Political Paranoia Quotes
The organization thought that Franklin D. Roosevelt was surrounded by and influenced by communists, and was destroying America for capitalism, when in reality it was Roosevelt who saved capitalism in America by leading the country out of the Great Depression without any revolution or insurgency and maintaining the basic structure of capitalism. They were so fearful of communism that most Americans thought paranoid and unrealistic. When Roosevelt trounced Alf Landon in the 1936 Presidential election, the Liberty League collapsed.
This is an excellent example of the political dirty trick of demonizing the opposition. There are Americans of different political persuasion all over the country. However, Limbaugh takes his opponents and describes them in terms that would be used for sexual predators or would be rapists or robbers. “Hiding in the shadows” and “lurking” are not contexts that we would normally use to describe political activists—especially those as numerous as liberals. Pejorative language can do the demonizing especially if it is repeated over and over again. This was illustrated by Joseph Geobbels the Nazi German propaganda minister who turned the technique into an art form. Ironically, he too in 1933 used the same technique to demonize liberals as well. See {601659}.
The Red Scare had already reached most conservatives and Truman and most others had not yet been affected by the fear of Communism that so many people had through the 1970s.
Reacting to accusations that he was soft on communism:
