Or at least that's what happened. For example, during the 1950s, there was this guy named Joseph McCarthy. He wasn't even president. He was just this little scared kid. He was frightened that these people called Communists would take over the world.
Communists are people who believe in equality rather than power and money.
McCarthy liked his power and money, so, logically he wanted to get rid of these Communist people. He sent them to jail without trial and even had some executed. An execution is when the government kills someone by sending lightening through their body. It makes a lot of sense, actually. This was called the red scare because the Communists were mostly white, but the people in charge couldn't be scared of real white people so they had to paint these Communists red.