I never thought I'd live to see the day when a 74 year old loser

[empedocles]

9. The history of rw hater, 'Tail Gunner' Joe McCharthy' may offer some hope.

[McCarthy mobilized a surprisingly powerful force, intimidating the popular President Eisenhower, Congress, media, . . . However, reports. the Murrow TV expose, extensive Army-McCarthy hearings - all reduced McCarthy influence over time].

'Why did Joseph McCarthy’s influence decline?

Senator Joseph McCarthy standing at microphone with two other men, probably discussing the Senate Select Committee to Study Censure Charges (Watkins Committee) chaired by Senator Arthur V. Watkins, June 1954
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-ds-07186)
Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy catapulted to national prominence in the United States after his claim in February 1950 that 205 communists were at that time employed by the State Department. Over the next few years, McCarthy capitalized on existing Cold War fears that Soviet communist subversion from within threatened the United States at the highest reaches of government. The ensuing scramble to purge the government of these alleged infiltrators spread across the country. Although he lacked evidence for his claims, McCarthy leveled accusations of communist persuasion against government officials high and low. He was particularly critical of the Democratic administration of Pres. Harry S. Truman, singling out Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, and even Truman himself. Despite his increasingly outlandish allegations, McCarthy’s popularity seemed to soar higher than ever.

In the fall of 1953, cracks began to form in the Wisconsin senator’s facade. . . .

. . . An enraged McCarthy assaulted the general’s intelligence and reputation, telling him that he was unfit to wear his Army uniform.

McCarthy’s attacks on Zwicker did not go unnoticed. On March 9, 1954, Edward R. Murrow presented a 25-minute television exposé of the Wisconsin senator’s anticommunist crusade. Using evidence from McCarthy’s speeches and hearings, Murrow argued that the senator’s unsavory tactics involved “the half-truth” and investigations in which his bullying was “protected by immunity.” McCarthy attacked Murrow by calling him a communist, but the journalist deftly countered the accusation and damaged McCarthy’s reputation in the process.

The Army, it seemed, was also tired of McCarthy’s behaviour. . . .

Starting on April 22, 1954, the Army-McCarthy hearings were broadcast on television for 36 days to an estimated 80 million viewers. The Army had as its counsel the Boston attorney Joseph Nye Welch, who was instrumental in laying bare McCarthy’s lies. He uncovered doctored photographs that McCarthy had submitted for evidence and exposed his forgery of a memo concerning Army Signal Corps’ alleged communist subversives. When McCarthy attacked Welch’s firm because it had employed an attorney with vague connections to the Communist Party, the Army counsel responded: “Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator; you’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

The Army-McCarthy hearings were resolved in mid-June. McCarthy was acquitted of improperly pressuring the Army on Schine’s behalf. Their lasting impact, however, was on the senator’s political relevance. Having been disgraced on national television, McCarthy was formally censured by his fellow senators in December 1954 by a vote of 67 to 22. He died less than three years later, before he completed his second term. McCarthy’s flame, which had captivated the nation for over four years, went out almost overnight.

. . .
Senator Joseph McCarthy during an investigation into Communist infiltration of the government.The Red Scare posed serious threats to civil liberties during the 1950s. Feeding off of the anticommunism that was Cold War dogma, SenatorJoseph McCarthy began
. . . This appeal to the nation’s moral conscience gripped his audience because, like much of McCarthy’s rhetoric, it struck at contemporary fears and cultural perceptions about communists. If communists were fundamentally immoral, then the fight against communism was a fight against evil.

McCarthy’s rise to prominence was buttressed by increasingly repressive legislation and executive orders aimed at rooting out this alleged immorality from government agencies. / / /

. . .The Hoey committee issued a report alleging the presence of some 5,000 homosexuals in government and military positions from 1947 to 1950. Having also determined that many federal agencies were lax in enforcing existing protocol regarding homosexual activity, the committee recommended that all areas of government take this matter seriously. These events marked the beginning of what scholar David K. Johnson termed “the Lavender Scare.”

This period saw at least 5,000 federal employees quietly purged from the government on account of their sexual orientations. Truman-ordained loyalty review boards encouraged their informants to look for stereotypical gay or lesbian behavior and instructed their investigators to acquire medical, psychiatric, and police reports as evidence of homosexuality. Some interrogators even blackmailed suspects by threatening to out them to their families. In 1953 Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower disbanded the loyalty review boards with Executive Order #10450, but he directed all government departments to establish loyalty programs and terminate or deny employment to anyone deemed a national security risk. Among these numbered LGBTQ+ individuals.

The economic effects of being barred or removed from government service were profound. Federal employment policies served as a model for the private sector, so extended unemployment became a reality for many gay and lesbian people. Some, reeling from the impact of joblessness and social ostracism, took their own lives. The irony was that, among the thousands of “sexual perverts” fired, the federal government was unable to convict a single one as a communist operative. And although McCarthy and the Red Scare lost their relevance by the latter half of the decade, the legislative muscle behind the Lavender Scare would continue to threaten LGBTQ+ Americans for decades.

https://www.britannica.com/story/why-did-joseph-mccarthys-influence-decline