American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

by David Corn

The Instant New York Times Bestseller now available in paperback!

#1 New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia.​

A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, American Psychosis offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party’s interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections—and how this led to Donald Trump’s triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right.
 
The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was no aberration. American Psychosis shows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right.
 
The gripping tale in American Psychosis covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation’s discourse and threaten American democracy.

"[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I'm so glad he's done a super-readable, modern history of the right...We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now...[ American Psychosis ] is perfectly timed...Relevant history for where we are right now." —Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show

"With American Psychosis , David Corn 'did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.’" —Lawrence O'Donnell, host, The Last Word

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Audiobook, American History, Journalism, Sociology

416 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2022

About the author

David Corn is a veteran Washington journalist and political commentator. He is the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and an analyst for MSNBC. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Battled the GOP to Set Up the 2012 Election and Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (co-written with Michael Isikoff). He is also the author of the biography Blond Ghost: Ted Shackley and the CIA’s Crusades and the novel Deep Background.

Reviews

[Elizabeth George]

Every American voter should read this book. It's an incisive look at how the Republican party--once the party of Abraham Lincoln--altered over time to what it has become today. Beginning with the 1854 establishment of the Republican Party and carrying through to the present time, the author lays it all out in black and white: how over the decades of election cycles, the GOP encouraged hatred, distrust, and disgust while simultaneously selling itself to the "Christian" conservatives who promised to provide the money and the votes in exchange for executive orders, amendments, and laws that would reflect "Christian" values. Thus, welcomed with open arms were the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan, the "Silent Majority," and anyone else who would write a check in exchange for promises about ending women's rights, civil rights, voting rights, equality under the law for LGBTQ individuals, and anything else that apparently served the interests of gaining control over individuals and the choices they make related to how they live their lives. There are, of course, crazy people everywhere, but to see GOP Presidential candidates kowtow to them is absolutely chilling. Ultimately, the author enhances our understanding of how and why Donald Trump happened to America.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Psychosis, clinically speaking, is a mental disorder characterized by a disconnection from reality. The individual suffering from psychosis has major disruptions to their thoughts and perceptions that prevent them from distinguishing what is real from what isn’t.

This incapacitating psychological state is typically characterized by delusions, paranoia, and conspiratorial thinking. Left untreated, psychosis is detrimental to both the individual and to those around them. But what if this state of psychosis infected an entire political party? Imagine the type of damage that could be done if politicians found a way to encourage and exploit, on a mass scale, widespread delusive and conspiratorial ideas.

Well, we’re frankly living through that nightmare scenario currently. Welcome to the Republican Party, a party where, according to an Economist/YouGov poll, 49 percent of Republicans believe that it is definitely or probably true that “top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings.” (Remember Pizzagate?)

In American Psychosis, journalist David Corn investigates, in painstaking detail, the history of the unholy alliance between extremist views like the one above and the Republican Party that leverages these views—views conservative political leaders often disagree with but turn a blind eye to—for political gain and votes.

Honestly, there are simply too many historical examples to summarize in this review, but the reader—especially one unfamiliar with the history—will realize that the era of Trump is no aberration from the general direction the Republican Party has been moving for quite some time. It’s simply the apotheosis of the party’s natural movement towards outright insanity.

Corn does a tremendous job of documenting this progression, which happens to be one of history’s greatest tragedies: namely, how the party of Lincoln—which was founded on the noble principle of halting the expansion of slavery—became the party of Trump and the economic elite. It’s also the story of how respectable, moderate conservatives have been overtaken by the lunatic fringe.

The biggest lesson we can learn from this book is that far-right conservatism appears most ridiculous only in hindsight. A prominent case in point is McCarthyism. Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism was a vociferous campaign against alleged communists that were believed to have infiltrated the US Government and other institutions (McCarthy even accused President Dwight Eisenhower of being a Communist asset). In hindsight, we can now confidently say that McCarthy was a paranoid lunatic and that McCarthysim was an utter embarrassment, grounded in baseless accusations and irrational and overblown fears. But at the time, Joseph McCarthy was revered, even idolized, as the “savior of the country.”

Examples like this beg the question: In 50 to 100 years time, what are we going to think about Donald Trump, a president who, by one estimate, uttered an unprecedented 30,573 false or misleading statements, including the statement that he “handled the coronavirus masterfully.” Do we really believe the historical pattern of the Republican Party successfully exploiting extremist views and conspiracies for political gain has been broken by a man that suggested to scientists that they look into treating the coronavirus by injecting people with UV light and disinfectant?

In all likelihood, based on the history outlined in this book, Trump is destined to be viewed, historically, in a similar manner as McCarthy—essentially, as a semi-deranged, narcissistic laughingstock. And this view is not simply an example of unchecked political bias; I don’t know what else to label a president that betrays his oath to the country and Constitution by inciting domestic terrorists to violently invade the Capitol based on the complete fabrication—with no credible supporting evidence whatsoever—that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. (Claims that were thrown out in court by conservative judges Trump himself appointed.)

Whatever faults the Democratic Party may have—and there are more than a few—there is simply no Democratic equivalent to this virulent conspiracy-mongering, which has become the staple characteristic of Trump’s GOP. For Trump, truth is simply beside the point; the only thing that matters to him is loyalty. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an autocracy expert and history professor at New York University observed, “[Trump] changed the party to an authoritarian party culture. So not only do you go after external enemies, but you go after internal enemies. You’re not allowed to have any dissent.”

The only remaining question is whether or not you really want to be associated with this. After reading this book, I would hope that you’d want to stay as far away from this paranoid style of politics as possible. Nothing less than the sanity of the country is at stake.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

“One of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don’t encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal, and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics… You’re fighting a war. A war for power… What we really need are people who are willing to stand up in a slug-fest.” —-Newt Gingrich

“[Trump]’s changed the party to an authoritarian party culture. So not only do you go after external enemies, but you go after internal enemies. You’re not allowed to have any dissent.”—-Ruth Ben-Ghiat, history professor at New York University

“The professors are the enemy”—-J.D. Vance, Republican Senator from Ohio

“A recent ABC/Ipsos poll had found that 52 percent of Republicans believed the people involved in the January 6 attack had been “protecting democracy”. That meant that half of the GOP electorate saw the violent extremists who had assaulted law enforcement officials, threatened to kill the vice president, and tried to overturn a legitimate election as heroes. The party was cracked. (P. 336)”

In truth, Donald Trump didn’t have a monopoly on crazy. Nor did the Republican Party. It can be said, however, that at no other time in history did a president or a party fully embrace and encourage the fringe and the batshit crazy the way Trump and the Republicans did in the past decade.

As David Corn writes in his excellent history of the deterioration of the Republican Party from within, “American Psychosis”, the far-right fringe and the just plain fucked-up have always been kissing cousins with the GOP. Most of the time, the party was just able to hide it better.

Trump said “fuck it!” and let his far-right freak flag fly. Hence, the cadre of misogynists, racists, homophobes, anti-semitic white nationalists, and extremists he called his friends and close advisors.

Corn’s historical overview is a fascinating and disturbing look at how the far-right has crept into bed with the Republicans via organizations like the John Birch Society and the Heritage Foundation, groups that try to pass themselves off as legitimate “think tanks” but are nothing more than right-wing propaganda machines.

Corn illustrates how each Republican president, starting as far back as Theodore Roosevelt, was forced to at least kowtow to extremists within their own party as a way of ensuring the votes. Even Eisenhower, at certain points in his presidency, was known to turn a blind eye to fringe groups within his own party.

With Nixon and Reagan, the Republican Party began to deviate as far-right as possible with their total submission to Christian fundamentalists and very public political alliances with nutballs like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

The rise of right-wing media stars such as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck and the popularity of the ultraconservative FOX News network helped to bolster some of the right-wing extremists in the party, like Newt Gingrich. Movements such as the Tea Party and Q Anon helped to merely solidify the absolutely toys-in-the-attic loony toons and made a Trump presidency inevitable.

There’s a long list of Republican demagogues that have helped to create the violent extremism in the current GOP—-Joseph McCarthy, Spiro Agnew, Mitch McConnell, Phyllis Schlafly, Sarah Palin, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, just to name a few—-and Corn gives credit where credit is due for events leading to January 6.

“American Psychosis” is a must-read for any rational-minded person looking to see how the once-proud party of Lincoln has gone off the rails.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Corn uses several quotes from The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, a book that I read as a young university student in the seventies. This book was quite an eye opener at the time describing the strategies and tactics being used by special interest groups in order to manipulate public opinion. It showed how the very wealthy could generate a narrative in society that goes against all common sense and without any respect for facts to pursue their own personal goals.

Almost 60 years later, David Corn has produced an updated and detailed study on that theme which clearly shows that the fringe extremists described by Hofstadter in his 1964 essay have progressively gained influence to the point where a political party is now the home of all types of right wing extremisms in all its various forms. We can see the consequences of these extremisms in daily events; unlimited and uncontrolled access to guns are directly responsible for thousands of deaths per year, in some states women and teen girls are being denied access to abortions even if it means death, schools are deprived of books because of censorship in Florida and Texas, right wing networks broadcast hysteria and lies non-stop, a former President uses the Goebbels technique of the Big Lie to undermine democratic institutions, politicians refuse to recognize climate change...the attack on the quality of life of ordinary citizens goes on in a quest for revenge against immigrants, democrats, non whites, jews, feminists, journalists, scholars, scientists. This is a war against facts and reality. Other citizens are no longer political adversaries, they are enemies. Paranoia has gained ground to the point where US society has become quite dysfunctional, victim of a psychosis. If you are interested in understanding why and how this all came about in the last 60 years, then this book is for you.

[Jeneane Vanderhoof · Rating 5 out of 5]

** Excerpt taken from Tea Time With a Good Book an article written for the Collinwood Chronicle and published in the November 2022 newspaper for residents in Cleveland, OH...available in multiple publications in Northeastern OH and online.
(one of three books in review for the month)

Lastly, I have got to recommend my favorite of the many new reads, American Psychosis by David Corn. Because of the detailed research, immense effort and time spent putting this well formed "historical investigation of how the Republican party went crazy" (direct statement from the front cover), along with superb writing skills of Corn, it is a must read for every sane person this upcoming year! Corn explains what we as Americans have witnessed in the political arena for the last several years, and, many, hung our heads in shame about, began long before Trump was elected. It's about the circus of absurdity in the Republican Party then and now, also a terrific breath of relief to discover why this happened to our country and hopefully, a lesson for the future. God bless this man for answering my plea!

(not in review)
And, I apologize for the short review but, in print media, I only have so much room and I had three good reads I wanted to share for the month. This book, however, put to rest the questions I had about what has gone so wrong in our country. While I had believed it all began when Trump took his seat as our most uncouth president ever, as I thought more about things, I saw the Republican's party (at least, part of it) and their down slide, in promoting people like Sarah Palin for president. The de-evolution of the party, (in a human sense, in a sane sense) is evident for much longer than this generation.

[sologdin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text traces a common thread from Senator McCarthy through former president Trump, while noting antecedents from before the origin of the United States, of how an excitable populist section of the electorate was considered by the party that sought its votes to be a dangerous asset to be tamed for voting and campaigning purposes but also a liability to be disavowed for the sake of electability. The danger came not from its policy preferences, which were mixed along each axis of the political spectrum and could thus find a political home almost anywhere, but rather from its intolerance for discussion and disagreement, its credulous belief in any cynical innuendo, and its hunger for allegedly secret knowledge that might explain a complex world wherein all that is solid melts into air.  Disagreements over policy positions, themselves secondary, become personal within this fringe, contrasting with the regular attitude of 'I disagree but we'll let the voters decide, and then live with the decision,' adopting instead the dangerous attitude of 'You are an evil traitor conspiring with secret enemies, and if you win, most likely by cheating, you will destroy the republic.'  

The argument builds from Hofstadter's 'paranoid style' essay, with consideration of early apocalyptic conspiracism, often rooted in class difference, such as how "tension and increasing rivalry between Salem Village and the more affluent Salem Town" is part of the explanation of the witch trials.  The masons, the jacobins, the illuminati, the papists each make an early appearance.  One popular conspiracism was that "Lincoln's assassination had been a Catholic plot."  We see that the main characteristic of the anti-masonic cause was "its appeal to the less privileged, less educated, more ecologically isolated rural population."  Whatever the cause, these early paranoias of the republic are explained as "cynical politicians were harvesting hyperbolic paranoia."  The notion that political paranoia is an asset to be procured like any other product is the key insight of this text--we see that the rightwing fringe is not best characterized by its policy preferences but by the apocalyptic conspiracist beliefs that make it very motivated and easy to manipulate.  Repeatedly we find regular conservatives who seek to control the motivated cult fringe while realizing its danger. The text lays it out as "a common practice in American politics: establishment elites enlisting popular resentments and fears."  

It continued in the 20th century.  The 1918 pandemic was blamed by some conspiracists on the Germans; bolsheviks were the new illuminati.  By the time of World War II, some on the right "were driven by a fear of communism and viewed Nazi Germany as a bulwark against the Bolshevik threat. But conspiratorial paranoia infected the isolationist movement."  Regarding the war itself, "conspiracy theories had arisen regarding Pearl Harbor and the dubious allegation that Roosevelt had allowed the attack to happen to provide cause for America’s entry into the war."  We see both returning for the HUAC years.  Conspiracism: "The true threat, McCarthy alleged, came from inside. From the elites. From the people in charge. From fellow Americans who were disloyal." Apocalypticism: As early as 1936, GOP candidate Landon "declared that the nation’s existence was at stake and that only his election would preserve 'the American form of government.'"

Senator McCarthy, of course, is the godfather of the dangerous attitude: "As Hofstadter observed several years after McCarthy’s demise, 'The real function of the Great Inquisition of the 1950s was not anything so simply rational as to turn up spies or prevent espionage or even to expose actual Communists, but to discharge resentments and frustrations, to punish, to satisfy enmities whose roots lay elsewhere than in the Communist issue itself.'" They learned some valuable lessons in the time period:  "many of McCarthy’s party colleagues sought to benefit from his crusade, as he demonstrated how tapping paranoid fear could be politically profitable." 

Nixon assumed the role of the GOP’s chief pitchman of paranoia. He claimed the Eisenhower administration had uncovered and fired “thousands” of subversives in the government. (The head of the civil service later said none had been found.) Nixon also shared a terrifying revelation: The administration, upon taking office, had discovered “in the files a blueprint for socializing America.” Asked to produce a copy of this bombshell document, Nixon explained he had only been speaking metaphorically.

McCarthy had argued that "Our only choice is to impeach President Truman and find out who is the secret invisible government.”  In what should also sound familiar to the present moment, McCarthy alleged Truman to be “'captive' of the conspirators and a 'satisfactory front' for this blackhearted plot who was 'only dimly aware of what is going on.'"

Between Nixon as HUAC enforcer and Nixon as president, the big name was Senator Goldwater, who "claimed new federal health care programs would end freedom in America." Reagan, in campaigning for Goldwater, "presented a stark choice for the election: either 'preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth' or 'sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.'"  Goldwater's campaign had events such as “a monster three-hour concentration of pure venom on television… in which the patriots suggested again and again that the United States was largely peopled by traitors.” Goldwater's "strategy for reaching voters: 'We want to just make them mad, make their stomach turn, take this latent anger and concern which now exists, build it up, and subtly turn and focus it.'"

Goldwater wanted to use the Birchers, but didn't want anyone to know it.  There's good reason for that: the Bircher founder "sent out a mailing to his members saying civil rights protests were part of a communist plot to establish a 'Soviet Negro Republic'" He thought that "that the “Zionist conspiracy… was the father of the International Communist Conspiracy.” As inspiration for Dr. Strangelove, he "pronounced the fluoridation of water a communist plot." JFK was a "blueprint for socialism."  He accused Eisenhower fo being a communist.  His manual for the Birchers had "no mystery: Everyone, it turned out, was a communist." If only.  Suffice it to say that "the fundamental construct of the John Birch Society was fact-free paranoid extremism."  This should sound familiar to anyone in the present moment of 'alternative facts.' Of course all of the predictions were false.

Examples thereafter abound, from the usual suspects.  Reverend Falwell "proclaimed that if abortion was not outlawed, 'then America will not survive'"; he also claimed at another point that "gay people threatened the existence of the United States."  Reagan and his people took part in the process, too. His role was to mobilize the dangerous crowd without making it seem like he agreed with them: "At a victory celebration, he stood before a banner with a slogan that had been cooked up by a Madison Avenue advertising agency: LET’S MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN." His fundraising letters "were aimed to 'make them angry' and 'stir up hostilities.' They advanced the fundamental theme of McCarthyism: Diabolical evil liberals were out to destroy America." Nixon in his time came to "believe his own tale of an America bedeviled by conniving, underhanded, and disloyal internal enemies."  He engaged in "classic demagoguery: These think-they-know-best elites were the enemy within, and they were destroying the nation."  Nixon had previously "declared that enacting programs like Medicare would lead to the end of freedom in the United States."  Again, in case it needs to be noted, these predictions of doom were false.

During the Obama years, we see continuity.  Regarding his initial candidacy, one Christian right leader "warned that with an Obama victory, 'America as we have known it will no longer exist.… [It] will be replaced by a secular state hostile to Christianity.'  Another numbnut likewise "feared that Obama, once in office, would establish a Gestapo and impose a communist dictatorship."  Obama as president, “we’re basically going to be… in the throes of a socialist revolution."  Obama's health care law was described as “government will come to control half the economy, and we will have effectively ceased to be a free enterprise society.”  Senator Santorum prophesied that an Obama re-election would mean that “America as we know it will be gone.”  Rupert Murdoch lamented when Obama was re-elected that “Our nation is ruined.” Trump, one-note even then, commented “This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!” Again, all false and stupidly so.  FNC manager Roger Ailes himself drank the Kool-Aid, believing that the Obama administration followed him with black helicopters.

We see the dangerous attitude work itself out repeatedly.  During the Trump years, we get Representative Biggs declaring that Democrats "are not just an opponent. They’re an adversary that’s trying to wipe this country out and change it forever.” Senator Scott similarly "claimed that Democrats and the 'militant left' had a 'plan' to destroy patriotism, capitalism, free speech, and the nuclear family, and he asked, 'Is this the beginning of the end of America?'"  Senator Vance "asserted, 'The professors are the enemy.'” Trump himself predicted that Biden winning "would lead to far-left antifa protesters and terrorists flooding suburban America. He raised the prospect of vicious thugs subsuming white neighborhoods and 'crime like you’ve never seen before.'" Previously, he had suggested that "Clinton could be targeted for assassination by 'the Second Amendment people,' if she were elected president" because 'our very way of life' was threatened."  The party wasn't immune to anti-Trump catastrophism within the far right itself, as Glenn Beck "warned that Trump was a possible 'extinction-level event” for American democracy and capitalism,'" and Sentaor Rubio "prophesized catastrophe should Trump succeed."  We note with no small amount of mockery that every one of these predictions was wrong.

The broad arc here is "a familiar tactic: the enemies-within scare-mongering that Republicans and right-wingers had recklessly employed since McCarthyism."  By the time we get to 2020, "Trump and his paranoia had become a theology." That is, "A party that had long maintained a relationship with extremism—and that had managed since 1968 to not be defined by this—now had an undeniable extremist as its presidential nominee."

Trump appeared on Jones’s online talk show, and Jones hailed him as a modern-day George Washington who could save the nation before it collapsed, calling his campaign “epic.” Trump repaid the compliment, telling Jones, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” The man leading the Republican parade had endorsed one of the country’s biggest kooks.

This occurred because "Trump knew the Republican base better than the party’s leaders. For decades, the GOP and the conservative movement had encouraged and capitalized on the apprehension, anger, paranoia, and grievance that existed on the right."  The secret was known inside the party itself: “'Trump voters are exceedingly low-information voters. They do not read the Washington Post or even conservative blogs. They do not watch cable news rigorously.' But these voters knew they were angry."

The method is important.  Apocalyptic conspiracism doesn't simply exist out there, and it doesn't spontaneously erupt.  It is a product that must be manufactured.  The way to get it out there is fairly straightforward:

Allegations planted with these organizations would then receive coverage by more respectable conservative publications—the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post—and bounce across the new world of the internet. Then GOP-led congressional committees would announce they were examining the latest twist, and mainstream media would cover this “real” story.

Usually this meant "harnessing traditional conservative extremism and blending it with the power of the New Right. An appeal to divisiveness, an embrace of hard-edged cultural politics, a cultivation of resentments, an adoption of sharp tactics and rhetoric—here was a winning formula."  We see it developed by Gingrich in the 90s, such as his list of “'contrasting words' to be employed “'to define our opponents.' It included: traitors, liberal, radical, sick, anti-child, anti-flag, betray, bizarre, incompetent, pathetic, self-serving, lie, steal, disgrace, and they/them."  He told colleagues that the left “has to be fought with a scale and a duration and a savagery that is only true of civil wars.”

That's all fine, very persuasive.  I get a bit annoyed about application of the term psychosis in a political debate. In part, it is drawn from establishment republicans who refer to the Birchers and mccarthyists and whatnot as 'kooks' and 'crazies.'  But this just removes the mystery one step.  We should accept the basic proposition that we often pathologize things that we don't understand--assuming for instance that someone is crazy when we can't discern the rationale for their conclusions--and there is something to understand in how there's a consistent cult-like fringe in US history that is susceptible to believing the dumbest things.  This text tries to make a perfunctory psychological argument about use of the term, such as the thesis that "shared psychosis, in which people in proximity to a person suffering psychosis—that is, a person experiencing delusions or engaging in conduct indicating a detachment from reality—start to experience the same symptoms."  Or how "They were guided by what Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway once called “alternative facts.” It was as if they were infected by a psychosis. That is a condition when the brain does not properly process information. This can lead to detachment from reality. A person undergoing psychosis might see, hear, or believe things that are not real."  These observations are merely tacked on and not serious.  The true value here is in the accumulation of evidence on the historical continuum.

Recommended for all you communists out there while you're taking a break from destroying the republic.

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

― “Since the mid-1990s, the percentage of Republicans who called themselves ‘very conservative’ had been rising. (It would go from 19 percent to 33 percent by 2015.) They were not only more conservative regarding ideology and policy; they were more die-hard in sentiment. They desired confrontation and looked to have their rage, grievances, and suspicions—even irrational and unfounded beliefs—validated and championed. It was a politics of feeling.”
― David Corn, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

The election of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States stunned many people in the United States and around the world, including many lifelong Republicans. Countless Americans were asking how the conservative movement had evolved into a tribalistic populist movement that put Donald Trump in the White House. Even conservatives were shocked by the atmosphere of white nationalism, sexism, and meanness of spirit that seemed to have taken over a large segment of the U.S. population. The Party of Lincoln seemed consumed by baseless paranoia, suspicions, hate, bigotry, rage, smear politics, nativism, conspiracism, anti-intellectualism, and disrespect for facts. Demagoguery had taken root, spread easily through the internet. Many of my family and friends chose to leave the Republican Party rather than be participants in what they deemed “insanity.”

Trump’s four-year tenure in the White House revealed extraordinary fissures in American society. While other presidents tried to unify the nation after entering the White House, Trump seemed to revel in the political fight. He used his presidential megaphone to criticize a long list of perceived adversaries, from the news media to members of his own administration and foreign heads of state. Trump’s outspoken nature and his willingness to upend past customs and expectations of presidential behavior made him a constant focus of public attention, as well as a source of deep partisan divisions. Then, on January 6, 2021, following the defeat of President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob sought to keep Trump in power by preventing a joint session of Congress from counting the electoral college votes to formalize the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

Author David Corn argues that Trump preyed on conspiratorial sentiments and “weaponized the delusions held by his supporters that he had originated and advanced.” “It was as if they were infected by a psychosis,” he writes. But he also argues that this fanaticism was not a new phenomenon in the Republican Party, but “a continuation of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with extremism.” He contends that “no one person—not even Trump—could have engineered such a profound rupture on his or her own.” The founding of the Republican Party is a noble tale, but something happened along the way that changed the party.

― “For years, the Party of Lincoln had encouraged and cashed in on paranoia, bigotry and conspiracy theory. Trump took this to a new level, but this was not a new strategy.”
― David Corn, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

Corn takes the reader back to the 1950s and the days of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, a man who engaged in baseless red-baiting. Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate for President declared “The Communists are seizing control of the New Deal through which they aim to control the government of the United States.” Republicans who controlled the House Un-American Activities Committee “held hearings designed to show that communists had taken hold of Hollywood.” Fear was becoming the main currency of the party. McCarthy had succeeded in finding a way to manipulate and amplify unease. He had struck a chord with a frightened national audience that embraced his baseless nonsense.

During Barry Goldwater’s run at the presidency in 1964, some members of the party became concerned about extremism within the party. The party was actively moving to court racist Southern voters opposed to desegregation and civil rights. The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, “was the most prominent proponent of right-wing conspiratorial paranoia.” Corn states that its “fundamental construct” was “fact-free paranoid extremism.” They were assisting the Goldwater effort. Mark Hatfield, former Republican Senator and Governor of Oregon, described what he was observing: “It spoke to me not merely of strong political disagreement, but of a spiteful kind of enmity waiting to be unleashed to destroy anyone seen as the enemy—domestic or foreign.” Former President Eisenhower “called on the GOP to reject radicalism, warning that the Republican party was ‘in real danger of subversion by a radical, well-financed, highly disciplined’ minority that was ‘wholly alien to sound and honest conservatism.’”

― “In the years between the 1964 convention and the 2021 riot, the GOP had fueled fanaticism and forged a relationship with peddlers of conspiracy theories and hawkers of the politics of hate and fear.”
― David Corn, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

The author goes through each presidential election after 1964 to show how the Republican nominees catered to extremists, sought support from racist Southerners such as South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, and exploited race and other hot-button social issues. He describes the growing involvement of Christians through Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition, the involvement of David Duke, a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, Newt Gingrich (“a vituperative, ambitious and arrogant congressman from Georgia” who was “addicted to attack politics”) and belligerent on-air personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones.

― “In short time, Limbaugh would profoundly warp the conservative movement and the Republican Party. He was peddling hate and division—albeit with a boisterous guffaw.”
― David Corn, American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

There simply is not enough room in this review to discuss every person or situation. The author provides 27 pages of source notes and bibliography to support his conclusions. As someone who voted Republican for forty years, I wanted to understand what has been happening, not only with the Republican Party but with my fellow evangelicals as well. This book answered a lot of my questions.

[John Whiting · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, I think, is an important book. It traces the Right’s desperate courting and endorsement of fringe and often utterly insane values and conspiracy theories in efforts to shore up enough votes to win elections. The monster they initially accommodated while holding their noses has now grown large and strong enough to dominate its host, forcing the GOP to embrace increasingly cruel, violent, and baseless tactics. This did not start with Trump, which this book well documents, but Trump and others before him have tapped into this dynamic for their own ends in many cases only to be devoured by it. Book looks back as far as Goldwater as as recently as Trump. It was a slog for me yo read, not so much because of its length or complexity, but because I found myself vigorously arguing with and feeling appalled by so many of the dishonest and fear-mongering tactics adopting by these desperate men and women.

[Geri McB · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fact-based book that traces modern-day Trumpism back to 1964 and Arizona Republican Senator Narry Goldwater's presidential campaign. Atlantic columnist David Corn really delves into this heartbreaking (for everyone who cares about America) story. It's a real shame no one put all this together before the 2016 election. We all spent 4+ years trying to figure out why so many people could be duped into voting against their economic welfare (or in women's case their basic rights), when the frightening answer was staring us in the face all along. Every fact is cited, many with multiple sources. All the sources are from credible news organizations. Caution: this book will turn your stomach. Even so, it is essential reading for anyone who cares about American democracy. Highly recommend.

[Deb Van Iderstine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid historical summary of the American right wing in the US throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century, with specific emphasis on the Republican party's evolution from the progressivism of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt to conservatism in the sixties and seventies, at which point the influence of the right-wing "nuts", retained in the party for their usefulness as foot soldiers, moved increasingly to the fore. From the seventies and eighties onwards, Corn supplements research with his own writings and experiences as Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones. This demonstrates a clear connection from the right-wing extremists of the early to mid-twentieth century to where the party finds itself today, showing that Trumpism is not so much an aberration as many would like to believe.

Note: I listened to the audiobook, read by Steven Jay Cohen, who did a fine job. It runs 17 hours, 32 minutes.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love David Corn's writing, and this is a very interesting topic to me. I feel like I already knew a decent amount about the arc of the Republican Party's march towards extremism, but the details of this book definitely filled in some of my knowledge gaps.

America has always played footsie with conspiracy theories and racist ideology. This goes back to the early days of the republic and fear about Illuminati and Free Masons. But it really took off when Republicans began courting the extremists and loonies, beginning with the Senator Joe McCarthy's red scare, followed by the John Birch Society, Christian coalition nut jobs (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, etc.), the media shock-jocks like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and the congressional tea party, the anti-intellectual types (looking at you Sarah Palin), and on through Trump and MAGA. And that's just to name some of the more prominent weirdos.

All of these fringe groups and people found a home with the modern Republican party, who at first was willing to tolerate them in order to get their volunteer manpower and their votes. But over time it has morphed into an endorsement of these types, and ultimately into a full-blown takeover of the party. Republicans figured out how to weaponize the paranoia and hatred of a large segment of the American population, and it in turn has now consumed them.

It is definitely a frightening book, wondering how in the world we can reverse this craziness. Still, worthy of a read for anyone looking into this fascinating and scary subject of how the Republicans went off the rails.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I have been appalled by the nastiness of politics in the Trump era. Democrats have been accused of hating America, of being communists, of being pedophiles, of being cannibals. And more. It has been obvious to me for some time that this was really an inevitable result of the politics of destruction encouraged by Newt Gingrich and carried forward from there. This book, however, does an excellent job of tracing the development of this trend from even further back. John Birch Society. Joe McCarthy. Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan. Jerry Falwell. Pat Robertson. Newt Gingrich. Rush Limbaugh. Glen Beck. Tucker Carlson. George Bush. George Bush. They all laid the groundwork for what reached a crescendo with Donald Trump. This book is fascinating and insightful. It will enrage and fascinate you. I cannot recommend it enough. I worry for our country.

[Brice Karickhoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book’s stated goal was essentially to describe the history of extremism and conspiracy theory as it relates to the Republican Party.

The book started out quite strong. It was reasonably entertaining and provided a lot of interesting color to the history of political parties in the US that I either never knew or had forgotten. I really liked the first 25% of the book.

The first real red flag for me occurred when the author gave a long description of how conservative economic policy caused the Great Depression, and then the New Deal fixed it. There is only one thing worse than when an author makes an incorrect assertion, and that is when an author makes an assertion with absolutely certainty about something that is so wildly complex that nobody with an ounce of humility and nuance would dare speak about with such self-assuredness. Unfortunately, this pattern would come to define the rest of the book.

The second half of this book was just dripping with vitriol for all things GOP. Often when I read something that is so one sided, I wind up defending things I don’t even agree with as a reaction to how unfair I think the author is being. I caught myself at one point defending Nixon’s handling of Watergate because I was so tired of the author’s straw man and ad hominem attacks (and I think Nixon was totally right to be forced out!)

My biggest takeaway from this book (aside from a few cool historical lessons about 19th century politics) was that if you define any belief system by the dumbest things that the dumbest people associated with the movement ever said or did, you’ll have an easy time tarring that belief system.

There are extremists and conspiracy theorists within every belief system. The interesting question is if and to what degree the modern Republican Party (or the Democratic Party) has become defined by those extremists and conspiracy theorists! Unfortunately, by the time the author sought to answer this question, he’d lost me.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book confirms what I had long suspected, Republicans have gone nuts. In drafting their legislative agenda, “facts no longer mattered” or perhaps worse, as Republican Kellyanne Conway puts it, there is a need for “alternative facts.” The Oxford dictionary tells us that a fact is “a thing that is known or proved to be true.” In other words, there is one set of facts, no modifications or alternatives allowed.

In American Psychosis; A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy, author David Corn takes us, slowly and methodically, through a three hundred seventy page journey down memory lane. Starting with American politics from before the days of Lincoln and the emergence of the Republican Party, Corn shows how the minority party has long courted the extreme voters. No matter how bizarre their ideas, Republicans have embraced the far right and the extreme religious leaders along with constant fear mongering about “the others.” Their “others” have consistently focused on persons of color, Catholics, Jews and, in recent years, Muslims.

With the advent of the internet, the Republican party, and their allies, have taken to a constant repeating of threats, warnings, and conspiracies. They repeat their falsehoods again and again and again until they are so familiar in people’s minds that they believe they are true.

Republicans seemingly discovered centuries ago that the human brain has a natural tendency to give weight to (and remember) negative experiences or interactions more than positive ones. Neuropsychologist Dr. Rick Hanson explains that “The mind is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” Psychologists refer to this as negativity bias. “Our brains are wired to scout for the bad stuff and fixate on the threat”.

I believe that the most important skill we learn in school is the need for critical thinking. Especially given the above mentioned negativity bias, people need to be taught how to question, analyse, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what they read, hear, say, or write.

At first glance, it would seem that people naturally question what they are told. Put a “wet paint” sign on a park bench and it seems that everyone passing by needs to touch it to make sure. Yet when an “influencer” posts an idea on Twitter some people swallow it whole. They then repost it and it gets reposted again until the original source is lost and it stands alone as “fact”.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite to democracy. American voters need to learn that “well-informed” means that all “facts” must be questioned and evaluated for their authorship and validity. Without critical thinking America will continue be lead by whatever crazy idea gets yelled the loudest.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 or so. Tough for me to say.
I listened to this trying to educate myself on a bit of relevant US history. I may have needed a bit more background knowledge beforehand because a lot of names were thrown out with small introductions that didn’t stick in my mind palace.
I’m really glad I listened to it and would even give it a second listen after a bit cause I’m sure I’d get tons more out of it. Having just finished I’m left more hopeless than when I stared but at least I’m woke now lol
Comment any recs to keep me at it.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

With his accustomed wit and intelligence David Corn explains how the party of Lincoln became the cult of Trump. He presents an appalling but tragic history of the Grand Old Party's willingness to surrender decency and principles for votes. Decades before the culture wars, the leaders of the Republican party's invited crackpots,  extremists, and conspiracy theorists of every stripe to come on down because Republicans needed the votes of their zealous adherents. Starting with Barry Goldwater's ties to the conspiracy- driven anti-communist John Birch Society, the mainstream conservative leaders saw the dangers but mostly turned a blind-eye. As time went by, ever in need of votes, both the leaders and their followers of various right-wing nuts and religious zealots were welcomed over and over into the GOP tent. These political and religious crazies came with boatloads of fact less conspiracy theories and often held racist, anti-feminist, bigoted, anti-LGTB, and/or antisemitic, and later Islamophobic, beliefs. Some went so far as to say gay people should executed. Aw shucks Ronald Reagan infamously opened his campaign in Noshoba County Mississippi ,where civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been murdered, and visited an SS cemetery in a trip to Germany. With the dirty tricks of Nixon and Bush political operatives came unchecked toxic rhetoric that had real consequences In heated and polarizing environments. Nixon's silent-American construction workers routed peacefully demonstrating students with the violence we would see again on January 6th. From the beginning, many of these conservatives were vehemently anti-government. In the 20th century militia leaders were sometimes coddled and both Oklahoma City bombers, McVeigh and Nichols, had ties to militias. (Even today the threat of domestic terrorism is not treated as seriously as the threats posed by international terrorism.) Leaders of the religious right often voraciously demonized those who didn't buy into their heterosexual conservative Christian belief system. Newt Gingrich, taking lessons from these conservative Christian brothers, turned the usual us and them of American politics, into a one-sided holy war in which the Democrats went from opponents to followers of Satan. Seeing re-election slipping away, the principled Bush II allowed Swift-boat liars to vilify the heroic and honorable service record of his opponent and he gave right-wing gay-hating Christians prominent roles in his government, legitimizing their bigotry. Even John McCain sought support from the bigots on the religious right but ultimately rejected endorsements unchristan clergy including a notorious anti-Catholic preacher. Most GOP Presidental candidates, from Goldwater on, ignored the bigotry, paranoia, preposterous lies, refusing to shutdown these distasteful allies. Their bargain with the devil and saw their base grow, a base that was increasingly separated from reality and that embraced paranoia, insane conspiracy theories, and extremist viewpoint. Mainstream conservative leaders were tea partied and others retired.

The GOP's Faustian bargain was abetted by the growing right-wing media from bombastic Rush Limbaugh ,Glen Beck, Fox News. The rise of the Donald's political fortunes was also made possible by the less than critical attention he garnered by regular media. 


The GOP's long flirtation with and use of the crazy for political advantage prepared the way for DJT who gave an approving voice to and galvanized the dark side of American society. He was different because he espoused the lies and bigotry upfront and was able to harness the anger and grievance of millions of White-Americans who felt themselves and their country threatened by a changing and diverse population. Lies in service of political victory became Trumps tens of thousands of lies and unsupported suppositions. Millions of Americans now live in a delusional fact-free universe. Uncounted millions of Americans died unnecessarily of Covid.  His power, his voters, and his mean-spirted vindictiveness successfully shut down any real pushback from Republican leaders. Only a handful of elected Republicans ultimately stood against him.

Insurrection, election denial and a peaceful transition of power threatened our democracy. Corn lays out the entire despicable story and strongly destroys any claims of parity. What about the Democrats does not fly. 

This is a good sobering political read.

[Hpnyknits · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important historical account of the manipulative tactics employed by the GOP to win elections, based in fear mongering, racism and ignorance.
Most horrifying- current situation, when the GOP lost control of its leading monster.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I enjoyed most about this book was looking about at the mid-20th century and seeing the seeds of extremism that were sown. We rarely talk about things like the John Birch Society in our history classes (unless you were in mine), but it's important that our students know that extreme ideas do not simply appear out of nowhere.

[Alan Hoffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too damn depressing. Realizing how the GOP has been repeating the same lies and slinging the same BS culture war for 70 years. It should give every American pause, but it won’t.

[Bonnie McDaniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read the basis thesis of this book before--that over a period of decades, the Republican Party has slowly been drawn into the thrall of its extremists and kooks--but I haven't seen such a concise and well laid out timeline until now. David Corn is a respected journalist for Mother Jones magazine, and in this book he goes back to the roots of the Republican Party and how they have always turned to white supremacists, racists, and conspiracy fearmongers to gain power.

In going over this history, it's interesting (not in a good way) how nothing has changed. For instance, in talking about Barry Goldwater's presidential run from 60 years ago, the comment is made (p. 72):

They were, though, in the business of exploiting the anger of extremism. Russ Walton, a Goldwater ad man, described the campaign's strategy for reaching voters: "We just want to make them mad, make their stomach turn, take this latent anger and concern which now exists, built it up, and subtly turn and focus it."

And from p. 113/114, regarding the Nixon years:

Nixon's triumph was no salve for the grudges and malice that animated his politics. A few weeks after his triumph, he told his aides: "Never forget, the press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy. Professors are the enemy. Write that on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it."

Sound familiar? A certain recent former President said similar things all the time.

Of course, this culminates in the terrible presidency of Donald Trump, who said out loud all the things the GOP had been insinuating for decades. But the case is made here that the problem was not so much Trump--though he certainly did his fair share of damage--but rather the base voters who succumbed to the mindset of resentment and grievance and the party apparatus that enabled and sucked up to them. From p. 331:

To be a Republican was to be a Trump devotee, and that meant accepting Trump's propaganda about the election. This became the party's loyalty oath. Trump would endorse only adherents of the Big Lie and those who shared his quest to undermine democracy. He vowed vengeance against those who would not carry this banner. The GOP candidates who parroted Trump's lies tended to win Republican primaries. Adhering to the truth often meant a death sentence in Trump's GOP. As Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an autocracy expert and history professor at New York University, observed, Trump had transformed the Republican Party: "He's changed the party to an authoritarian party culture. So not only do you go after external enemies, but you go after internal enemies. You're not allowed to have any dissent."

Perhaps the 2022 midterms dampened this Trump cult and its adherents a bit, but they're still out there, as we saw during the recent State of the Union address. I have no idea what it will take to solve this problem, but this is an engaging and absorbing account of what's gone wrong with the Republican Party.

[Ed Stoddard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is the link to my review: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/artic...

[Alison Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I swear to the Lord above, the next time I hear a Democratic official or pundit say something like "This isn't your grandfather's Republican Party" I'm gonna whack them upside the head with a copy of this book.

[In the interest of totally unnecessary full disclosure: I worked for Mother Jones many years ago, where David Corn is the DC Bureau Chief. I was in circulation and development in the San Francisco office, and met him a handful of times when he came out for board meetings and such. Obviously that has nothing to do with my review, but...you know. There you go.]

Man, what a fucking ride it was reading this. I mean, sure, it's a bit preaching-to-the-choir with me--I already knew the GOP is and for a very long time has been off the damn rails. But seeing everything laid out so clearly and succinctly and with such meticulous detail still had my eyes bugging out of my skull numerous times. Especially in the early portions where Corn details things that happened decades before I was born, where I had some basic knowledge of the shell of the situations but not much understanding of the intricacies. At points, my brain was almost going into defense-mechanism mode, wanting this to be fiction. But of course, it is all too real, and shows little signs of abating, even despite the pathetic trickle that the predicted 2022 red wave became.

The conspiracy theories and bigotry and cruelty in which the modern GOP proudly enmeshes itself is absolutely nothing new. The specifics might be different, but the underlying themes and aims are two sides of the same coin. The same racist, homophobic, antisemitic, sexist, power-hungry, spite-fueled coin. (Let's call it...shitcoin.) And all along the way, once the Republican establishment realized that they could win elections by exploiting bigotry, they have gleefully done so with nary a care for the ripple effects. QAnon is new, but the reason for its emergence and the support for its continued existence by a disturbing number of elected GOPers is over a century in the making. Time and again, they could have repudiated the rabid portion of their constituency, a portion which began small and has metastasized to nearly engulf the whole, and they didn't. Sometimes in the past, candidates or Congresspeople might have offered milquetoast public dismissal of certain groups or people, but always behind the scenes they were still courting their favor, genuflecting before them as they jettisoned their shame and self-awareness to win elections.

The embrace of so many people who I have zero compunction calling insane (seriously, read this book and tell me some of them weren't batshit crazy--you simply cannot be as detached from the Earthly plains of reality as these people were and claim sanity) by people in power has had a deleterious effect on the nation for decades, to the present point where, despite claims that TFG is over and no one wants him anymore, we absolutely know that if he does well enough in the primaries, every single fucking Republican in office will chase after him like a puppy running behind a car, and beg and preen for his attention and praise. Corn deftly lays out the case that the current rot in the GOP has been festering for generations, the stench of which cannot be excised when the leaders claim not to smell anything. I especially appreciated his work to show the two-faced behavior of so many of them, including ostensible non-kooks like George HW Bush and Mitt Romney, who wanted to wear a badge of moderation while draping their arms around the shoulders of the fringe.

Corn's writing is excellent (he can really turn a phrase when he wants to), and this is extremely accessible and readable, and I would honestly plead with certain members of the GOP to read it. Not that I think it would do a damn bit of good--despite their claims of being besties with Jesus, they all long ago sold their souls to the devil in exchange for staying in power and sticking it to everyone they dislike. (I mean...I'm a fucking Jew and I'm more Christ-like than these people.) Absolutely incredible work here, highly recommended.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A line runs from the 1963 Convention to Trump's riot."
"Trumpism didn't start with Trump."

Corn takes us thru the history of the United States and shows us extremism has always been part of who we are, starting with Salem Witches. Trump didn't rise from the seafoam like Botchelli's Venus. He was formed from the psychosis that is America and the morphing Republican party. This book is exhaustive and demoralizing and enlightening. As I read, I collected the names of the players who show up over the decades...all culminating in the "unrestrained extremist in chief," Donald Trump.

Corn takes us thru the 50s, to the aftermath of January 6, 2021. And players pop up again and again. Yes, there are the presidents, but much more interesting and frightening, are the folks on the edges of the photographs, or just outside the margin. People whose names we know, but people we were unaware of their power. Foundations and Unions and Committees and Reviews. Christian Nationalists who made more and more of an impact. Media names who inserted themselves into policy.

Ike v McCarthy. Nixon and Wallace and Colson. Clinton v Gingrich. Reagan North and Atwater and FAlwell and Thomas. Limbaugh, Carlson, Perot, Robertson, Ralph Reed, Franklin Graham, Falwell. I remember these folks, I know their names. I was unaware of their deep hold on leaders of the Republican Party. And the long-term damage they have done.

I took notes with names...I highlighted and connected the names thru the administrations. I made a list of organizations...and, frankly, I wept. We were asleep. And we are paying the price.

I am not sure what happens next. Goldwater confronted Nixon and told him it was time to go. Who will stand up to #IndividualOne and tell him we are moving on? Who will be the next GOP demagogue? Is he or she lurking on the edges now? Probably.

[Chris Friend · Rating 1 out of 5]

The writing here is mediocre. It’s clear and easy to follow, but it feels more like a list of events than any explanation or narrative.

But I’m really writing this review for any audiobook readers. This is among the worst-produced audiobooks I’ve ever heard. The narrator uses horrible, near-monotonous inflections that are particularly unhelpful with quoted material—it’s impossible to hear where the quotes begin or end. For nonfiction, that’s a big deal. The reading tone is so pedantic that listening gets tedious, and we have to pay more attention to the sentence structure so we can parse what’s being said—the reader doesn’t help with that.

Adding insult to injury, there are occasional spots where a sub comes in to read a sentence that must have gotten flubbed on first reading. These occasional, random, mid-paragraph dubs are made by a different narrator, meaning the speech character and quality changes for no reason and with no warning. And the worst part? The narrator who reads these occasional sentences is notably better than the baseline material for the text, making me wish the backup reader would just take over, read the whole dang book, and end the misery.

By 20% into the book, that hoped-for swap had not happened, so I gave up. I don’t need the literal headache this listen produced.

[Cynthia Wylie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you would like to know why the Republican Party went crazy (and they did), this is a dispassionate (like newscasters used to be), thoroughly researched and masterfully written book. I only took umbrage with one observation: categorizing Republicans as either in the cult of DJT or greedy corporate types. I think there are Republicans who detest Trump, but they would rather vote for him than Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or any other Democrat. They just vote Republican every election, year in and year out. If you read one political history book this year - let it be this one.

[Patrick Bair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to say, I'm of two minds on Corn's book. As one who is fairly well versed in recent political history, the latter part of the book was fairly unrevealing. I'd read it all before.

That said, the preceding chapters were very interesting and educational regarding just how the Republican Party came to this turn. For instance, I often wondered how the progressive party of Lincoln had become the conservative business party of Coolidge and Hoover? Or what were the origins of the Party's right wing takeover by groups like the John Birch Society? Corn's history on this and more is very informative.

[John Daniell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn’t overly impressed. Corn makes some interesting points that I hadn’t heard before, such as how Republicans capitalized on anti-Catholic bias after the Civil War and thus tying the party to conspiratorial thinking since it’s infancy. However, the book seems to be more of a history of the John Birch Society and seems to overestimate its influence. Not a bad read, but Tim Alberta and Heather Richardson (whom he quotes in the book) do a better job of illustrating how we got to this moment in Republican politics.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Corn's research is impeccable- I see no incorrect facts or statements. It is both enlightening and disturbing. Any political observer will know the broad brushstrokes of McCarthyism, Nixon's Southern strategy and the like. But, Corn gives a very complete and detailed history. ''Psychosis" is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how the US got to its present state. A rigorous civics course by itself!

[Isham Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing in David Corn's new book wasn't already known, but he pulls it all together and his history of the GOP makes for an excellent page-turning refresher course. What's indisputably clear is that the Republican Party is and has long been (at least since the 1950s) thoroughly, unremittingly evil, and there's not much hope for the USA as long as it continues to exist. If this sounds rather stark, go back to school and read the book.

[James M Sutton Jr]

I strongly suspect if Mr. Corn is given the opportunity to vote for Donald Trump for president in 2024 hew ill forego that opportunity (with gusto !) He has proved Emperor Trump had few clothes to begin with, but the book proves conclusively after 2020 Trump has no clothes at all. The book lays Trump naked. The denuded Trump is not a pretty sight.