The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays by Richard Hofstadter

Since Hofstadter published many historians have researched the topics in far greater detail, but my impression is that Hofstadter was one of the first to present a brief, cohesive summary of an issue which increasingly dominates U.S. Then I found that Hofstadter's article remained in public access at at this link, and I took a look at the cover of that issue of the magazine, and saw how prominently Harpers had promoted Hofstadter's essay at the time. Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence-and derail-the larger agendas of a political party. political discourse Hofstadter wrote in 1964. Acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs. In re-reading this essay from the copy of the text in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, I realized what a superb brief summary of the problem of conspiracy theories in U.S. I must have read this short essay years ago, but i had forgotten the details of its content.

In September 2020, as I thought about all the conspiracy theories that were rampant, I remembered Richard Hofstadter's essay, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, originally published in Harper's Magazine in November 1964 (pp. That work prevented me from adding more than a few entries to the Truth/Post-Truth theme. That year I also passed my 75th birthday, and passing that milestone finally motivated me to spend the time necessary to fill in the thousands of illustrations and captions that had never been entered into the database while also re-reading thousands of old database entries for correction and revision.

That year, following my habit of searching for precursors, I began thinking about how I could the topic to this database, and settled on the Truth/Post-Truth theme.

November 1964 issue of Harpers magazine containing Richard Hofstadters essay. In 2020 during the presidential campaign between incumbents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, I was continuously impressed by the amount of misinformation and conspiracy theories that were prevalent in political discourse, and in news media analyses, some of which rebutted them. Richard Hofstadter Summarizes The Paranoid Style in American Politics.

The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays by Richard Hofstadter