We're now starting coverage of today's event with our Visiting Fellow @risenc and @johngansjr on the legacy of the Red Scare! Follow this thread for updates

"When I tell people I’m working on this book, I often get people asking ‘Why is that relevant today?’ The Red Scare is vast state power cracking down on people because of suspected ideological beliefs. And that’s relevant to any time, but we’ve forgotten why."

"What the Red Scare highlights more than anything is not this one point in time when America went haywire, but actually to show mechanisms by which the country fell into a period of civil liberties violations, and that it can happen again today."

"Because we’ve forgotten a lot of the details, we tend to remember only more egregious examples of red-baiting, but we’ve forgotten things like loyalty tests put in place by the State Department and other branches of federal, state, and local govt."

"If you had communism in your background, you couldn’t even work as a dog-catcher. If you happened to have signed the wrong petition and it came out, your life could be ruined. And the state is much more powerful now than it was in the 1940s and 1950s."

"A lot of people were victimized because they were black, or gay, or a woman, and were attacked as communists. So much of the Red Scare was about pushing back against social groups and identities that had made progress in the 1930s & 1940s and were facing a revanchist rearguard."

"Scholarship of the Red Scare ceased after the Cold War, suggesting it was all tied up in that when it wasn’t – this was actually the second Red Scare," says @johngansjr. "What was the first Red Scare?"

"There was a first Red Scare after WW1. In 1919, there were bombings by anarchists that made possible raids & attempted deportation of several hundred immigrants and naturalized citizens. It lasted less than a year, but the idea that left-wing radicalism was a danger remained."

"The second Red Scare took place across federal, state and local level. PTAs, teachers, librarians, anybody whose name was found on a list – like supporting the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, you were a communist. So it was much more present in the culture than the first."

"Was there some kind of necessary evil to the Red Scare?" asks @johngansjr.

“I think it was inevitable for the US. If you compare with UK, it was in lockstep with the US in terms of its engagement with the Cold War, but it never went through a Red Scare. Part of it is that unlike Britain, we do have a tradition of anti-left radicalism."

Was the post-9/11 era similar to the Red Scare? "What differentiates the post-9/11 era is the strength of civil liberties orgs. The ACLU really came out to defend civil liberties, to say the way people have been determined as threats is based in Islamophobia."

"That was really necessary, and we saw that on a bipartisan level. President Bush and others also came out and drew lines, to say they were not going after Islam. That’s something that just didn’t happen in the Red Scare."

"It’s hard to know if people now understand the anti-communist sentiment which was just omnipresent. Communist was a term that meant actual Soviet infiltrators, but also just someone who was untrustworthy. How do you explain the power of this term?" asks @johngansjr.

“Just an example, the Cincinnati Reds changed their name in the early 50s. I have a list of about 100 movies that were made largely on the theme of anti-communism, it was a way for lots of Hollywood actors to give their bona fides, say, “I’m not a communist, I made this movie.”"

"It’s hard for us now to understand how different American culture was in 1946 compared to 1926. It was urbanizing, assimilating immigrants, the Depression ,the New Deal, WW2. These all completely reshape American culture, making it very unsure of itself."

"By 1946, you could use the term to apply to anything because almost nobody was a communist. And even though we were out of the war, people had a mindset of antagonism, of black-and-white, of annihilationist thinking. So people were comfortable with the idea of a new enemy."

"The Lavender Scare was also a huge part of the culture at this time, driving homosexual people out of national security and foreign policy circles. Was the Red Scare an inspiration for other exclusionary movements?"

"It’s part of the story. As communism could mean a lot of things, it was a great weapon to use against groups that seemed part of the redefining of American culture with increased space for marginalized groups – the labor movement, people of color, women, gay men, lesbians."

"There was an idea that as a gay man, you were a security threat. Carmel Offey, a talented diplomat and anti-communist, was driven out because he was gay. The irony being that if you were really concerned about the Soviet Union, you wanted a guy like him on the front lines."

Could the rise of China lead to another Red Scare? "The Red Scare wouldn’t have happened as it did if the Soviet Union hadn’t been front of mind as the new enemy, and China stands to become that new enemy. All it would take is a few crises to make that happen."

"Anyone who’s ever worked with a Chinese company or been in a cultural exchange or had an academic relationship could be affected. We already see this happening. This could make it uncomfortable for millions of Americans with legitimate ties with China."

"There would also be a racial element, which wasn’t there in the second Red Scare. This othering/national security tie-in is something we're seeing more and more with attacks on Americans of Asian descent because of what they look like. That’s what worries me most."

What was the role of the media in the Red Scare? "We talk a lot about social media today, but there was alternative media then too. One of the things I see in archives is presence of extremist newsletters, with tens of thousands of subscribers, they were widely read."

"I’d like to say the media now is savvier than in 2016, but you see a willingness to treat everything said by figures like Trump as newsworthy. That’s how people like McCarthy rode to power. It’s a legitimate question, what do you cover? And we don’t have the best answer yet."

Why is there greater fear over left-wing extremism than conservative right-wing extremism? "We have a strong founding myth with all the caveats that come with that – it is not representative of most Americans, but for millions, it is a compelling story."

"The right and the far-right have managed to establish themselves as defenders of that identity. So anything changing that is automatically a threat & other. You can be a feminist, an LGBTQ activist, a union organizer, and that can all be construed as against the establishment."

"Meanwhile, anything in favor of the establishment, even if it is deeply white supremacist or racist or misogynist, is viewed as in defense of the establishment."

Were environmentalists targeted in the 50s, and could that be a dividing line in a future Red Scare? "This really preceded consciousness of environmentalism culturally. But concern about the environment broadly doesn’t cut along ideological lines."

"You have lots of people on the right concerned about conservation & clean waterways. But I do think at points where it intersects with other things – like racial environmental justice - it could. The Green New Deal is targeted because it’s associated with AOC & racial justice."

When can we expect the book to be published? "Another couple years! One challenge is where to draw the line. I’m not writing a textbook, I want to show the themes of the Red Scare through a narrative. I hope people come away understanding what it was and why it’s relevant."

Thanks for following our coverage of today's conversation! Learn more about @risenc here: https://www.clayrisen.com/