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Notes -
McCarthyism did have the inadvertent effect of making US communists seem as victims, and thus as at least initially sympathetic to most of the American left. They won't defend Stalin, but they will portray pro-Stalin communists as victims of an oppressive US security apparatus. Communism did not become popular in the 1960s, but anti-anti-communism became very widespread, especially among boomers.
That's why Bond films had to be rewritten from the books to stop the Soviets being the bad guys. Making Bond someone hunting down and fighting against Soviet spies/sympathisers would make him instantly uncool.
See also the portrayal of communism in pretty much every good anti-establishment comedy of the period, e.g. Monty Python. It's not communist, but it is always anti-anti-communist:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VEy5vIWCJLQ
Eventually, boomers became the establishment. Anti-communist Democrats like Lyndon B. Johnson or Harry S. Truman became anachronisms. Worrying about communism became a way of signalling that you were a hopeless and contemptible square - a Dan Quayle type:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=83tnWFojtcY
Thankfully, there was nothing to fear from Russia, or from socialist regimes where people would have to line up for toilet paper amidst shortages.
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