The Paranoid Style

Current paranoid topics in the USA include: anything Obama; Immigration; China; the "Clash of Civilizations;" a proposed Islamic Cultural Center "near Ground Zero;" "death panels;" "the Castro Brothers;" Iran; Hugo Chávez; "mandatory door-to-door immunization;" the taking away of guns and liberties; Mexico; Russia; "PC" matters; the "threat" of gay marriage . . .  Is there anything I missed? 

Some of the currency may be changed from past decades, but the style is old hat:

Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent. . .

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. . . (Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pages 77-86).

As a whole, the peope of the United States of America are neither very united nor very sane. If anything -- to quote from Iggy "the Prophet" Pop -- We the People are more evidently "united by the glue of our loathesome qualities" than by anything else.  

Reality check: Sarah Palin is a dingbat. The Tea Party is made up of dingbats. "Dr." Laura Schlessinger is a dingbat and -- since it's so important to exercise "free speech," a hag.  Are there any other dingbats who need a good thrashing right about now?

God save this mad parade, indeed . . .

Today's Rune: Fertility.