Why can’t Democrats just go full on Red Scare McCarthy on them?

Funny you mentioned that.

I’m sad to have recently discovered that a tech journalist from my youth (who I already knew had rightward leanings) has unironically called for the opposite version of this.

If there’s a surge of neo-McCarthyism I think unfortunately this is probably more how how it will look, IMO.

This systemic anti-Americanism is as un-American as can be. It’s time to consider bringing back HUAC. First of all, most of the documented abuses of HUAC were studied and are preventable. And even the abuses, which included the Hollywood blacklist, were over-rated, by today’s standards. I recall all the protests over HUAC that played on the nightly news. It was always nihilistic beatniks who did much of the protesting.