The 1917 russian revolution kicked it off. The fear of a workers revolution happening in the US started a campaign of labelling everything socialist and communist as anti-american.
even before then . . . the US has one of the bloodiest labor histories in the world. So to hide that, even in the 19th century US capitalists started claiming that socialism and unions were unamerican, and the work of subversive radicals, especially Germans and Jews.
You can go back further than that.
The 1917 russian revolution kicked it off. The fear of a workers revolution happening in the US started a campaign of labelling everything socialist and communist as anti-american.
even before then . . . the US has one of the bloodiest labor histories in the world. So to hide that, even in the 19th century US capitalists started claiming that socialism and unions were unamerican, and the work of subversive radicals, especially Germans and Jews.