,
16 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
There’s much to be said for the argument that Trumpism is warmed over McCarthyism, fancied up with a new coat of birther paint. 20-30% of white Americans have always been drawn to such lunacy. They’ve never had their very own President, however.
Ok, “always” was a bad word choice. “Long” would have been better.
This would be a good time to revisit historian Richard Hofstadter writing about The Paranoid Style in American Politics in November 1964 in response to Goldwater-ite wackiness, which pales in comparison to Trumpist wackiness. harpers.org/archive/1964/1…
This is McCarthy in 1951. Change a word here and there to update the context and run this by one of Trump's Q fans, and I'll suspect they'd nod in vigorous agreement. 
This is a description of the "modern American right wing" written in 1964. Tell me how the 2019 American right wing is different.
I mean, seriously. Let that sink in. That passage was written four years before I was born, and I'm old as dirt. Like all historians, I hate the aphorism that "there's nothing new under the sun," but in some cases, there's nothing new under the sun.
Here are the three main planks of the right wing paranoid style according to Hofstadter. First, SOCIALISM!!!
Second, DEEP STATE! Q has added a new wrinkle to this, the idea that these deep state operatives are all covering up their predilections for pedophilia. (Though it's worth noting that McCarthyites were obsessed with the moral threat supposedly posed by "homosexuals.")
Third, pinko college professors and the liberal media are brainwashing loyal Americans and teaching them to hate their country.
It's almost as if, there's an entire industry out there of people devoted to defending "Western Civilization" or "the Enlightenment" from its existential enemies comprised of the 65 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton. (Again, this paragraph was written in 1964.)
Contemporary right wing fantasies of civil war and Q fantasies of locking up Obama, Hillary, Comey, etc. have deep roots. Again, this paragraph was written in 1964.
So what you're saying, 1964 Richard Hofstadter, is that right wing radicals often accuse their opponents of the very things they themselves are doing? Rigging elections, not caring about facts, corruption, longing for violence...
To quote Charlie Kirk, "🤔"
To quote Charlie Kirk, "🤔"
Paging Joe Rogan, the Quillette crew, or any number of other libertarian-ish "free thinking renegades" who have rejected the "blue pill" of conformity.
J*rdan P*terson and his BS lobster metaphor wasn't even born yet. Come on Hofstadter, what sort of time-travelling demon were you?
Hofstadter's conclusion is as powerful today as it was in 1964. By centering issues that resist political resolution (esp. abortion & immigration), the contemporary right has shifted our politics into a place where manichean and apocalyptic thinking is irresistible for many.
A thread on the links between McCarthyism and Trumpism wouldn't be complete without a reminder that Trump's mentor in the 1970s and 80s was Roy Cohn, McCarthy's right hand man in the early 1950s. newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
