This explains so damn much.
For all those who wondered how a seemingly intelligent and capable brain surgeon like Dr. Ben Carson could morph into the staggeringly uninformed, conspiracy-riddled persona of hard-right political candidate Ben Carson,
we have our answer.
[Carson] has provided one important clue as to his fundamental political worldview, by repeatedly endorsing a far-right conspiracy theorist named W. Cleon Skousen, who was characterized in 2007 by the conservative National Review as an "all-around nut job." [...]
Carson swears by Skousen, who died in 2006. In a July 2014 interview, Carson contended that Marxist forces had been using liberals and the mainstream media to undermine the United States. His source: Skousen. "There is a book called The Naked Communist," he said. [...]
Oh, Lord. He's one of those. For you youngsters out there who have never been exposed to the name Willard Cleon Skousen, think of him as a Cold War-era conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, but with about three Joe McCarthys and Glenn Beck's chalkboard stuffed inside his noggin via his ear-holes. He saw secret communists everywhere. He was convinced that Marxist forces had infiltrated Hollywood, and schools, and banking, and the arts, and architecture, and everything else you can name. He considered the American founding fathers to be descendants of "the Lost Tribes of Israel." He argued that American slaves had it pretty good, all things considered. He was certain that homosexuality was part of an elaborate plot to weaken America for the Ruskies.
In short, there's not many ridiculous conspiracy theories he wasn't an active proponent of. For all these reasons, he continues to hold disproportionate sway among the stupid and the paranoid—oh, and it doesn't hurt that Glenn Beck has been peddling him for a long while now, making sure a raving lunatic's half-century old fever dreams still get a fair shake. In general, if you're a fan of Cleon Skousen you should damn well keep it to yourself.
Skousen, who had been active in the John Birch Society, worried that communists were taking over local PTAs. "Communist influences," he wrote, "are gnawing away everywhere and thousands of confused citizens often aid and abet them by operating in a vacuum of their own ignorance." In The Naked Communist, he revealed that the Communists even had a date for ultimate victory: "Total conquest is to be completed by around 1973." [...]
And so on, and so forth. All that said, it fits. Of course Ben Carson is an avid Skousen advocate. There's no other conservative "thinker" who quite encapsulates Ben Carson's broad but astonishingly shallow and paranoia-riddled "knowledge" of issues.
Once again, it's a reminder of just how close to the surface all of the far-far-far-right's deepest conspiracy theories have risen in the Republican party. You've got multiple House Republicans who are pretty convinced the current sitting president isn't a "real" American. You've got the sitting governor of Texas ordering his staff to "monitor" the U.S. military in case their training exercises erupt into something more insidious. You've got presidential candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump attending events held by Frank Gaffney's group, a group that thinks even conservative anti-tax kingpin Grover Norquist is part of a secret Muslim infiltration of the United States. All the paranoias previously quarantined to the far right's militia groups and crank email lists have elevated themselves into the top ranks of the party and into their national elected figures. The fake tapes that were circulated by past far-right cranks to "prove" fake things with fake footage are now screened in Congress by harrumphing Republican officials who then proudly announce new proposed laws to deal with the fake "problems."
It's like the whole damn party got bitten by the Stupid bug. This makes the McCarthy era look downright staid and intellectual in comparison.