Trump, there is no particular, identifiable enemy for he is beset on all sides. Like a schizophrenic, – or a drunk on a vacant street, he lashes out at mental apparitions existing only to him, and perhaps to his supporters. For his supporters, however, feeling s of paranoia are not entirely unreasonable. Missing from analysis are two important qualifications to the paranoid style, Hofstadter’s each of which, to a degree, renders the style less if not downright reasonable. First, “paranoid,” there is the declining trust in government in the post-Vietnam War era. That the entire conflict (the human toll of which could not be calculated even if it were not still unfolding) was fought on a lie, introduces a question into the mind of Americans: about what else are they lying? Then comes Watergate, Abscam, Iran-Contra, the Clinton Impeachment, the Iraq War, and the Great Financial Crisis, each more vivid and doctrinaire than the last due to the exponential evolution of mass media, information and communications technology, data analytics, etc. What is more, America’s middling classes are increasingly aware of dark underside, namely, that wealth global freed trade’s is mobile and labor is not. The shear powerlessness an individual can be made to feel in contemporary mass society is unnerving the material and psychological agony of being subjected – to economic structures that ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, and alienating, which actually are actually destroy an in mere seconds, and which, with the increasing can individual’s livelihood centralization of power and capital in fewer corporate industries, engage in conspiracy. actually do The difference between this such experience and political paranoia seems quite negligible. Polarization The second qualification moves into the territory of the of political constant polarization. In analyzing both historical and contemporary manifestations of the paranoid style, we must acknowledge a legitimate fear. That fear of having another culture impose itself its values and – practices, its cultural conceptions of the the etc. upon your own life. ‘freedom,’ ‘good,’ ‘right,’ – Grasping the legitimacy of this fear is difficult because it requires dispelling a deeply held
Trump, there is no particular, identifiable enemy – for he is beset on all sides. Like a schizophrenic, or a drunk on a vacant street, he lashes out at mental apparitions existing only to him, and perhaps to his supporters. For his supporters, however, feeling s of paranoia are not entirely unreasonable. Missing from Hofstadter’s analysis are two important qualifications to the paranoid style, each of which, to a degree, renders the style less “paranoid,” if not downright reasonable. First, there is the declining trust in government in the post-Vietnam War era. That the entire conflict (the human toll of which could not be calculated even if it were not still unfolding) was fought on a lie, introduces a question into the mind of Americans: about what else are they lying? Then comes Watergate, Abscam, Iran-Contra, the Clinton Impeachment, the Iraq War, and the Great Financial Crisis, each more vivid and doctrinaire than the last due to the exponential evolution of mass media, information and communications technology, data analytics, etc. What is more, America’s middling classes are increasingly aware of global freed trade’s dark underside, namely, that wealth is mobile and labor is not. The shear powerlessness an individual can be made to feel in contemporary mass society is unnerving – the material and psychological agony of being subjected to economic structures that actually are ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, and alienating, which actually can destroy an individual’s livelihood in mere seconds, and which, with the increasing centralization of power and capital in fewer corporate industries, actually do engage in conspiracy. The difference between this such experience and political paranoia seems quite negligible. Polarization The second qualification moves into the territory of the constant of political polarization. In analyzing both historical and contemporary manifestations of the paranoid style, we must acknowledge a legitimate fear. That fear of having another culture impose itself – its values and practices, its cultural conceptions of ‘freedom,’ the ‘good,’ the ‘right,’ etc. – upon your own life. Grasping the legitimacy of this fear is difficult because it requires dispelling a deeply held