Hey.........just wait a darned minute there ! I don't know how old Dorothy is; however, I WAS in N.Y.C. at this time and
EVERY adult, that I knew, hated Commies, did NOT hate McCarthy, and my extended family and their friends didn't know anyone,
NOT A SINGLE PERSON who was shaking in their boots , had to appear before HUAC, was being investigated, or was a party member/a fellow travellor. And, we weren't the only ones. N.Y.C. wasn't quite the hotbed of far lefties, then, as you assume.
Don't tar, my friend, with shuch a gigantic brush. :-)
All depends on which part of the city. I should have menioned that. But you know. It was a social scene. And it still is now. The upper west side today would elect Lenin if he rose from the dead. David Horowitz quotes his father's diary in Radical Son. He wanted to leave the CPUSA but could not. All his friends were there. It was his life. Eric Alterman was on TV a while back and said he doesn't know anyone who has a gun, who opposes abortion or isn't for gay rights. Dorothy is seeing McCarthy and America through the pinko colored glasses she wore as a kid.