And Robt Lee fought on after Gettysburg, and also delayed the inevitable.
I'm not saying McCarthy is responsible for making communist adoration acceptable in Presidential Campaign offices today...nor would I say that General Lee was responsible for the collapse of States' Rights....
But they were both on scene at their respective critical inflection points in Freedom's history.
I kind of jokingly paraphrased Ann Coulter in her description of the stuffed shirt guys with three names who dabbled in communism and socialism in their youth, but their parents never got all that upset because they knew they would eventually return to more traditional ideologies once they “grew up”.
McCarthy DID make that mindset somewhat passe. After that, nobody viewed dabbling in communism as a youthful indulgence.
Besides, while it is apparent there ARE people at high levels of our government now who would be considered (and in some cases clearly are) communist or socialist, with the exception of someone like Bernie Sanders, they all understand it is political suicide to tell the unvarnished truth about their predilections.