‘Worse Than The McCarthy Era’: Professor Warns MSNBC Democracy Has Never Been More Under Siege

Jennifer Bowers Bahney Oct 12th, 2025, 1:33 pm

A philosophy professor and author shocked MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Sunday when he said that American democracy has never been more under siege than it is today during a discussion of the Red Scare perpetuated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) in the 1950s,

Jason Stanley , chair in American studies at the University of Toronto, told Velshi, “I want to take a little issue with your comparison to the McCarthy era. Forty academics were dismissed over their posts about Charlie Kirk . I’m not aware of such a rapid mass firing of academics in…the McCarthy era.”

“Wow,” Velshi exclaimed.

“So, I think to some extent this is much worse than the McCarth

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