Red Scare

1. The rounding up and deportation of several hundred immigrants of radical political views by the federal government in 1919 and 1920. This “scare” was caused by fears of subversion by communists in the United States after the Russian Revolution.

Example Sentences

This era became known as the Red Scare, and many ordinary citizens were accused of sympathizing with the Communists.

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When I pulled up to the gates, security was especially heavy because of the Red Scare.

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The decade of the 1950s was the time of the Red Scare.

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As journalist Mehdi Hasan has noted, we didn’t invent Islamophobia after 9/11; after the Cold War, the Red Scare gave way to a “Green Scare,” and Muslims became the new ideological enemy.

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Many are framing this moment of political vertigo as a new Red Scare, a 21st-century McCarthyism.

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