The Red Scare of the 1950s is widely regarded as one of the most shameful periods of modern American history, and anyone these days who’d say the opposite would probably be considered an extremist. Movies critical of McCarthyism garner praise and awards many decades later, as do all the other kinds of media that cover the hysteria of the time and valorize the heroism of those who dared speak out. During the Donald Trump years, his close ties to the malevolent Roy Cohn, chief counsel for Senator Joseph McCarthy, were thought to explain his own authoritarian leanings, and warnings abounded that his demagogic style was a revival of this disgraceful anti-communist crusade.

We’ve reached a basic consensus in American society that McCarthyism was a disaster not to be repeated. Why, then, are we seeing an alarmingly similar phenomenon bubbling up in US political culture today?

Earlier this month, Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, officially called on the Department of Justice to “immediately investigate” a batch of “certain far-left organizations” over potentially violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the foreign government lobbying law that might be most familiar to readers for its recent role in Trump’s “Russiagate” scandal. Those organizations included antiwar group Code Pink, the Manhattan bookstore and events space the People’s Forum, and a collection of other organizations involved in pushing back on rising US-China conflict.