McCarthyism in a US/Nazi Cold War

In a US/Nazi Cold War scenario would there be a reverse red scare? Would right wing groups be under as much suspicion as left wing groups were OTL.

The committee which McCarthy used to pursue communist fifth columnists was started to fight fascism so who would be the left wing McCarthy and what would his/her primary targets be?
 
The Left wing Joe McCarthy would probably still be Joe McCarthy. He was an exploitationist on the national stage, though quite different in his home state. I don't think it would matter to him.
 
The Left wing Joe McCarthy would probably still be Joe McCarthy. He was an exploitationist on the national stage, though quite different in his home state. I don't think it would matter to him.

So McCarthy was less of an ideologue and more of a shameless opportunist?

Since the main enemy are ultranationalist Germans rather than internationalist commies could the German American population be a target?
 
So McCarthy was less of an ideologue and more of a shameless opportunist?

Since the main enemy are ultranationalist Germans rather than internationalist commies could the German American population be a target?

McCarthy, so far as my knowledge goes, was actually moderate in most regards. It is simply that he was interested in his own rising star, and would do whatever it took. He lied about his war record, and forged documents, he took bribes or payola or whatever you want to classify it as from business interests and supported those interests in Washington, and he went after Communists and homosexuals in Washington. If there's a Brown Scare, I would see McCarthy as part of it. He's a parasite for fear.

They would likely leave you alone if you're several generations American. The US did intern German nationals during WW2; not nearly as many as the Japanese Americans. I would venture the Brown Scare would target recent immigrants and German nationals in the United States, as well as any ethnic communities in the US and anyone from them. There's millions of Americans with German backgrounds. The people targeted would be those who are too freshly German or have too close of a relationship to Germany. And said German communities would need to work to show their American loyalty. Those communities are going to have to wave flags and make it known that the governments in power do not represent their people. There's also the possibility that exiles who fled Nazism will be accused. That's my take on it.
 

Pangur

Donor
So McCarthy was less of an ideologue and more of a shameless opportunist?

Since the main enemy are ultranationalist Germans rather than internationalist commies could the German American population be a target?

They would nearly have to be however the German American population was large enough which could make all of this so much more nasty
 
This is almost a DBWI, since there *was* a Brown Scare.

"Against such people, Roosevelt and other politicians helped to foment a 'Brown Scare" before and after Pearl Harbor.77 Although directed at different targets and practised on a lesser scale, it resembled the Red Scares at the close of World War I and after World War II in its sloppy regard for civil liberties, affinity for conspiracy theories, manipulation of concenrs for national security, and institutioanl machinery. Indeed, the Brown Scare was another act in the rehearsal for the Cold War, going far to generate the mentality and the apparatus mobilized against the left after World War II." Michael S. Sherry, *In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s, * p. 51 https://books.google.com/books?id=3VkST5a9Mo8C&pg=PA51

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act#Nazi_sympathizers_and_racists
 
Would a "Brown Scare" target high profile Nazi sympathizers like Charles Lindbergh or Henry Ford?

I am sure they would be labeled as "card carrying members of the Nazi Party", as would former members of the American Nazi Party. Another interesting question is how would it damage the Ford Motor Company?
 
Note that McCarthy wasn't elected to the Senate until after WWII, so presumably a US-Nazi Cold War requires a POD early enough to potentially butterfly away his initial Senate election. There were plenty of liberals who would have been more than happy to lead campaigns against perceived Nazi-sympathizers (and if Democrats, likely done so with government support, assuming the Democrats still control Congress at this point), so McCarthy probably wouldn't have been able to achieve such a prominent role in the movement even if he did get elected.
 
Would a "Brown Scare" target high profile Nazi sympathizers like Charles Lindbergh or Henry Ford?

As I see it, a problem with sympathies for European fascists is it involved a number of American elites who were charmed by them, and/or fell in for their racial views. Communism was convenient in that it was a certain underclass that adopted it, even if they managed to get far via work. Elites are harder to dislodge or ostracize. On the other hand, in the case of Lindbergh and Hearst, these people tended to alienate the public and make themselves diminished in status if not outsiders, thus opening them up as targets.

How would McCarthy's right hand man, Roy Cohn, fare in a Brown Scare?

Something keeps coming to my mind in this thread. James Woods explained his method acting as Roy Cohn as you may hate this man, because you think he went too far and was too zealous, but think if he was going after Nazis instead of Communists, and how you would agree with those methods. And to him it was the same thing. Cohn was also a Jew, so the fight against Nazism would take on special meaning.
 
I think such a Brown Scare would also cost Tailgunner Joe his Senate seat as Wisconsin is mostly a German-American state.
 
So McCarthy was less of an ideologue and more of a shameless opportunist?

He was the Donald Trump of his era, more a publicity seeker than an ideologue. In my opinion Donald would be a hard core supporter of immigration if it got him more attention than not being so. The Donald just likes to see his face on TV.
 
Unlike the Communists, the Nazis sucked at placing Agents in the USA. Hoover rolled them up, pronto.

A Nazi Cold War won't play out the same, 'TailGunner Joe' will have to find something else
 
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