How a post-World War II ‘Red Scare’ resonates in modern America - Roll Call

Fights over how American history is taught. Labels of “communist” and “socialist” used to smear. Civil rights gains seen as a loss for the “real” America. While all that might sound like last week’s headlines, those battles and the hysteria surrounding them are nothing new. In the book “Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism and the Making of Modern America,” Clay Risen details how the conspiracy-mongering and cultural backlash of that post-World War II period speak to the divisiveness of today. The award-winning historian and New York Times editor joins Equal Time.