If we want to understand how we arrived in this authoritarian moment in 2025, we need to understand one of the central pathways that brought us here: McCarthyism. In his firsthand account of the 1949 ...

Since Donald Trump retook office on January 20, he’s weaponized the federal government to execute his war on “woke,” targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, LGBTQ+ rights, and higher ...

It was an electric, historic moment. I was 13 and watching the Army-McCarthy hearings with my mother in June, 1954. Sen. Joseph McCarthy had engineered hearings investigating the Army for supposedly ...

A new book by journalist Clay Risen brings back to life a period of American history after World War II known as the Red Scare. According to Risen, what should've been a counterintelligence effort ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Yet, the First Amendment has not always been potent enough to protect the right to ...