I wouldn’t call it McCarthyite. I would call the Missouri movement Stalinist.
They shut down the media (no claims of national security).
They purged those who were not politically correct.
The whole thing was based upon a lie.
Fear and intimidation work every time they are are applied with sufficient force and speed.
And this was speed, before even the National Guard was called (if it ever shall be). In the absence of any resistance, the onslaught was graced with the feeling of inevitability.
In National Socialist terms, this was a Putsch. On November 8-9, 1923, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party led a coalition group in an attempted coup d’etat which came to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Unsuccessful, this led to the imprisonment of Adolf Hitler and eight of his compatriots, but ultimately it was redefined as a heroic effort to save the nation and integrated it into the mythos of Hitler and the Nazis’ rise to power.
The perpetual revolution. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the “flower children” WON their revolution, and the current unrest is directed against these same “flower children”, who are now in positions of power and authority.
How do you rebel against the rebellion? More importantly, why?