Left Labels Critique of Rising Socialists as Modern McCarthyism

The article contends that progressive voices are branding conservative references to socialism’s history as a new McCarthyist red scare, echoing a Cold-War tactic identified by James Burnham.

The commentary argues that as openly socialist candidates achieve electoral wins, left-leaning commentators accuse conservatives of reviving McCarthyism and a new red scare, a strategy first described by former communist James Burnham in the 1950s. Burnham’s resignation from Partisan Review claimed the term was a diversionary tool created by communist tacticians to undermine congressional probes. Today, scholars and media figures—including Theodore Zorn, Zachary Wolfe, Chris Lehman, Terrence Petty and Qian He—are cited as asserting that a fresh red scare is sweeping the United States.

The author juxtaposes these warnings with historical evidence of extensive Soviet infiltration revealed by congressional hearings and books by Whittaker Chambers, Harvey Klehr, Ronald Radosh and others. Past infiltrations reached high levels of the Treasury, State Department, OSS and even the White House, as noted by contemporaries like Ronald Reagan. The piece invokes anti-socialist arguments from F.A.

Hayek, Winston Churchill and Lee Edwards, emphasizing that socialism inherently threatens individual liberty. Ultimately, it suggests the left’s invocation of a “new red scare” serves to conceal the real threat posed by socialist ideology.