The Politics of Fear: The Peculiar Persistence of American Paranoia

by Arthur Goldwag

From the author of Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies, a probing exploration of the bizarre and dangerous conspiracies that have roiled America over the past decade and captured the minds of so many AmericansSome of the conspiracy theories now gripping American politics contend that Joe Biden was executed and replaced by a clone and that John F. Kennedy Jr., faked his death and will one day return to slay Trump’s enemies. But who is susceptible to them, and what makes them so politically potent?Investigating the historical roots of our peculiar brand of political paranoia, Arthur Goldwag helps us make sense of the senseless and, in so doing, uncovers three uncomfortable that it is older than Trumpism and will outlast it; that theocratic authoritarianism is as hardwired in our American heritage as the principles of the Enlightenment; and that the fear that our system is “rigged” is not altogether unfounded. A probing, surprising, and critical examination of America’s paranoid style, The Politics of Fear sheds new light on the age-old What exactly are we so afraid of?

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, Social Science

283 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 5, 2024

About the author

Arthur Goldwag is the author of The Beliefnet Guide to Kabbalah (2005), Isms & Ologies (2007), Cults, Conspiracies & Secret Societies (2009), The New Hate (2012), and most recently, The Politics of Fear (2024).

After graduating from Kenyon College in 1979, he was briefly enrolled in a graduate program at Brown University. Between 1980 and 2003, he held a number of jobs in book publishing, including stints at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Random House, The New York Review of Books, and Book-of-the-Month Club. Since then, he has freelanced full time, as both a writer and editor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

[mol]

0 stars, unfinished
dropped at page 39

put white supremacy ideologies on the same level of “irrationality” as being anti-israel…me when i have no fucking brain

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've never read anything else on this topic, a fine starting point. It refers you to recent demographic/political stats (deindustrialization, the uniquely declining US standard of living and hope for the worker, how strongly population density correlates with voting), takes you through what's now the standard wingnut-background history--Hofstadter and anti-Masonic tropes and goldbugs and silverites and fluoride and Trump's bloodlust for the Central Park Five and the original Q drop and Michael Flynn and on and on (the newest bit here is the lasting power of anti-Catholicism, which he argues is a) actually the oldest American hatred and b) structurally formative for narratives like QAnon)--and then draws links to today. If you've read other books on this topic, though, there's not a lot that's new. I learned new things about the kinds of loopy theories out there among Populists in the 1890s (once again starring a sinister international cabal determined to control free Americans via nefarious machinations vis-a-vis the money supply) and also read about William Jennings Bryan assuring a Jewish audience that he didn't mean, you know, them. But not a ton of really new material in general. So, sure, start here if you haven't started, but it felt like, essentially, frosting on what you can read elsewhere if you have.

[Harmony Soto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goldwag provides us with an easy-to-understand guide to the history of some of the most prominent conspiracy theories among the American right, and how they related to Trump.

I do wish there was a little bit more focus on analyzing conspiracy through social media but other than that, it's a solid book.

[JaNel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As depressing as this book is because it’s describing exactly what’s happening, it’s soothing to have someone verbalize the phenomenon all in one place, page after page of saying “yes. That’s what’s happening. And I’m not crazy in thinking that what’s happening is absolutely whacked.”

… this book might rouse the sane but complacent majority to come to our democracy’s defense.

P. 223 why doesn’t he address Democratic extremism? “You won’t find many extremists on the Democratic side of the aisle in Congress… Nor will you find many systemic racists. But as moderate as most elected Democrats are, as moderate as many Republicans may be, an awful lot of Republicans who know better have weaponized tropes from the racist and extreme right fringe to gain partisan advantage.”

P. 30 conspiracy theories require their thousands of moving parts to mesh seamlessly and their countless participants to maintain an unbroken wall of silence over an indefinite period.

Regarding trump‘s loss in 2020, conspiracy theories were launched to provide cover for the real, but ultimately unsuccessful conspiracy they hatched themselves, which was to get slates of fake electors appointed in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin so they could steal the election from Biden.

There are plenty of real life conspiracies to contemplate, and they don’t require any magical thinking. Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, reflect a view of the world in which the secret machinations of a shadowy “they” fill the roles that gods and demons held for pagans or that millennial end time prophecies still do for some Christians.
-America really did purposely exterminate most of Americas indigenous have inhabitants
-Slavery
-Doctors in Tuskegee deprived, dying African-American men of antibiotic treatments that would’ve cured their syphilis
-Federal housing administration programs in the 1930s 40s 50s and 60s systemically deprived black Americans of access to subsidize mortgages – – red lining
-US intelligence and military have arranged foreign leaders, assassinations, harassed, American intellectuals, activist, and celebrities; Radiated young soldiers and fed psychoactive drugs to civilians.
And that’s just the government…
Private big business is just as guilty of conspiracies
-tobacco companies attempting to hide evidence that nicotine causes can
-Pharmaceutical companies, deliberately addicting hundreds of thousands of customers to opiates
-fossil fuel conglomerates who have worked to discredit scientists who are sounding the alarm about climate change

P. 39 conspiracy theories are first and foremost forms of political propaganda; elevating a political objective in a special way, by advancing seductive explanations of major events that, objectively speaking, are unlikely to be true, but are likely to influence public opinion in the preferred direction.
The tactic is not about persuasion, it’s about disorientation.

P. 62 unscrupulous power seekers know how to turn the foibles of the human lizard brain which are pre-wired to seek patterns and distrust strangers for sound evolutionary reasons to their advantage. This sound evolutionary practice also means that humans see patterns where they don’t, in fact, exist and think the worst of people simply because we don’t know them. Our only defense against this is our common sense, which is a very thin defense, indeed.

P. 78 what’s mysterious about populist conspiracy theories is not that they exist—the world we live in is indeed rife with injustices. What’s baffling is…why people who claim to be as vigilant as they are for their rights and liberties, cede them so readily to self-serving authoritarians.

P. 104 Americans are not just divided in their presidential preferences but on the nature of reality itself. In a Washington Post, February 2021 poll, republicans and Democrats were asked which statement was closer to their view: “it’s a big beautiful world, mostly full of good people, and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated” or “our lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals, and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.”
75% of Biden voters opted for the first, while 66% of Trump voters chose the second. One America is as vibrantly urban and multicultural as Sesame Street; the other looks like a lot like World War Z.

“Dominant Group Victimhood” = white, male, heterosexuals feeling picked on

P. 132 if the deep state really went to all the trouble to steal the election from Trump, then why did it allow so many Republican senators and Congressman to slip through the cracks and win… If it’s as powerful and ruthless as Trump says, then why doesn’t it kill its enemies instead of allowing them to write syndicated newspapers, host TV talk shows and podcast, and run for and win elective office?

P. 133 I don’t believe that homeopathically prescribed doses of truth can ablate magical thinking. Reasoning with a true believer is exactly as useful as reasoning with someone who is in love with the wrong person.

P. 137 when the author references Sam Dickson‘s frankness in the National Policy Institute of 2011 conference, this is exactly what I have felt for many many years… The Trump conservatives don’t believe in the American Dream or the American Experiment. The author quotes Sam Dickson as saying, “while they talk about “taking America back”, many conservative movements forget that the Constitution was poisoned by the infection of the French enlightenment. White people haven’t controlled America’s government for 150 years. In fact, the Constitutional Republic is the greatest enemy.”
The author goes on to say, repressed desires, like the forbidden hope that America will end its experiment with democratic Republicanism and replace it with authoritarian Christian regime, like Hungary, give rise to the same kinds of painful dissonances that irrational beliefs do.

P. 139 the conspiracy theorists are right that things are not always what our parents and teachers and pastors taught us to believe they are. America has often failed to live up to its exceptionalist ideals. That’s not to say that America is exceptionally wicked. As nation-states go, the United States is better than many, and itsit founders’ ideals are most admirable, even if they and we have often failed to live up to them. But like they do in most places, America’s financial, political, and social elites really DO keep a tight grip on the rains of power, that’s why they’re called elites, and they work hard to protect their interests. Despite what they tell us, what’s good for them is not always what’s good good for everyone else. While it’s true, that capitalism has raised living standards across the board, from a child millworkers perspective 150 years ago or a part-time minimum wage workers, owners continue to enjoy all kinds of unfair advantages. Does the capitalist class routinely hold secret ceremonies in which they rape and murder children? of course not. Most of their energies go into union-busting or political lobbying to keep their taxes low and regulations at a minimum. The owner class constantly tests the limits of what they can get away with, and they get away with a lot.
Our great national myth… That America is a crucible of equality, tolerance, and boundless entrepreneurial opportunity… Has never been our national reality. Critical Race Theory doesn’t explain everything, but it surfaces a painful and undeniable truth that our liberal humanist traditions were not only erected on a rickety scaffolding of race supremacism, religious bigotry, land, theft, involuntary servitude, and toxic, masculinity, but were compromised by them from the very beginning, as surely as when Sam Dixon said they were compromised by the egalitarian values of the French Enlightenment.
-which isn’t to say that things haven’t improved. And they’ve improved exactly because of the high ideals of the French enlightenment that Dickson called the poison… and for all its many failures in practice, our system leans toward more rather than less liberty and opportunity. But America’s past, like most countries’, is not just marked by but defined by force and violence and fear and hate; worse still, it’s not yet even in the past.

P. Trump enjoyed showing visitors the map that shaded all the counties he’d won in red, and no wonder, because he won five times as many as Hillary Clinton 2626 to 487. But that sea of red was deceiving. Fully half of the people in the United States live in just 143 counties, and most of them voted for Clinton. Clinton counties were not just more populous than the ones that voted for Trump, they were more prosperous by far, accounting for 64% of the nations economic output. Almost half of Trump’s counties had seen their growth rates decline. As extensive as it was, Trump‘s geography was a geography of decline.

P. 221 trump is all about himself, but at the same time, he is a mirror for every other disappointed person who wants believe they stood at the center of the universe, but learned otherwise to their sorrow and feel picked on… People who are unhappy in matters of money, see central bankers as the personification of evil, people who are unhappy in love become misogynists, people who are worried about the waning of white privilege and the dilution of white sperm become white nationalists.
And for everyone who knows they’ve been had, it’s too painful to admit they’re wrong. And what would they do now? They’d need another Messiah.

P. 230 anyone who has studied the federalist papers, knows that our constitutional republic was deliberately engineered to make it difficult for factions, and especially the demagogues who lead them, to capture political majority. In the unlikely event that one still did the complexities of Congress, the Senate, and the judiciary rules, plus the many powers reserved to the states, would dilute and diffuse their ability to impose their will on the country. The advent of mass media like radio, and television in the 20th century gave demagogues the ability to broadcast their messages to the entire nation, short-circuiting many of those institutional checks and balances. Algorithmically driven social media now allows them to target inflammatory information and disinformation at precisely the people it will affect the most… algorithmically curated newsfeeds lock people in philosophical silos, protecting them from arguments and evidence that might soften our even change their views. At the same time, they ensure that the most extreme ideas and the loudest and most aggressive voices are the most widely disseminated…
The xenophobia, racism, sexism, religious chauvinism, and flirtations with authoritarian populism that we are hearing today are as old as the Republic. Our modern world just makes it easier to organize and find the small percentage of other people as extreme as you are in whatever way you are.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has such a great premise, to explore how paranoia and fear are driving our American politics. (And how they’ve influenced politics in the past!) However this author does not actually discuss that, instead this “book” is basically a collection of quotes that the author disagrees with, with very little counter arguments or claims. There were MANY examples of an event or statement being referenced and then not discussed or even disproven. I am extremely disappointed at the writing and organization of this book and the extreme bias the author has. This book is NOT an analysis of fear politics but instead a collection of statements the author disliked personally.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conspiracy theories and national myths are interesting. Sometimes crazy, but interesting. This book is chalk full of new information and also some well known events. This book should have been longer as many episodes of paranoia were either skipped entirely or cut tragically short; however, it was still an intriguing look at this topic. Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advance digital copy.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

So very readable...and so very stomach-turning, as this is a timely follow-up to Rachel Maddow's recent look at fascism at the heart of the United States. It would seem that some things don't change...they just evolve. A terrifying lesson for our current times.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable and informative. I thought that his extended metaphor-argument about trumpism being closer to a religious experience/revival than a political movement was novel and interesting, although I’m not sure what to do with that information now. But it is interesting to think about.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although somewhat enlightening, the lack of any kind of recourse leaves the book with a bad taste in the soul. This type of work contributes as much to a defeatist perspective as the fear-mongering itself. I suppose sociologically it has a function, but I can't help but feeling "why bother".

[Tyler J Hinds · Rating 4 out of 5]

7.9

[Angela Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read, helped me get into the MAGA brain more.

[Kristen Hayward · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think has some good history / frameworking within it. overall felt a bit under -developed & dry in parts that should have been more engaging

[Abby Tremel · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Lots of good stuff that had me going “yuuuup” but not a whole lot of new opinions or analysis.