From John Birchers to Birthers

Next month will mark the 45th anniversary of the publication by Harper's magazine of Richard Hofstadter's famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," a work that seems to grow more relevant by the day.

I was not always a fan. When I first read it two decades ago, I thought Hofstadter was being needlessly insulting by equating political views with mental illness -- despite his insistence that he wasn't using the word that way. Besides, I thought, who really cared about the strange notions that occurred to members of marginal groups like the John Birch Society? Joe McCarthy's day was long over, and even in the age of high Reaganism, I thought, the type of person Hofstadter described was merely handing out flyers on street corners.

As the historian himself admitted, "In America it has been the preferred style only of minority movements." Why bother with it, then?

How times have changed! Hofstadter's beloved liberal consensus has been in the grave for decades now. Today it would appear that his mistake was underestimating the seductive power of the paranoid style.

The essential element of this mindset, Hofstadter explained, was its predilection for conspiracy theory -- for understanding history as a theater in which sinister figures control the flow of events from behind the scenes, nudging us constantly and secretly in the direction of communism.

Back in Hofstadter's day this sort of thinking at least had something supremely rational going for it: The existence of the Soviet Union and its desire to bring the West to its knees.

But take that away and the theories become something far more remarkable. Consider, by contrast, the widespread belief that President Barack Obama's birth certificate was forged. What could have been his parents' motives for committing such a bizarre deed, or his home state's motive for colluding in it, or the courts' motives for overlooking it?

Or consider the widespread conservative conviction that we are being marched secretly into communism or fascism. Why would someone bother? It seems equally likely, given today's circumstances, that conspirators would trick us into becoming a colony of Belgium or the imperial seat of the Bonaparte family.

The paranoid pattern persists regardless. It is impervious to world events; a blurring of the American subconscious that has not changed since Hofstadter analyzed it 45 years ago. Consider the recent wave of fear that the hypnotic Mr. Obama was planning to indoctrinate schoolchildren. In "The Paranoid Style," Hofstadter wrote, "Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; . . . he has a new secret for influencing the mind; ... he is gaining a stranglehold on the educational system."

Conspiracy-mindedness isn't just for fringe political groups anymore; it makes for riveting entertainment. And it is all around us today, a disorder with an entire industry to act as its enabler.

The source for much of the current epidemic of paranoia is no doubt the Glenn Beck Show on Fox News, which follows the Hofstadter script with remarkable faithfulness. One episode last month featured Mr. Beck and a panel of guests speculating darkly about indoctrination in the public schools, about the war on religion, about the Federal Reserve, about the student loan system, the United Nations, and the swine flu vaccine. As a bonus, Mr. Beck rattled off a short history of lobbying that was almost entirely incorrect -- perhaps to illustrate his favorite plaint about Americans not learning history. And in the commercial break the real-life conspirator G. Gordon Liddy advised viewers to invest in gold.

What is most remarkable about the paranoid style, though, is the earnest self-pitying that always seems to follow each round of accusation. Case in point: a recent essay by syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin. After describing the murder of a controversial abortion doctor, a guard at Washington's Holocaust Museum, and a census bureau employee who was found with the word "Fed" written on his corpse, she insisted that "The criminalization of conservative dissent is well underway." How so? Because some of these acts caused media revulsion against certain branches of the conservative movement; surely the clampdown is not far behind.

Just a few years ago the right percolated with grand schemes to "defund the left," to win a "permanent majority," to destroy the Democrats with a "K Street Project," to outsource government itself and wreck the regulatory process -- but now its liveliest leaders turn to us, fat glycerine tears running down their cheeks, and complain that the libs just don't play fair.

"Pseudo-conservative" was another term Hofstadter used to describe the far-right fringe: "pseudo" because they didn't embrace conservatism's "temperate and compromising spirit." It's a pity Hofstadter isn't here to see the fakes eclipse the real thing.

Read other Opinion Journal articles:
The GOP's New York Fiasco
John Kyl: Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons

Comments

[Gerrard]

When people are aware that they are not in control of their own lives, cannot perceive the forces that do shape their future, and are not class conscious, the result is paranoiac fantasy. But a knee-jerk blaming of "government" or "corporations" is not so far from hitting the mark. Wasn't Proudhon considered a nut for attacking the "conspiracy" between the state, the church, and the capitalists? Was he wrong?

[DevonTexas]

I think Glenn Beck is a foremost example of this.
I wish for a moment that I could view Beck's show as a believer so I could understand the mind-set of those who can sit and watch without feeling sorry or just laughing.
The collective group of conspiracy theorists puzzles me Hearing their conspiracy theories is one thing but believing them is another. They are a very dangerous group and become more so as they incite their believers into action.

[velvetundergroundfan]

Thomas Frank's book ' What's the Matter with Kansas ? ' is one of the most insightful books on contemporary American politics published in the last decade.

[Timothy2700]

GREAT take on the current situation the right has put themselves.

[outnow]

There is a fringe out there that is buying in to all of the conspiracy theories such as FEMA Camps for re-education, forced vaccinations, etc., etc. Some of this is new, however.

The Birtcher ideas were more of an anti-communist, anti-Wall Street type of reactionary thought pattern.

To have G. Gordon Liddy selling Gold at the commercial break is priceless - the same guy who wanted "hush" money after the Watergate burglary. Where Woodward but at it again.

The right wingers themselves brought down Nixon because he opened relations with China and ended the war - well Ford did finally. But these were the "good" or "well-intentioned" hawks. The "sane" ones. Yeah, right. I smell a rat but there are so many,

[TheWanderer]

I agree with you but would argue one small point - neither Nixon nor Ford, nor for that matter Kissinger, ended the war in Vietnam. All they did was surrender, give up, pull out, desert their allies - cloaking their failure under the meaningless term "Vietnamization," best defined as "Let them kill each other, who cares anymore."

[kyosaku]

It takes two to tango. Think of parents and children. What incredible power we have to distort reality for the most innocent minds, and teach unquestioning submission to authority.­..yes the symbiosis is frightening.

[kyosaku]

Is it a conspiracy or is it shared faith-based ideology, that makes a group of people act in concert to the destruction of non-believers, or non-members? Conspiracy suggests that a group of people act together with intent. This may be the case. I have noticed, however, that most of the time my conservative friends believe without question. They only listen to that which supports their own ideological systems, and discount that which does not as evil and conspiratorial.

I have often thought that Critical Thinking should be taught in elementary school, and be a primary interest of public education. I am not so naive to think that it would ever be permitted. Can you imagine the shock and anger of a third grader's parent, being asked to explain why he or she cannot see the president's address in the classroom?

[LushLife72]

Agree with most of the posts here. America will always have a segment of the population beholden to crazies like Glen Beck facilitated by Fox. But sometimes a bit of paranoia (not the crazy right-wing variety) is a good thing.

[essbird]

I don't believe paranoia is ever healthy. What's healthy is skepticism, a quest for facts to support "truth," and suspicion of the motives of prominent people and corporations.

Paranoia: a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.

[itolduso]

While we have had very loud, very public discussions over whether gays should marry, or restaurants should be allowed to sell fatty foods, or adults should be allowed to smoke in public (or even private) places....­. our cities have quietly become places with cameras on every corner, police routinely employ electric shock to force suspects to respond to them more quickly (even for minor incidents & misdemeanors - a young man in Florida DIED after being tasered for trying to walk away after the police stopped him for not having a light on his BICYCLE, a college student was repeatedly tasered for not leaving quickly enough & continuing to ask questions at a public forum, a senior citizen was tazored by a policeman twice her size for arguing over a minor traffic ticket- a random sampling of tens of thousands of incidents happening all over the country- this has become the 'norm') Poor people & people of color fill our prisons to overflowing for petty crimes and minor drug offenses, while the tens of thousands of white-collar criminals that for years have engaged in fraud, misrepresentation, and theft- whose actions have brought our economy to it's knees- have not even been the subjects of investigation or prosecution, their only fear is of having the size of their bonuses cut. "paranoid' indeed!

[essbird]

There's been a lot of research since WW2 on authoritarian followers, how they behave, how they think, and what motivates them. As a companion piece to Hofstadter's article
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html

read The Authoritarians, by Prof. Bob Altmeyer of Univ. of Manitoba. It's a free e-book, discussing his 30-plus years of research in a very accessible way. http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

[lovethesinner]

Thanks for the links. Here's a Psychology Today article I found interesting:

The Ideological Animal by Jay Dixit

"We're easily manipulated by politics. We think our political stance is the product of reason, but we're surprisingly malleable. Our essential political self is more a stew of childhood temperament, education, and fear of death."

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200612/the-ideological-animal

[kyosaku]

Thank you for this link. I am in the middle of Dean's "Conservatives Without Conscience" and did not know that Altemeyer's research, referred to in the book was available.­..free. I have downloaded the PDF and already read the intro and first chapter.

I am reminded of a quote from an unlikely source by all this discussion of sheep, shepherds and wolves. "it is not that power corrupts, it is that it is a magnet to the corruptibl­e.' Missionary Protectiva" From Dune, Frank Herbert.

[essbird]

What I learned fresh from this paper was the other side of the authoritarian equation, the Social Dominant who exploits the Authoritarian Follower personality. The symbiosis is frightening.

[noaxe397]

Many of the groups mentioned in the article have used mass marketing techniques to make their message of hate more consumer friendly.

The Klan no longer uses in public the viscious rhetoric that blacks are no good. Instead, today they say they are not against black people; they are FOR white people.

The Birchers gain legitimacy by cozying up to libertarians, like when Ron Paul recently addressed oneof their conventions. People on both the left and the right like Ron Paul, so the Birchers must be OK, too.

The most recent transformation of extremist views into aceeptable mainstream conversation is the natural rights" movement. These are the aryans and other white supremacists who say the rights we are born with trump government authority. These people are great at quoting 18th century philosophers on the matter and form of inalienable rights while ignoring the fact that this is the 21st century.

Have you ever noticed that many of the big names in GOP political campaigns (Rove, Castellanos, Viguerie) all started out in direct mail marketing ?

[WilliamBradford]

It's interesting to dismiss the concept of "natural rights" as either racist or somehow irrelevant because this debate has been going on since ancient Greece - and probably longer.

Do you completely dismiss the idea that each individual has "inherent rights"?
How does the belief in natural rights have anything to do with "hate"?

[elfNW]

I recall during the civil rights movement in the early 1960’s in Houston, Texas (and elsewhere I presume) the John Birch Society was sort of an alternative to the KKK for those who could not stomach the Clan’s overt violence. I got curious about whether or not the John Birch Society still even existed a few months ago. A quick Internet search revealed, to my dismay, that yes it does and is actually headquartered right here in Wisconsin. Sigh.

Loony anti-government conspiracy theorists, with a healthy dose of xenophobic racism, are as American as apple pie.

[ernie1241]

FBI FILES ON JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY:

http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-1

[joedee1969]

The reason is it has all got a train wreak quality too it. It is hard not to look.

http://americaspeaksink.com/2009/10/wall-street-the-president-and-the-rest-of-us/

[DasBoot]

Sometimes it's good to be paranoid. Just look at Wall Street. But what makes the right wing paranoids so ridiculous is that they are looking for conspiracy in all the wrong places.

[sloppybear16]

The right place to look is the new documentary film "Fall of the Republic" released earlier today for free on youtube.

[kyosaku]

I suggest you read Thomas Frank's, "The Wrecking Crew."

I will watch the entire production. I was just a bit annoyed that the trailer seems to imply that the Obama presidency is the apex of the "Fall." Admittedly, I have not watched it all and am a bit turned off by the Foxian timber. I will reserve judgement until I discover how the show has treated Bush. If his administration and the Conservatives back to the 70s are clearly implicated, I will be assuaged.

[MacManLB]

Completely on point. Thanks a lot. BTW, I loved "What's The Matter With Kansas".