McCarthyism was bad and I see what you’re saying but it isn’t quite the same thing. McCarthyism wasn’t really about government control but about a sort of mass

McCarthyism was bad and I see what you’re saying but it isn’t quite the same thing. McCarthyism wasn’t really about government control but about a sort of mass hysteria. It was more like the Salem witch trials. Much of the rhetoric during the Cold War actually made these types of government activities unacceptable to the average person because not doing these things was used to differentiate the US from the Soviets. “Microphones in every house? What is this, Soviet Russia?”