Joseph McCarthy, whose pursuit of national purity exposed his own moral degradation, wasn’t the sort to grant dignity to his enemies. “If you want to be against McCarthy,” he reportedly told the press, “you’ve got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker.” The Wisconsin senator’s right hand during his Red-baiting years was his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, who in turn recruited a pretty-boy hotel heir named David Schine. That the threesome spearheaded the Red Scare of the nineteen-fifties, as well as the accompanying Lavender Scare— which sought to rout gay men and lesbians from government service—didn’t stop rumors from circulating about their own sexual inclinations; the playwright Lillian Hellman dubbed the trio of bachelors “Bonnie, Bonnie, and Clyde.” By the time Cohn died, from complications of AIDS, in 1986, he was nearly as infamous for denying his own queerness as he was for his prosecutorial viciousness. McCarthy, too, was the subject of whispers—he was no stranger, allegedly, to Milwaukee’s gay bars. They wouldn’t be the last men to persecute their peers to deflect from their own apparent proximity to the closet, but they may have been the only ones to do so in such flamboyant fashion.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 06, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der November 06, 2023-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
