Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode, we discuss the 2020 documentary McCarthy and also take a look at what made America susceptible to something like McCarthyism in the mid-1950s.
Hello, welcome to the Call Like I See it podcast. I'm James Keys, and joining me today is a man is the shining star of the Car Like I See it podcast. Tunde, Ogon, Lana Tunde, everybody. Show them the reasons before we close out this September.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: They'll have to wait and see if you're accurate based on my performance today. So you just put the spotlight on me, man. You're making me nervous now. I got.
I got to perform, you know.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: Hey, hey, I know you perform under pressure, man. That's why I'm doing that on purpose.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: All right. Okay. Let's see the audience inside.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: No, before we get started, if you enjoy the show, I ask that you subscribe and like the show on YouTube or your podcast platform. Doing so really helps the show out. We're recording on September 23, 2025. And today we continue our streaming between the Lines series and take a look at the documentary movie McCarthy Power feeds on Fear, which first aired on PBS back in January of 2020. Now, the documentary tells the story of US Senator Joe McCarthy and his demagoguery in the 1950s, going at anti or being about anti communism and trying to root out communists that were supposedly all throughout the U.S. government and U.S. society. But we also.
The documentary also shows, and we took a close look at the things in American society that allowed this to happen or even kind of promoted it or helped it along the way as far as how. How the demagoguery exploded.
So, Tunde, let's start broadly looking at the big picture. What stood out to you about kind of this big picture arc of Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism? I mean, the documentary takes it from him being born, small town, Wisconsin, agrarian area, and all the way up through being elected to the Senate, and then all the things he did in the Senate. But just kind of the big art, even if you want to focus on the Senate time.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think the big arc, I would say it reminded me that in the end, Joseph McCarthy was just another one of us humans. Right? Like, meaning, I think that historically, we look at figures like him and they're kind of lionized in a certain way, whether in a positive or negative way, that he was such a force, which he was. Which I know is the purpose of this conversation, but. But in the end, like you said, small town.
Some of the personal things I think that we'll get into about his that made him human.
And so you realize that in the end, what I get from some of this stuff sometimes is when I was younger, maybe hearing about things like this, about what happened in history, especially before I was born, sometimes I think that like man, there must have been something either special about him or about the time of how.
Why this happened. And luckily maybe it was put back in a box. This way of being, let's say, for someone in power. And I think that as I've gotten older, I just realized that the possibility for Joseph McCarthy types and their influence on a society are always present.
And there are certain circumstances that allow someone like him to rise up, which again, I know we'll discuss. And then the last piece I'll say James is.
And this is going into things we've discussed in past shows is in watching the documentary, I kept thinking and being reminded of George Washington's farewell speech and not to get into it in detail in this discussion. And for those listening and watching, I hope you go take a look at it because it's a long speech. But he talks about the risk of demagogues, men like Joseph McCarthy, who will behave like him for. In.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: In.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: In like to reward their own ascent and then what it does to the society. So that's really what I got out of this, James. Are kind of at 30, 000ft and then we'll talk. Go. Go down to look at the. At the trees from the forest. But that to me was. Was important. It reminded me of George Washington to say, man, yeah, he warned us about guys like this.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: No, I think. And then also watching it in this moment, you know, kind of just, you know, 2025, you know, you, you do learn.
When you learn American history, to piggybacking on your point.
When you learn American history, you kind of learn about events or things that happen and you kind of learn about them is that they had like a beginning, a middle and an end. And then it kind of just. Society kind of moved on. You know, like this happened from this period to this period. You know, there's a. There's a beginning date, a dash and an end date and that's it. And then it's resolved and kind of like a sitcom way, like everything then is. Goes back to normal and everything like that. But you can see kind of how the influences that, you know, in terms of the way he used the media, the. In terms of the. Of how easily he told lies. And you know, there was one quote in there talking about like, you know, he would tell a lie and Then they go try to check up and figure out if he was telling the truth or not. And by the time they got back and said, hey, that wasn't true, he had already told three more lies. And so how, how he weaponized the idea of dishonesty, you know, and you can see how. And your point is also well taken that he was not like this wasn't something that was a destined thing. Like he was a guy born on a farm and you know, worked his way up and worked hard and eventually made his way to, you know, got elected as a judge, then got elected as a senator. And you know, some of the, that ambition, you know, so to speak, is probably some of the stuff that drove him in ways to, to, to go down the road he went. And from a demagogue standpoint, you know, and also I think the way he was reacted to and the thing that stands out to me the most is actually in the subtitle, you know, power feeds on fear. When you have power, like that's a powerful thing to say. And then what I saw really was how the he initially catapults to power based on creating fear. Like saying, hey, well, to be fair, Communism was something that Americans were worried about in general. And so, and there were people who, there was a Communist party, you know, 20, you know, 20 years before then. And you know, there were like, that was, that was a real thing, you know, and so people, but maybe emphasizing overemphasizing the fear of communists and so forth and that they're coming to get us and everything like that. And so using fear to catapult himself to power, then creating fear in people who realized he was full of you know what, and making them afraid to speak up against him. So he then uses fear to keep back his would be critics, you know, and all while continuing to weaponize this fear. And so the idea of fear and how that allows one creates the opening for someone who would be opportunistic to try to use it for more power. You know, it creates that opening and then it also can be used to grip your supporters and to beat back the people who realize that you're just taking advantage of people or you're just playing up something. So that interplay of fear was really something that was just like, okay. And that is also very human like that people are always afraid. I mean, I think that in societies you can see that certain people are even more, are more sensitive than normal to fear. And if you make them afraid of it, you tell them about, hey, those immigrants come in you know, they'll. They'll do anything, you know, like, they're very sensitive to fear. They're afraid, you know, like, all the time. And so, like, people who are less sensitive to fear a lot of times may not pick up on that same kind of thing where it's like, oh, they said. They said immigrant. Some people are ready to, you know, like, go to the end, do anything. And other people are like, okay, yeah, we'll figure out a problem if it comes, you know, type of thing. So they. That sensitivity to fear, you know, so. But, but no, I mean, I.
That was the part. I mean, it's in the subtitle. You know, power feeds on fear, and, boy, does it ever.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Well, you hit on something. I want to. I want to actually stay on this theme for a second because there's a. Sorry not to. Not to bring up too many different topics, but there's another book that you and I have read which will remain unnamed, but they have a chapter about pessimism, and I kept thinking about that.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: You shouldn't make names. You got to give credit for the guy with the psychology of money. Right?
[00:08:24] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's why I didn't want to get people's mind into a different topic.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: But the idea. We'll talk about that book in the coming, you know, weeks or months. So. Yeah, but, but no, that's a good book also. But. Yes, go ahead.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, but. But they talk about pessimism as, As a human trait, and that's really where I'm going. And so I think what I. I thought about that in. In. In watching this documentary about Joe McCarthy. And like you said, that the use of fear. Because even though I know pessimism and fear have two distinct definitions, I think at times they can overlap. And the idea of. Like you said, the times I can appreciate people would have been nervous. You're coming out of the Second World War by the late 40s. The Soviets have an atomic bomb, early 50s. They have a hydrogen bomb, and they seem to be making more advances in the space race by the early 1950s.
[00:09:16] Speaker A: Well, and also, remember, you're dealing with Korea, like, you know, the Korean conflict, invasion, China.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: You have kind of going sideways communism.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And all these places. So. So it's a. Yeah, so that is something that people legitimately were concerned about is the idea. And then also, the Great Depression was 20 years in the rear view. Did capitalism work? You know, like, people could question whether capitalism even works after something like the Great Depression. So there are reasons to feel insecure or you know, about the idea of communism at that time.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the.
So the idea of pessimism, people could be led into a pessimistic mindset with all that going on is real. And obviously there's a role of leadership. They can either choose to be optimistic and have the kind of oratory that maybe a Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama had about trying to uplift people's spirits, or you can be a Joseph McCarthy and drive wedges in a population through fear and pessimism.
So that's why. And the interesting thing, and the reason why it made me think of the chapter in that other book was because they discuss pessimism as actually an evolutionary trait for humans that, you know, the humans that were a little bit more pessimistic about their natural environment around them most likely survived. Those that thought that, you know, every little thing behind the bush might have been friendly because at some point they might have got eaten if they. You know, if they. If they looked at the wrong bush or behind the wrong bush. So those are things that stuck out to me, that, yes, people can be driven into these positions. And then I thought about our last, let's say, generation. Think about how Americans have been treated by some leaders since 9 11. We've been put into fear about the Arab world and the Muslim religion. And then we had a decade ago, everyone worried about Sharia law being in a planet in America. And then, like you said, and then the immigration.
The fear of immigration, the fear of some people in our country about their being replaced. The. The fear that their religion is being.
That they don't have rights for their religion anymore. There's all these fears that we in America are constantly being pumped with. And I feel like watching McCarthy feels like he was like an early version of that in the modern kind of media landscape.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: In the modern. Yeah, yeah. But see, the thing is, is, though. And that's kind of. That is the point I was trying to touch on really, was that I think, to someone like you or someone like myself who I hear that, and it's like, okay, yeah, you know, maybe, you know, like, yeah, maybe there's. Maybe there's something coming to get you, you know, but it doesn't seem like a real, very present threat right now. That's like, I'm not that concerned about Sharia law. I wasn't, you know, 15 years ago when it was kind of like, all right, come on, that's. That's kind of. That's very remote. You know, there's a lot of other things I'D be concerned about.
Yeah, but it seems like there are, There is a subset of people in society that are very sensitive to this stuff that you bring up something to be afraid of. Oh, the Muslims are coming to get you, and they will, you know, like, lock up the doors and, you know, like, dig trenches and everything. Like, they will just. It puts them in a place that is.
Many people would say, like, that's kind of an overreaction for how. How proximate is this risk? But it seems like that. And so I think those are the people actually that oftentimes are targeted by these people selling these fear messages is. Oh, you know, like. Like you rattled off a whole bunch of them. I'm not going to say I'm gonna go through them again, but. And so I think that also though, people who aren't sensitive to that, that stuff may go past our heads. Like, we're just like, oh, yeah, there's, you know, again, there's a lot of stuff. If you're gonna sit around and figure out things to worry about, there's a lot of things you could worry about, you know, but the people who can be really put into a very interesting space using fear like that, it doesn't work like that in their minds.
And so, and that's the next thing I wanted to get to actually is do you think, like, McCarthyism happened at a certain time?
So we talked about some of the reasons why the idea of an anti communist crusader would have.
Would touch people at that time, whether it be not too far after the Great Depression, whether it be the Soviet Union looking big and bad and, you know, really looking ascendant, whether it be countries around the world, you know, going away from more of a capitalist approach, more of a market approach to a. More a communist approach.
Do you think that it was those. That there was that kind of stuff, that people were looking around and seeing all that stuff, and that's what kind of made them more susceptible to a McCarthy or, you know, is this kind of. Is this something that. That was just the things that were tapped on then. But there's. This is something. This susceptibility is always there. And it really just depends on whether you have people that would want to play on it and then people that would want to play on it, that are capable of playing on it.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: So I think it's the latter, man. I mean, I think that's what I realized, like, kind of you said it well, that we've been conditioned. And I don't think this is, this is nothing like A conspiracy theory or negative. I think it's just the way that we've evolved in our society to think of actual life as a sitcom. I think that we do look at, like this beginning, middle and end of a story.
I think, like you said, we just been conditioned and history has been flattened to probably to make it easier to teach that somebody like Joe McCarthy, you know, somehow he showed up, he scared a bunch of people, he created this kind of wrinkle in society for a while. Right.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: And before the end of the 30 minutes, it was all resolved.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And then it was resolved by minute 26. Correct. And then we went to an ad break and then when we came back, Eisenhower had got him out and everybody's happy. Right. Like, it's just. And so.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: So.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: But I'm saying, Jay, it's funny because I guess, you know, now here, middle age in my late 40s, it's finally, like, lived long enough and read enough of this books and watched these documentaries enough to know that that's not how it works.
Humanity is humanity. And that's why I said, I think the latter is true. What you said is that we're always. Every society is susceptible to this at all times. And that's what I've learned in my journey and watching this stuff, that leadership's important.
I want to discuss that maybe a little bit later, towards the end of our discussion about, you know, the fact that the leaders at the time, led by Dwight D. Eisenhower, you know, took steps to ensure that this energy did not permeate past Mr. McCarthy. And actually, you know, seems like they did things behind the scenes to make sure to limit his ability to continue to do this kind of internal damage to his own.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Eisenhower, who was in the same political party as him, very notably also.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, that's why I'm saying that leadership matters in these moments.
And.
[00:15:50] Speaker A: Well, let me comment before you go, because that is, you're starting to get close to where we do want to end up. So let me. On the. I agree with you that it's the latter. I think that there are always, at any given moment, things that you can use to rile up fear, sensitive people, always things going on in society. Like there isn't some. Just because it's not like the Civil War or World War II, where it's this big moment in history that we learn about, again, sitcom fashion, but where there's something to be very afraid of. You know, the Nazis are coming or, you know, whatever people live day to day. And there's always things that are going on in society that they could be made afraid of or that they could be. They could be kind of exaggerated to them or, you know, whatever. And so even the best of times, you would find things that you can stimulate people with fear. And so I think that the present. The threat is ever present. And I think the evidence of this is in how the Founding Fathers set up this country to try to.
They put on a lot of mechanisms to try to prevent someone from becoming a demagogue and using that to accumulate power. Washington, as you talked about it already, Washington talks about this in his farewell address. You had the Constitution set up, you know, again, separation of powers. We don't want one branch of the government to start, you know, basically telling all the other branches what to do. Why is that? Because that allows a demagogue to do things that our country was set up to prevent a demagogue from being able to do. And this demagogue implicit in this is that the demagogue could arise at any moment. You know, it's kind of a person with the kind of personality and characteristics that is able to harness this. They were able to create the fear or use fear that has been created and then ride that to power. So when that kind of person arises, we've had all these mechanisms in place to try to stop them from either taking the reins of power, or in the case of McCarthy, once he did have a certain level of power, to be able to chop him back down to size. Because it's been in history, plenty of times when you have a demagogue rise to power and then they stay there, you know, like it's not some automatic thing that they just cycle out eventually. So all of these things, you know, even, you know, when you go to. Then they added term limits to the presidency. But all of these things are set up to government of limited power, Constitutional rights, freedom of speech. All these things are set up in a way that are to prevent the demagogue who could arise at any moment. And so that, to me, was really significant as far as you look at how our country's set up.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I want to jump, actually follow you on this. First of all, though, I want to make sure that we discuss the definition of a demagogue, because I find that sometimes in political conversations, words like this are thrown around and people kind of.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Know what they mean. But no, you're saying they kind of.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Know and then they're embarrassing. Embarrassed to ask somebody, what does this really mean? So I'll read here real quick. The definition of a demagogue, quote, a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.
So, so it is, it is a way to play on.
And I think that's, it's a good definition for this type of person, like Joseph McCarthy, because the conversation we've been having up to this point is that people were scared and scared for valid reasons. When we talk about the changes from the 1930s to the 50s, the World War II, the atomic bomb, the new technologies, the, the fears of the Cold War.
So, so again, he played to that. He played to those kind of direct emotional ploys to the ordinary person.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Let me jump in real quick. So there's a contrast, a rational discussion. Let me just real quick. I want to draw this contrast because you think, okay, well, yes, there's all these things to be afraid. And he's doing this. And like, is there another example where you have leadership that could treat that differently? People are, people have reason again, people, there's always reasons to be afraid of something. And so if you contrast that just 10 years before, you know, 15 years before you look at FDR, there's nothing to fear except fear itself, when in a much scarier time, objectively, you know. And so leadership can take the reins and say, hey, we're going to feel. I'm going to help the people feel better about this. Help the people manage these fears, and let's put this energy towards doing something constructive. Or they could use that same energy and try to enrich themselves and empower themselves. And you can see the characteristics of the leader are not hard to find or aren't hard to decipher, I should say, because it is a leader trying to make people more afraid, lean into people's prejudices, or is a leader trying to pull those back? You know, you look, even I'd say you compare to somebody like Ronald Reagan who's, you know, what's the famous speech? If you're, if you're, you know, if you're not born in Germany, you'll never be a German. If you're not born in Japan, you'll never be a Japanese. But if you, if you're not born in America, you still could be an American, like making people feel better about whatever's going on as opposed to trying to amp up those fears. The person who's trying to amp up those fears is the person you got to watch out for.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, what a great point you just made about Ronald Reagan and specifically that he said that because he would not be welcome in his own party today, which is very interesting. Would that. With that sentiment. So that's.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: And I say that paraphrasing. That wasn't exactly what. But. But that.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: That's the paraphrasing pretty much was, to be honest, she did a good job.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: So my point is. Is just saying that that's an example of leadership, that the leadership styles in the same party have changed over the last two to three generations in dramatic ways. And I think that, you know, one of the things that. That you're.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: You're.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: You're speaking on when you talk about leadership and how McCarthy behaved versus maybe a Dwight Eisenhower or an FDR.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: Like you said, 15 years, maybe prior or a generation prior to McCarthy's peak.
And I think it's about how the system also rewards those in leadership when they behave certain ways. And so what I find interesting, it's a bit of. Also kind of a barbell thing here. On one end. McCarthy rose because of why.
And you identified this in a conversation we had. He was rewarded once he had his first ability to speak to a group of people who was actually in West Virginia. And it wasn't seen as something glorious for him, but he actually gave a speech where he lied. Right. He said there were 205 Communists in the government.
He had no proof. He never offered proof.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: But it was salacious.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:17] Speaker A: But it was salacious. It was salacious.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: And I remember there was covered. Yep.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: And there was. I wrote a quote. There was a historian, as one of the people speaking in this documentary named Jelani Cobb. And he made the point that he described the. I'll write my note, describe the amount of lies McCarthy told.
His rhetoric was very marketable. He sold papers.
And he's the one that said it's a sheer exercise in fatigue to try and combat the lies. Because he would have three lies. And you're already trying to think. It's like it throws you off your game if you're not a demagogue. Right. If you're trying to win people over through a rational argument.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: And so if you're fighting someone on the basis of we're gonna throw facts back at. Back and forth at each other, and they start overwhelming you with lies and you're trying to still fight with facts, you become outgunned very quickly.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's. To me, that's the interesting part. In one way, that. And then they talked about that. The newspapers realized that if they just threw a quote from MCPL McCarthy above the fold. Remember Newspaper information at the time was sold as a physical paper folded. I'm saying this for younger people that might not be familiar with newspapers.
And above the fold was the prime real estate of newspaper kind of.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: That's the stuff that's gonna make you buy it, you know.
[00:23:37] Speaker B: Correct. And so, and so they found that if they just put A quote of McCarthy's on the top of the fold, newspapers would fly off the stand. So again, it was kind of this, the growth opportunity of media paired with a demagogue, someone who's willing to say anything and media willing to sell it. And again, I couldn't help but my brain being reminded of the modern era we live in and how social media has replaced that. There's no front of the fold anymore for a physical newspaper, but it's still.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: Rewards the salacious though, you know.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: Correct. That's that.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: But that's. But that I thought of. You thought of moving forward, looking forward. I thought of looking back and thought of, you know, the witch's hammer and all the crazy things.
[00:24:18] Speaker B: That. That's probably why this. But that's probably why this is like we say it's not a sitcom. Right. This is. There's a through line historically with this, these personalities. Like you're saying, whether it's the witches in the 1400s or 1500s, or whether it's McCarthy in the 1950s or the ability now with technology of social media for demagogues to rise up today. People that just say things, whether it's space lasers causing forest fires or Haitians eating pets. Right.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Like, yeah, so.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Or, or whatever. So.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: But yeah, and so what Joe McCarthy did basically, you know, and then, you know, you go through the documentary, you see and, or you can just look back through history books is, you know, he. Once he's in the Senate and Senate, you know, senators are able to, you know, they have committees, they're able to have hearings. Hearings, you know, trying to investigate things, learn about things so that they can then ultimately legislate. Would be the way it's supposed to work is he would basically have these hearings and bring a bunch of people in. He bring hundreds of people in and accuse them of communism and try to make them prove that they're not, you know, part member of the Communist Party or try to make them implicate other people or. And he was ruining people's lives with this. And he's doing it without any type of factual basis. Like it's literally, you know, he brings in one group of people and there's a nothing burger there. And then. But instead of that being the story, he has another group of people coming in, so. And then he's getting prominent people in, which, again, drives. That drives the media cycle.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Ratings.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: So it was this constant thing of just bringing in people to ruin their lives. These people become unemployable, you know, after they get accused of this stuff and just keep continuing on. It's this Ponzi scheme, this shell game, where it's just like, okay, yeah, we'll look under this shell. Nothing there. Well, before they tell anybody that nothing was under this shell, I'm gonna start talking about this other shell having all this stuff.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: They said it that way, actually, that he would. He would.
You know, it's kind of like the fire hose of falsehoods in a sense, but in a different way. Like. Right. Like, he would keep this up. He would keep making these accusations. They said it. He never actually proved any of them.
And I wouldn't say any. There were some that were where someone had been a member, but it wasn't even when.
[00:26:20] Speaker A: Even when stuff was discovered. It wasn't because of his hearings, though. It was because, like, they had other evidence happening. And then it was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So he.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Or people that actually disclosed it, like, saying, yeah, I was a member of the Communist Party in 1938 for, like, two years.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:33] Speaker B: And then I wasn't. And then now it's 1952, and McCarthy's, like, digging this up, that this guy admitted this in some interview and was still hired.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: So I want to keep us moving, though. But.
[00:26:43] Speaker B: But hold on, let me just finish this thought, because that's a very good point you made. And I want to say that it's very similar to today. I mean, I will say, as you're talking, I'm thinking of the group Moms for Liberty. They did the exact same thing in 2023. Remember, they went and said that all these school boards have these issues, all these books have these things in them. And then you're looking, and by the time, you know, the reality catches up that none of this stuff was actually really happening or true, it's too late. The rules were already changed. You know, books were already banned from schools, and. Or, you know, certain states banned entire curriculums. And so that's what I'm saying is just.
It's interesting how this can catch fire and make. And actually.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Well, that's kind of the point, though, is that this kind of can pick up at any moment. And do you have the structures in place and do you have the character, the people of sufficient character to be able to. Structures and character, people of character to resist it when it does pop up. Because. And that's where I wanted to end here is kind of just the lessons that we could take from his fall.
As we see it, he tried to take on the army and there were some people in the army that he was going after. A dentist was one of them, which was again, he gets onto these things and the army fought back and the army fought back. And ultimately some of the exchanges in there ended up ruining his credibility and so forth. So what do you think we can learn, if anything, from how McCarthyism ultimately fell off?
[00:28:10] Speaker B: That's a very good question because it seems the way that it fell off at that time doesn't seem as doable today, I think because of the fracturing of the information networks, number one. Number two, we're at a time now where the country is less cohesive and more polarized than I think it was in the early 50s. I mean, you know, we're coming off in the 50s, World War II, there's a lot of unity, I think, at least at the 30,000 foot level, with how Americans felt about their country.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Can I say that differently? Because I get your sentiment. But the actual what I see there and what really stood out to me about that, it's the couple of things that were very important about this is one, that the army as an institution, the army pushed back. So that's an institution pushing back against one institution. It's the army versus a senator, which is a fair fight, so to speak. The other piece was that within his party, he was a Republican within the Republican Party at Eisenhower. And you had other people who were not okay with this and they took steps behind the scenes to bring. And then, especially when, you know, Eisenhower being an army guy, when he starts going after the Army, Eisenhower takes the gloves off. So.
But the reason of that is, I would say, the loyalty of the people in these political parties. Enough of them. Their loyalty ultimately was still to the American system, not to the party.
And so when the system is being attacked or when somebody's wiping their butt with the Constitution, they wouldn't go along with it just because it was in the party.
They would take steps to try to undermine it. So cohesiveness, yes, but also kind of a loyalty that was higher than just partisanship.
Yeah.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: And so here's where I think.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: You.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: Know, this unraveled in the. And why we're in a different place today. And I think it has to do with the media Information networks and the ability to. Because I think one figure that was very important for this during that time was Edward R. Murrow, who they mentioned, who was seen as one of the most trusted or the most trusted news person in the United States at the time. So once he got, once he made his statement that Joe McCarthy was behaving un American, I'd say, coupled with the live broadcast of the Senate hearings, when the gentleman, Joe Welsh, made the famous thing, have you no shame?
[00:30:36] Speaker A: And it was interesting that he actually making a fool of himself in that and looking boring.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Correct. And having no answer. I mean, I think that's what I'm saying that doesn't appear to work today, the level of transparency that we do have. And I think when I, when I look at that now, James, because I'm thinking of it different, the way you pose a question. And I'm saying, well, what is the difference? And I think the difference is.
But in the 1950s, with the contrast to today, 2000s, let's just say, and, and let's say the last decade or 20 years leading up to this is that the people who would want someone like McCarthy and his energy to be in power did a great job of creating a media apparatus.
That energy figured out that first we need to have an apparatus to get enough people in the population ginned up to go tell their politicians kind of how to behave. And I think we saw that post 2020election where the truth became something that was a football politically as relates to, let's say, the election.
And I remember hearing congresspeople saying, well, my constituents are telling me they want me to question this.
And that's something that didn't happen in the 50s, that the government, I think, was more cohesive in protecting itself.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, I don't know, I saw where I thought you were going with that. Actually was a little different in that if Morrow equivalent of that today got up and said that same message, everybody wouldn't see it, you know, like maybe.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: Well, because there's a hundred murals.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Well, let me. Yeah, but no, but if there was one Murrow, it wouldn't matter because it would get chopped up and every different channel would show little bits and pieces of it that would support the prejudices or the positions that people already had. Nobody would show the whole thing in context or, or at least the people who wanted to maintain support behind McCarthy wouldn't show the whole statement in context. They'd only showed snippets of it to their, their viewers and they'd make sure they didn't see that Murrow was condemning McCarthy. Even worse yet, this moment, you know, this time, you know, when. When McCarthy's making a fool of himself in the hearing, the certain media outlets that they would want people to still stay behind, McCarthy wouldn't allow them to see that part. They would show him parts where McCarthy was doing great, and then any parts where McCarthy looked like he was a bumbling idiot, they wouldn't. They would clip that stuff out. And so they would curate what they show people, in a way, and that's what we see now is information is even in major networks where people who are trying to have an agenda, they curate the information so their people won't see where, you know, like, you got a president or a candidate stumbling over his words.
The people who support that guy won't see him. They'll see that, you know, they won't see him stumbling over his words. They'll see only the parts where, you know, it's like, oh, wow, he really made a great point there. And so the ability to remove context from the information and show people little snippets and then people's lack of curiosity or lack of time or whatever it is to want to see the context, I think contributes to that.
Also the.
The idea that partisanship has become like. I think the loyalty of having loyalty to the country over the party played a big role in this. Because if Eisenhower would have stayed behind McCarthy, no matter what McCarthy did, because he was in the same political party with him, this wouldn't have ended like this, you know, it just wouldn't have. Like, you needed people to stand up, people in places of power to stand up to within people, within their own party and say, hey, this is not consistent with America. You know, so you want to. You want to use the government, you want to use the FCC to silence people, whatever. That's not consistent with America. I'm not okay with that from my position of power. Even if you're insane, party as me, you know, and so without that, if partisanship trumps the country and Constitution, then you're gonna go down a slippery slope where something like McCarthyism can't be resisted. And that, to me, was kind of the big takeaway from that.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree, man. I think that's where I kind of question. I mean, you articulated my point a bit better than I did, so it's a good follow. Like, as I was finishing my thoughts and preparing for today, I just thought that. Because what you're really explaining is the technology, right? The ability to create different realities. One person could say this dig, like you said, Edward R. Morrow could give a, you know, a 10 minute nice eloquent speech.
Back then, Americans, 80% of Americans all watched the entire speech. So they all were able to get the similar information today and then decide.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: What they thought about that from that base of information. But everybody's operating off of that base of information.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but you have, you know, I don't even want to name names, right? You've got this cable network that has 2 million viewers on one night, another one that has another 2 million. You've got this podcaster over here who's got 10 million viewers. Another podcast has got 500,000. So we have hundreds of different outlets where Americans are being siloed and fractured, which is okay. I mean everyone choosing has the freedom of that choice. But to your point, each one of them will curate that same 10 minute speech by Edward R. Murrow. If it was today a different way, so we wouldn't have the cohesiveness, and that's my concern.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: And the curation, just by the way, just curating something to add context wouldn't be a bad thing. The issue would be, is if they curated in a way to take away the context of if somebody, if a station curated it to make it seem like Murrow was supporting McCarthy. You know, that would be where. That's what we have today. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like, so it's not a both sides thing. It's not something that, oh, everybody does it. It's like, well no, if you adding context to something you're doing fine, you're doing what media does. If you're taking things out of context in order to promote some agenda, then you're, you're doing the wrong thing. The last thing I want to close us up that I'll mention though, because again, back to the original point of how these things aren't sitcoms. It's not a beginning, a middle end and then you move on to the next week and it's something different. You know, even at the end, McCarthy still had people that supported him. That after he, after all this, there were still people that supported him. Hey, we got to get the communists out, man. We thought you were doing a great job, you know, and so forth. Even after again seeing all this same information. So it's something to keep in mind that. And again, I look at it, fear sensitive people are going to like in their mind, even if McCarthy was ruining lives with unfounded allegations and bull in a china shop in it. If there's one communist there, it's worth it. You know, that may be anti Constitution, but to them, their fear trumps, makes them subordinate the Constitution. So that is a phenomenon that exists today as well, where people will be afraid enough of something, again, especially people that are sensitive to fear in that sense will be afraid enough of something that they will throw out principles, they will throw out Constitution, they will throw out any of that stuff, freedom of speech, because they're afraid. And so we got to always got to be vigilant for that, keep an eye on that, because those people will have us all. They'll be calling on us all to abandon our values because they're afraid. And they want to drop the hammer on somebody because they're afraid. So. But I think we can wrap this topic from there. We appreciate everybody for joining us.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: I think we're living through that right now.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: We definitely appreciate everybody for joining us on this episode of Call Like I see it. Subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, tell us what you think, send it to a friend. Until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: I'm Tunde Romana.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: All right, we'll talk soon.
