Ahh, yes! How well I remember those riots, looting and arson accompanying Sen. Joe McCarthy's hearings during the days of my youth.
I was seven years old, we lived in Washington DC and the smoke of the fires blackened the sky! Gun battles kept us awake all night, as we cowered in our basement, hiding from the rampaging mobs...
NOT!
My point, which you missed entirely, was that both were the result of irrational, extreme and emotion fueled fervor to persecute and “get” people for completely fabricated reasons.
Yes, one lacked the degree of violence we are seeing today but all extremists campaigns are driven by a form of hysteria. They all have that in common.