The Political Use of Fear

Abstract

There is, of course, nothing new about the use of fear in American politics; witness the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, the Palmer raids which came in the wake of World War I, and the organized redbaiting of the middle 1930's. But there is something new, something different, about the political use of fear in connection with the current witch hunt. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that the setting for this witch hunt, and the factors involved, are quite different from anything we have known in the past. Not to recognize this difference is to minimize the current danger to civil liberties.

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