South Carolina's Mark Burns, a televangelist, Christian nationalist, and pro-Trump Republican candidate for Congress, is promising to revive McCarthyism if elected. Burns says he will "revive" the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), which for decades was used to blacklist private citizens suspected of disloyalty to the United States or of holding communist or fascist beliefs, or ties to foreign enemy governments.
"When I'm elected, I am going to help formulate and re-energize a committee called 'HUAC,'" Burns said on Real America's Voice, the far-right streaming service that also hosts Steve Bannon.
"HUAC is the House of Un-American Activities Committee," he said, erroneously. "This is a committee – it is not a new committee – it was a committee that was during the time, that existed in the 40s and 50s. But it's a committee that is sole purpose is to identify Americans, media, elected officials who are doing un-American activities and to hold them for treason here in America."
In the early 1950's U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was the face of the movement, although he was not a member of the Committee. In 1959 former President Harry S. Truman called it the "most un-American thing in the country today."
Burns has misrepresented his military service and education, and when caught claimed he was being attacked because he is "a black man supporting Donald Trump for President."
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