The House Un-American Activities Committee existed from 1938 to 1975 and trained almost all of its attention on the left. Right wing radicals, presumably were not “Un-American.”
In 1946, the committee considered opening investigations into the Ku Klux Klan, but decided against doing so, prompting white supremacist committee member John E. Rankin (D-Miss.) to remark, "After all, the KKK is an old American institution."
In the late 1930s there was a Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden. To my knowledge, HUAC did not consider that an object of concern.
Father Coughlin was preaching fascism to an audience of millions in the late 1930s. To my knowledge, neither he nor folks like Gerald LK Smith were targeted by HUAC.
Here’s some info on Gerald LK Smith in case he’s unfamiliar.
HUAC wasn’t so concerned with American fascists, but they were VERY concerned about dangerous, “Un-American” leftists like Pete Seeger, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Wells, and Paul Robeson.
We’re still living inside that mindset apparently, where a significant number of “serious” people regard Bernie Sanders (an FDR-style progressive) as somehow the equivalent of or worse than the reactionary populism of the MAGA movement.
Here’s a piece from 2015 by the great historian Eric Foner where he situates Sanders in the context of the 200+ year history of American progressivism. thenation.com/article/archiv…
