He cared little which they did, nor did he care that, in his entire carrer as a Communist-hunter, he never sent a single "subversive" to jail. What mattered was that he was controlling the conversation.

Menand's article, which is a review of Larry Tye's "Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy," dispells the myth that McCarthy was the cause of America's anti-Communism fervor. Instead, Menand/Tye show that the "work he is credited with doing...had already been done" before he used his hateful rhetoric to his political advantage.

Harry Truman was the start of most to all of anti-Communist policies, which really masqueraded as a way to kick out people from government that they did not agree with. Obvious in this is that "homosexuals were targeted as security risks." Anti-Communist was really masquerading for a pursuit of purity that America knows all too well.

I don't think that the comparison between McCarthy and Trump is very powerful towards the end of the article. Do they both use rhetorical tactics to maneuver their way through the political atmosphere? Sure. But to link anti-Communist to "fake news" has too many holes and differences in it to be powerful.