Democratic McCarthy-equivalent

Alkahest

Banned
If the (US) Democratic Party had become the primary red-baiting party in the 50's, who could have been the Democratic politician most closely associated with the Red Scare? Simply put, who would be the Democratic McCarthy? I've thought about Thomas J. Dodd and some other conservative Democrats, but did any of them have the sheer batshit crazy commie-paranoia of McCarthy?
 
If you could push the civil rights movement back to the 1930s or so and have the Republican Party embrace *Nixon's Southern strategy three decades earlier, you might drive progressives and libertarians to the Democrats during the 1950s.

That would mean someone like Robert A. Heinlein might be a Democrat, and (despite some first-class fiction) he was definitely batshit crazy paranoid.
 

Japhy

Banned
Why, Freshmen Senator Joseph McCarthy's DC Roommate fills the role easily. His family supported McCarthy, his younger brother cut his teeth working on the Red Witch hunting staffs, and and he skipped out on the Censure vote against Ol' Joe rather then turn against his friend or take political damage for voting against McCarthy.
 
If you could push the civil rights movement back to the 1930s or so and have the Republican Party embrace *Nixon's Southern strategy three decades earlier, you might drive progressives and libertarians to the Democrats during the 1950s.

That would mean someone like Robert A. Heinlein might be a Democrat, and (despite some first-class fiction) he was definitely batshit crazy paranoid.

Heinlein would likely be even more of an exception than he was IOTL. A more progressive Dem party would be even less likely to turn into a Red-baiting machine.....a Democratic Party under the control of the Dixiecrats, however.......:p
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Hubert Humphrey and Herbert Lehman supported putting Communists in concentration/detention camps. Granted, they're no McCarthy, but it's rare that we come across politicians as pathologically reckless as Joe McCarthy.

The thing is, the Dems are never going to be the post-War anti-Red Party because New Deal programs, the post-Depression Federal Government, and membership of the Democratic Party from picket lines to the White House are fraught with fellow-travelers. Democrats always noted the community-building potential of far-Leftists, so they incorporated them into the party.

Since the Republicans have spent the last 20 years soaking up every anti-Federal, anti-internationalist, anti-Left john that wasn't already a Dixiecrat, the Red Hordes of FDR's bosom buddy Joe Stalin "infesting" the nation needed to be hounded out. The only counter to this is the rather hollow ring of "fascist" that Leftists throw back, rejecting the more accurate--if less romantic and visceral--epithet of "corporatist."

The Dems cannot go after Reds to the level that Republicans can because they fundamentally cannot afford to without alienating both their principles and a big chunk of their base.
 
Could something similar for ALL 'anti-american threats' be done, including obvious far-righters are the KKK? ASB for sure, but...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Could something similar for ALL 'anti-american threats' be done, including obvious far-righters are the KKK? ASB for sure, but...
It is impossible to spin the KKK as "anti-American" since they are a "100% American" institution, and everything they stood for was largely condoned by American society until the mid- to late-'60s.

Hounding out right-wing nuts is always harder because they can wrap themselves in patriotism far more convincingly than Leftists.
 
If you could make Robert F. Kennedy prominent earlier (maybe as an investigator, since he was way too young to be a Senator) he would fit the bill nicely. He was crazily anti-communist when he was younger; he was once referee to as a young Torquemada.
 

Japhy

Banned
If you could make Robert F. Kennedy prominent earlier (maybe as an investigator, since he was way too young to be a Senator) he would fit the bill nicely. He was crazily anti-communist when he was younger; he was once referee to as a young Torquemada.

Jack was the fellow I was talking about actually...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
If you could make Robert F. Kennedy prominent earlier (maybe as an investigator, since he was way too young to be a Senator) he would fit the bill nicely. He was crazily anti-communist when he was younger; he was once referee to as a young Torquemada.
Joe would keep him on a leash as he did IOTL; the family never let Bobby's zeal jeopardize Jack's career. Too, it was organized crime that would ultimately prove Bobby's bête noire.

The closest we could probably get to a Democratic McCarthy is Bobby Kennedy getting onto the Kefauver Commission. Kefauver attacked the Mob, which unfortunately was more closely affiliated to the urban Democrats than the Republicans.
 

Cook

Banned
The idea of John F. Kennedy leading any crusade whose goal isn't "Pussy, and Lots of It" is pretty laughable.
In fact Kennedy strongly emphasized the Red Menace, but his targets were external to the United States:

"Our Nation could have afforded, and can afford now, the steps necessary to close the missile gap." - Kennedy, 1958.

He campaigned against the Eisenhour/Nixon administration, blaming them for allowing the Soviets to gain a lead over the US in nuclear weapons.
 
Top