Rhetorical Analysis Of The Red Scare

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By the time Joseph McCarthy gave his Lincoln day speech the Red Scare in America was on full blast. Just a year prior to the speech the Soviets had successfully tested a nuclear bomb and China fell to the communists. There were problems both internationally with the Soviet incursion into Eastern Europe and domestically with Soviet spies in the United States. On February 9th 1950 this Senator from Wisconsin took advantage of the opportunity at his speech to the Republicans Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. Senator McCarthy paints a grim picture of the world and the conflict with Soviet Russia. The whole speech had a negative tone that was meant to instill fear in the audience. He said that they were engaged in a full out war between the immoral atheist communism and Christianity. By putting the cold war in moralistic terms of a …show more content…

He actually started off his speech on the topic of peace. He spoke about how Lincoln hated war and loved peace and how there was still hope for peace. And while he spoke of "the "mad moment" has not yet arrived for the firing of the gun or the exploding of the bomb which will set civilization about the final task of destroying itself” he did not directly talk about taking military action against Russia. But even though he did not directly say it he implied that military action may be necessary as the odds against the United States are only getting worse over time. In his speech Mr. McCarthy speaks mostly about outside enemy being Soviet Russia and Communism. It isn’t until the end of his speech where he identifies what he considers the real threat, the enemy within. He held up a list of names which he claimed were confirmed members of the communist party that worked in the state department. While it is debated exactly how many names he had on the list it varied from 205 to 57 he said in his letter to President Harry

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