If any actual communist spies were rooted out by McCarthyism it was entirely coincidental, given that the actual purpose of McCarthyism was to oppress and black

If any actual communist spies were rooted out by McCarthyism it was entirely coincidental, given that the actual purpose of McCarthyism was to oppress and blacklist undesirables like Jews and homosexuals and further Joe McCarthy's own political aspirations by collecting compromat on people. The definition of "communist" in those times was very loose. Just like how QAnon is obsessed with satanic pedophile rings that don't really exist, despite the existence of pedophile rings being real, because they don't actually care about child abuse as much as accelerating mistrust of and harassment against the LGBTQ community by implying any non-heterosexual identity is equivalent to pedophilia. A stopped clock is still right twice a day. If it's rational to mistrust foreigners because they might be spies, history suggests it's just as rational to mistrust the motives of people who spread fear and uncertainty about nefarious enemies within. Americans have far more to fear from their own government's attempts to grasp for power than they do from Chinese spies.