Being communist is not inherently bad. Being racist IS a bad thing. The number of actual communists that were ever in this nation was much smaller than the number of actual racists. Being communist was never actually a popular thing, being racist was popular 50 years ago and is becoming popular again due to the politics people like Trump and the far right.
You're likely too young to remember the '50s, and probably were born at least 20 years later. I could be wrong. Tell me if so.
Around 1950, the new CIA had an interim Director named Walter Bedell Smith -- a former Army general who had served under Eisenhower during the war. Also at that time, the agency had become enamored of propaganda and psy-war -- psychological warfare. Smith said that scientifically-constructed propaganda would be a "prophylactic" which could save massive sums on military hardware and deployment.
So we also had three network TV stations, with local stations simply echoing the news of the networks. The Defense Department produced a weekly Saturday program called "The Big Picture." CIA engaged in book-to-film midwifery with book authors and people in Hollywood, who were, in turn, eager to patriotically serve the country in answer to the Cold War challenge -- or the perceived challenge.
Richard Condon's "Manchurian Candidate" was -- by accounts I have or can decipher -- one of these projects. It went from a satirical book provoking laughter to a movie fitting the "film noir" category.
You had a sort of indoctrination going on in the media, in the schools. The upshot of this was a general demonization of anyone branded as a Communist. And certainly -- Senator McCarthy rode that wave high. And oddly, McCarthy was satirized by Condon's novel.
Now this isn't to say "communism is a good thing" -- nothing of the sort. The country would've been just as well off to address the general evil of Totalitarianism, which well described various communist regimes. But there were myths that prevailed, like "the Russians are atheists" (still one of the bastions of Christianity), you can't read books that you want to read (but it was more like you couldn't publish books without the state's approval). Or that their news -- Izvestia and Pravda -- were so filled with propaganda that they didn't report the truth about anything, but in fact -- they did.
And this led the public to accept many things about the Cold War that might have been avoided.
But there's nothing of commonality about this phenomenon of demonizing people who happened to claim they were "communists," and racist thinking.
Racism is subtle. Everybody has remnants of it bouncing around in their brains. Racists don't admit they're racist, unless they subscribe to some activist group like the KKK -- and even then -- they hide themselves behind sheets. But racism is often a matter of people simply not being honest with themselves. So people who harbor racist ideas don't think they're racist, but will exercise a kneejerk demonstration of it when the right opportunity or circumstance presents itself.
There is something I'd call racial cowardice. That's where you're in the majority, your opportunities for friendship or work may include being friends with or working for a "colored" person. You might worry "what will people think?" You might distance yourself from those circumstances or opportunities for this sort of worry.
There are all sorts of manifestations, and you can often identify situations that made them easy -- like a non-diverse neighborhood, school or upbringing.
So when I watch the vitriol abound about my President, I have to ask how it's motivated. Is it real legitimate criticism? That would depend on how logically consistent it is. If someone says "Obama cost me my job which I lost in summer 2008," suspicion would then fall on racial animus -- not political belief or logic. But you'll never get the person who said something like that to admit he didn't like the President because of his race.
Looking back to the beginning of 2009, there was plenty of that to go around. And sometimes, you can't tell if a politician is displaying his own racism, or the racism of his constituents.
