by Peter Boyle in the '70s television movie ''Tail Gunner Joe''.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. There are some who disagree with this consensus, however. The 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed, has caused some conservative commentators, most notably Ann Coulter, to argue that [=McCarthy=] has been VindicatedByHistory. Others argue that, if anything, [=McCarthy's=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, Presidents Truman and Eisenhower both thought so, making similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin might as well put [=McCarthy=] on its payroll.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' satirized [=McCarthy=] as Simple J. Malarkey, a trigger-happy bobcat who joins the Jack Acid Society, the strip's version of HUAC (doubtless the fervently anticommunist John Birch Society inspired the name).

Joseph R. [=McCarthy=] (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was the U.S. senator who inspired the term [="McCarthyism"=], which evokes a combination of WitchHunt, RedScare, and PatrioticFervor. As noted above, he tried unsuccessfully to [[InsultBackfire reclaim the label]].

[=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anti-communist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his iconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often blamed for everything that happened back then. To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]], or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but the man himself wasn't actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', a.k.a. a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', a.k.a. the ''House'' of Representatives.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the government for twenty years[[note]]Congress had been controlled by Democrats since 1930, the White House since 1932.[[/note]], under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing "twenty years of treason". Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican candidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower lead a strongly anti-communist foreign policy, but it wasn't quite anti-communist enough for [=McCarthy=]. A year into Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn't like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

Ultimately, [=McCarthy's=] downfall was caused by an emerging new medium called television. In early 1954, Edward R. Murrow's ''See It Now'' series broadcast an episode condemning [=McCarthy=], a risky move at the time. [=McCarthy=] appeared on a later episode to respond, predictably not addressing a single point made against him and instead [[AdHominem accusing Murrow of being a communist]]. That same year, the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings investigated the U.S. Army for potential communist subversion. The television coverage of the hearings gave the American public a good, long look at [=McCarthy=], and they didn't like what they saw. The senator came off as bullying and the hearings have become known for a ShutUpHannibal moment, when Joseph Welch said, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's words were met with applause from the rest of the room.

After ''See It Now'' and the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings, public opinion began to turn against [=McCarthy=]. Even some of the most anti-communist Republicans now saw him as a liability and wanted him to StopBeingStereotypical. This was followed by the Senate voting to censure [=McCarthy=]. The censure received unanimous support from the Democrats while the Republicans were split evenly. Incidentally, the only senator not present for the vote was none other than UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy, who was recuperating from back surgery at the time. [=McCarthy=] dismissed the censure as inconsequential and declared that it was the result of (you guessed it) communist subversion. He continued to rail against the red menace, but his nationwide fame and political clout were over. Eisenhower quipped that [=McCarthyism=] was now [="McCarthywasm"=]. [=McCarthy=] began drinking heavily. In 1957, he died at the age of forty-eight, probably from alcoholism.

History, of course, remembers [=McCarthy=] as a wild, paranoid demagogue. There are some who disagree with this consensus, however. The 1995 release of the Venona papers, which revealed that there were more Soviet agents in the U.S. government than previously believed, has caused some conservative commentators, most notably Ann Coulter, to argue that [=McCarthy=] has been VindicatedByHistory. Others argue that, if anything, [=McCarthy's=] antics damaged legitimate efforts to locate Soviet agents by making the cause look irrational. For the record, that was the opinion of Truman and Eisenhower, both of whom made similar snarky comments about how the Kremlin ought to just put [=McCarthy=] on their payroll.

Incidentally, while [=McCarthy=] is best-known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade [[{{UsefulNotes/Homophobia}} against homosexuals]]. Some historians have argued that this "lavender scare", as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the red one.

* StockFootage of [=McCarthy=] is used in ''Film/GoodNightAndGoodLuck''. Not realizing that they were seeing footage of the real [=McCarthy=], [[YourCostumeNeedsWork test audiences thought the actor playing McCarthy was hamming it up too much]].
* In an episode of ''{{Series/MASH}}'', Frank Burns complained that Hawkeye and Trapper drew fangs on his picture of Senator [=McCarthy=].

* ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' satirized [=McCarthy=] as Simple J. Malarkey, a trigger happy bobcat who joins the Jack Acid Society, the strip's version of HUAC (the name was no doubt inspired from the fervently anti-communist John Birch Society).

* In general, works of fiction dealing with [=McCarthyism=] tend to opt for a NoCelebritiesWereHarmed version of [=McCarthy=] rather than actually naming him. A notable example of this is ''Literature/TheManchurianCandidate'', in which the [=McCarthy=] analogue turns out to be a Soviet agent sowing discord on purpose.

* ''ComicStrip/{{Pogo}}'' satirized [=McCarthy=] as Simple J. Malarkey, a trigger happy bobcat who joins the Jack Acid Society, the strip's version of HUAC.

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the White House for twenty years, under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing "twenty years of treason". Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican candidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower lead a strongly anti-communist foreign policy, but it wasn't quite anti-communist enough for [=McCarthy=]. A year into Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn't like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

Ultimately, [=McCarthy's=] downfall was caused by an emerging new medium called television. In early 1954, Edward R. Murrow's ''See It Now'' series broadcast an episode condemning [=McCarthy=], a risky move at the time. [=McCarthy=] appeared on a later episode to respond, predictably not addressing a single point made against him and instead [[AdHominem accusing Murrow of being a communist]]. That same year, the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings investigated the U.S. Army for potential communist subversion. The television coverage of the hearings gave the American public a good, long look at [=McCarthy=] and they didn't like what they saw. The senator came off as bullying and the hearings have become known for a ShutUpHannibal moment, when Joseph Welch said, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's words were met with applause from the rest of the room.

* ''Film/TheFront'' opens with a montage of old newsreel footage from the early 1950s. Footage of [=McCarthy=] is prominently featured.

Incidentally, while [=McCarthy=] is best-known for his crusade against communists, he also led a similar crusade against homosexuals. Some historians have argued that this "lavender scare", as it is called, was actually much more destructive than the red one.

* In an episode of ''{{Series/MASH}}'', Frank Burns complained that Hawkeye and Trapper drew fangs on his picture of Senator [=McCarthy=].

[=McCarthy=] first rose to prominence in 1950, three years after he became the junior senator from Wisconsin. Making a speech in West Virginia, he declared that the U.S. State Department was infested with known communists. The press took notice and launched [=McCarthy=] into the national spotlight. At the time, the Democrats had been in control of the White House for twenty years, under the administrations of UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt and UsefulNotes/HarryTruman. [=McCarthy=], a Republican, accused the Democrats of committing "twenty years of treason". Needless to say, [=McCarthy=] supported UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower, the Republican canidate, in the 1952 presidential election. Once in office, Eisenhower lead a strongly anti-communist foreign policy, but it wasn't quite anti-communist enough for [=McCarthy=]. A year into Eisenhower's presidency, [=McCarthy=] didn't like Ike anymore and had updated his CatchPhrase to refer to twenty-''one'' years of treason.

[=McCarthy=] is known for having been an extremely anti-communist U.S. senator during TheFifties. Due to his inconic status as the symbol of the RedScare, [=McCarthy=] is often blamed for everything that happened back then. To be clear, he did ''not'' have anything to do with Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs, the [[HauledBeforeASenateSubCommittee House Un-American Activities Committee]], or UsefulNotes/TheHollywoodBlacklist. HUAC and the blacklist were certainly in the spirit of [=McCarthyism=], but the man himself wasn't actually involved in those things. The big clue is that [=McCarthy=] was a ''senator'', a.k.a. a member of the ''Senate'', whereas HUAC was a committee of the ''House'', a.k.a. the ''House'' of Representatives.

Ultimately, [=McCarthy's=] downfall was caused by an emerging new medium called television. In early 1954, Edward R. Murrow's ''See It Now'' series broadcast an episode condemning [=McCarthy=], a risky move at the time. [=McCarthy=] appeared on a later episode to respond, predictably not addressing a single point made against him and instead [[AdHominem accusing Murrow of being a communist]]. That same year, the [=Army–McCarthy=] hearings investigated the possibility of communist subversion in the U.S. Army. The television coverage of the hearings gave the American public a good, long look at [=McCarthy=] and they didn't like what they saw. The senator came off as bullying and the hearings have become known for a ShutUpHannibal moment, when Joseph Welch said, "Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" Welch's words were met with applause from the rest of the room.