Are You Now or Have You Ever

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Tuesday, June 9, 2026

An Excerpt from Are You Now or Have You Ever on Townhall.com

There’s a revival play running off Broadway right now, revisiting one of the more combustible chapters in American political history: the anti-communist hearings of the McCarthy era.

You know the phrase. “Are you now or have you ever been…”

For younger Americans, the entire period feels almost mythical. Grainy black-and-white footage. Angry senators. Witness tables. Careers destroyed. Whispered accusations of communist sympathies and Soviet infiltration.

My friend Michael Riedel—the longtime Broadway columnist for the New York Post—is hosting audience talkbacks after performances of the show. He joined me on the air Friday to discuss it, and what struck me all over again is how fundamentally different America was then from what it is now.

Back then, Marxism, communism, socialism, and totalitarianism were not fashionable campus accessories or podcast aesthetics.

They were despised.

The American public had watched tens of millions die under Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and fascist regimes spreading across Europe and Asia. They had fought a world war. They had buried sons. They had watched free nations nearly disappear under authoritarian boots.

So, when allegations surfaced about communist influence inside institutions, Americans took it seriously.

Now, let’s be fair about history.

Joseph McCarthy and some of the investigators absolutely went too far in certain cases. Innocent people were smeared. Careers were ruined based on flimsy associations or hysteria. Fear can metastasize quickly in any society.

But here’s the part modern revisionists often ignore: The broader American rejection of communism itself was morally correct.

Communism was evil. Marxism was destructive. Totalitarianism murdered human beings by the millions. And Americans—Democrats included—understood that instinctively.

See the FULL STORY on Townhall.com