Joe McCarthy wasn’t early.
After the Soviet collapse the Soviet Venona files proved every Government worker he went after actually was a Soviet operative.
Sen. McCarthy illustrates the effectiveness of the Deep State smear machine. Some bimbo at a Virginia university teaches that Sen. McCarthy ran the House committee. This was repeated by Bill O’Reilly. History is rewritten. FDR got on TV when the stock market crashed. The Emperor Hirihito signed the surrender document on the Missouri. Everything goes down the memory hole.
McCarthy, Ayn Rand and Whitaker Chambers gave us the heads up when tide could still be turned. Very few listened, Ronald Reagan being one.