What caused the hysteria of McCarthyism?

Answer 1

McCarthy's supporters believed that he was motivated by concern for his country and wanted to protect it from subversive and Communist elements. Opponents believe that McCarthy was motivated by his own ego or other negative motives.

Answer 2

Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin, who was convinced that there were communists everywhere and accused many people of being communists. In the end, he accused people of being communists who were innocent and was shown to a fraud.

Answer 3

the fear that communists were all around Americans , in thaeir shops in their homes and in their seats of power. the reason for this fear of communism was that America was rich and communism was spreading , if the rest of the world succumbed to communism , America wouldn't be able to trade and would become poor.

Answer 4

As World War II was about done, a young politico by the name of Richard Milhouse Nixon thought he could get popular and gain votes if he showed how patriotic he was. (He was not accepted by any military service during the war, so he felt like a loser, you see). Nixon was the person who noticed that some movie actors were Communists, which was a terrible (but legal) thing to be, back then. (As now).

Nixon's unlawful persecutions and humiliations of actors and others was a blatant ignoring of these peoples' civil rights. As Nixon started growing weary of persecuting Communists (which was and is legal), a new senator named McCarthy took over, and made the persecution a horrible, punishing process for actors, especially. No one was guilty, as there was and is not law about joining the Communist Party, but McCarth ruined a number of good people and excellent actors by having them blacklisted by their studios. (The studio heads were terrified that they would be called to testify by McCarthy.)

If you ever saw the movies, "Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men", the actor who played the old crusty grandfather was Burgess Meredith. Meredity was a dashing, handsome leading man in the 1920s to the 1940s, but he was blacklisted and could not get an acting job for decades.

That . . . is what McCarthyism was, and now is used to mean activity similar to the above.