The Language of Anti-Communism

Anti-Communism was part of the persistent American populist tradition, an instrument ready at hand for the use of corporations against unions, Republicans against the New Deal, segregationists against African Americans. As Robert Ivie pointed out, "The nation's adversary is characterized as a mortal threat to freedom, a germ infecting the body politic, a plague upon the liberty of humankind, and a barbarian intent upon destroying civilization." The language of Anti-Communism, even in the absence of Communism itself, is still present in American English, laying ready at hand to be put to new uses by politicians and others to proclaim the urgent need to sacrifice civil liberties in the cause of national security.