The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays

O Paul Krugman! Not only do readers learn so much by reading his column and blog posts, but even the commenters on his blog “The Conscience of a Liberal” strew pearls of wisdom! This is the second time that a commenter on Krugman’s blog has recommended a book that turned out to be fantastic.

I had read the title article of The Paranoid Style in American Politics in 1978 or 1979 when I was still in college, and I had forgotten completely about it. But the commenter mentioned that the book of essays completely explained the Tea Party movement. I had thought that, due to John Bircher elements, a good deal of the Tea Party traced its roots to the Goldwater campaign of 1964 -- and one can trace a straight line between the two -- but show more it’s actually much older than that. Author Richard Hofstadter, in addition to explaining the psychological causes of these movements, reveals that the same ideas and attitudes emerge in the anti-Illuminati, anti-Freemason, anti-Catholic, and anti-communist movements. In each case, an insidious evil movement threatens “real Americans” (redefined in each incarnation), and only the True Believers understand the extent of the danger. The same bugaboos appear again and again: the demonization of a weak minority, the self-righteous attitude of the self-proclaimed “real Americans,” the apocalyptic vision of a clash between good and evil, one in which no compromise is possible. Even some of the policy details aren’t new: the hatred of the income tax, for example, or the depiction of the poor as feckless and wanton.

In each case, True Believers swallow patently ridiculous stories. Remember how fluoridated water would convert people into communists through their tap water? Hofstadter does, of course. But each age had its own fabricated “Kenyan” conspiracies: Anti-Catholics blamed the Depression of 1893 on treasonous Catholics, and John Birchers contended that President Dwight Eisenhower was a communist. Samuel Morse, now known exclusively as the inventor of the telegraph, was, in his own day, better known for his part in the anti-Illuminati and anti-Mason crusades. He railed against the Illuminati: “Shall our sons become the disciples of Voltaire, and the dragoons of Marat; or our daughters the concubines of the Illuminati?” Purple prose, much?

Worse, in each case, the movement’s followers become convinced that their leaders have been infected with whatever the terror du jour is. As Hofstadter writes, “He imagines that his own government and his own leaders are engaged in a more or less continuous conspiracy against him because he has come to think of authority only as something that aims to manipulate and deprive him.” And the True Believer simultaneously believes that his leaders are either brilliantly engaged in betraying the nation to the threat du jour or too incompetent to shield the nation from the wily opponent. As Hofstadter notes:

Many years ago, in an illuminating essay, D.W. Brogan pointed to a state of mind which he called “the illusion of American omnipotence”- - defined as “the illusion that any situation which distresses or endangers the United States can only exist because Americans have been fools or knaves.”

In other words, because of geography, Americans have never had to confront the fact that no country has unlimited power in the world. They can’t fathom that sometime things happen due to bad luck, miscommunication, or simply being outnumbered or outflanked. I was also struck with how, like the Tea Party, the Goldwaterites were completely unconcerned with winning elective office. “Their true victory lay not in winning the election but in capturing the party -- in itself no mean achievement -- which gave them an unprecedented platform from which to propagandize for a sound view of the world.”

Lastly, I have to note a fabulous quote from Hofstadter, who credited Robert Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, with the successes of the Right in the 1950s and early 1960s rather than Senator Joseph McCarthy since “McCarthy could barely organize his own files, much less a national movement.” Priceless! show less

Six decades past publication, it is remarkable how much Hofstadter's analyses the conservative fringe have retained their lucidity, not least because the circumstances between then and now are too similar.

For example - why were the Birther movement/John Birch Society, and McCarthyism/Anti-Muslim scare as prominent as they were, then and now? Both Eisenhower and Obama were centrist presidents, what could have offended them? Granted, there is discontent with Obama because of the economy, and Eisenhower on foreign policy, but why this new criticism clouding debate?

Hofstadter classifies this as the 'paranoid style' - not necessarily limited to conservatism, but broadly associated with it. It includes a fear of compromise (seen in both show more Eisenhower and Obama), and redefining the opponent into a broadly conspiratorial role, which must be defeated utterly. In both cases, the accused are associated with international Communism.

He also identifies ethnic character as having a possible background to this perversion, and having it stretch back to the 19th century, and the first waves of immigrants, who would contaminate American culture and use foreign customs to destroy the traditional way of life. The Anglo-Saxons feared the Irish and Catholicism. Then they feared the Germans. Then the Eastern Europeans and Italians. Then the East Asians. And now primarily the Hispanics.

Another question is the personification of the extreme Fringe in conservatism - some 50 years ago it was Barry Goldwater, whose brinksmanship was very tempting in an era of national crisis - and yet so terrifying to a sufficient majority that LBJ trounced him.

The rest of the essays do not strictly deal with paranoia and extreme conservatism, but they deal with relatively obscure topics fluently.

One of my surprise favorites was on the crisis of bimetallism in the 19th century. It's oddly fascinating, and one now thinks of the modern day 'gold bugs' at our Beck and Paul, conspiring against International Finance as much as demagogues in the 19th century feared International Jewry.

A new dose for the politics junkie. Worth the read. show less

Most of us know the basics of this history--fears of Masonic conspiracies in the early period of the Republic, fears of Catholics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with all the new immigints, McCarthyism, the great burgeoning that was just taking place when Hofstadter was writing such that conspiracyism is now its own kind of kitsch and aliens killed the JFK clone on 9/11, and the details are a bit much for the casual reader, but Hofstadter's dissection of the (grandiose, black-and-white, obsessive) personality characteristics of the type and contribution of the term "paranoid style" are worth a good deal.

Although I was more interested in the essays included in the first half of the book, on the history of paranoid (political) thought in the U.S., all of Hofstadter's essays are incredibly well thought-out, and give careful consideration to as many sides as possible of the issue he's considering. Excellent historical work.

This book is referenced a lot so it was time for me to read the original. It was an entertaining read about numerous examples of American paranoid movements in history.

1/22/23

Lo si legge velocemente (64 pagine di 26 righe ciascuna) e si capisce Trump, il populismo, la paranoia e un po' di USA.
Molto bello.