Enemies from Within Speech

Like other demagogues, McCarthy invites his audience to consider themselves as a heroic “us” standing against a more powerful, sinister “them.” What rhetorical strategies does he use to encourage his audience to view the world in these terms?

How does McCarthy combine factual evidence with emotional appeals? In what ways do his appeals to emotion serve to smooth over the gaps in his logical, evidence-based argument?

The occasion for the Wheeling speech is the 141st birthday of Abraham Lincoln. How does McCarthy use the popular image of Lincoln to lend gravity to his own arguments?

What techniques does McCarthy use to establish his own authority and credibility? Consider, for example, the stack of papers containing names of supposed Communist agents and the references to Abraham Lincoln. What rhetorical strategies does he use to gain the audience’s trust?

McCarthy claims that President Roosevelt was “physically and mentally exhausted” at the Yalta conference, and he strongly implies that Alger Hiss took advantage of the president’s incapacity to craft an agreement favorable to Soviet interests. How does this essentially unverifiable account bolster McCarthy’s argument? How does he pursuade his audience to believe his version of these events?

In his famous essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Richard Hofstadter explains that America is by no means the only country whose political life is afflicted by conspiratorial fantasies. To what degree does McCarthy’s speech represent a uniquely American form of political paranoia? How do the conditions of the Cold War fuel the expression of this paranoid style of politics?

America’s position on the world stage became vastly more prominent in the aftermath of the Second World War. Based on the evidence of McCarthy’s speech, to what degree did this newfound power lead to a resurgence of American exceptionalism and a concomitant rise in what Hofstadter would term political paranoia?

What connections does McCarthy draw between intellectualism, class, and politics? How does he suggest a link between intellectual achievement and social or economic privilege, and how does he tie those factors to a “subversive” political agenda?