The end of the Cold War was an unmitigated disaster for the Republican Party.
The fervent opposition to Communism, along with a desire for lower taxes, smaller government, and 'family values,' was the glue that kept various factions of the GOP together to win presidential elections. Above all, from the disgraceful days of the McCarthy Era in the late 1940's to Ronald Reagan's campaigns in the 1980's, painting the Democratic Party as "weak on defense and national security" was the mantra employed by many a Republican candidate. More often than not, it worked.
And then in the early 1990's, the Cold War ended not with a bang but a whimper. After George H.W. Bush's defeat in 1992 and through Bill Clinton's two terms as President, the question that vexed many a political strategist in the GOP was: what's a Republican to do?
Enter another age of paranoia in domestic politics.
What is paranoia?
Paranoia is a disturbed thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat. In the original Greek, παράνοια (paranoia) simply means madness (para = outside; nous = mind) and, historically, this characterization was used to describe any delusional state.
An article in Harper's Magazine by Scott Horton captures the essence of the strategy employed by the Republicans over the past several years. The author gives several recent examples of Republicans portraying themselves as "victims" and under unfair attack by their critics. Rather than apologizing for their missteps, Horton points out that what we often hear from these people is: "I’m being persecuted."
- In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, the senior Republican in the U.S. Senate, Ted Stevens, says "This paper has done nothing but try to assassinate me."
- Fox News’s John Gibson, one of the most partisan and venomous figures on the airwaves, accused Democrat John Edwards of having "whored his wife’s cancer as a fundraising gimmick". When he drew criticism over this, he responded that "[t]he war on Gibson is real" and that "it is pursued everyday by the people who just can’t abide by what you hear on this radio program."
- Karl Rove, in some of his parting comments, stated that he was "Moby Dick" and that "we’ve got three or four members of Congress who are trying to cast themselves in the part of Capt. Ahab."
Columbia University Professor
Richard Hofstadter
What are the roots of this political strategy? Horton points towards a very influential article first published in Harper's Magazine in 1964 by Columbia University political scientist, Richard Hofstadter -- 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics.' Hofstadter, writing just before the 1964 Presidential Election in which Republican nominee Barry Goldwater and some of his supporters were being portrayed as irrational radicals, wrote
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
More than four decades later, Barry Goldwater seems downright moderate (or, at the very least, a principled conservative) compared to the inept clowns who've been running our government the past seven years. Nevertheless, it is useful to look at this "paranoid style" and its key elements.
A key element of this style of politics is to see the world in absolute terms ("relativism" in the minds of such people being a Democratic weakness) of good vs evil in which no triumph is final until and unless good prevails over evil. The greater the frustration level in achieving these objectives, the higher the level of paranoia amongst its practitioners. Using Hofstadter's article as a guide, Horton highlights some key steps in the evolution of such a political strategy
- Constructing the Enemy -- creating a convenient target to be demonized and an enemy to be countered is an important first step
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving... The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. [Note: How often have we heard from conservatives that "Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Union?"]
- Copying the Enemy -- Hofstadter referred to this as "psychological projection," in which the enemy is presumed to possess extraordinary powers to destroy us and, thus, we must prepare and arm ourselves to act in our self-defense [Note: Reminds me of the "weapons of mass destruction" argument made by Neoconservatives prior to the Iraq Invasion and the hyped-up talk of nuclear Armageddon to come if Iran were to develop nuclear weapons]
The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery... The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through "front" groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.
This phenomenon is restricted not just to the United states, the most famous example being the rise of nationalism and militarism in Germany from the Bismarck Era to the defeat and demolition of the Third Reich in World War II. What are the consequences of such an approach? Hofstadter describes it brilliantly, not that it will deter anyone in the future from putting this approach into practice for their political gain
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
In summary, Horton seems to be warning us that the Republican Party is about to engage in a fierce effort to undermine the "patriotism" of Democratic candidates while portraying themselves -- and the country -- as "victims" of "liberals" and external threats
If we look at the radical fringe of Republican politics today, we find that the paranoid style is alive and well. It’s undergone a transformation. Obviously, the end of the Cold War and the global collapse of communism created a dilemma. Paranoid politics had been carefully constructed for decades around the threat presented by a global communist conspiracy.
By the mid-nineties, however, this model was increasingly difficult to sell. In the late nineties a search was on for a replacement. Would it be China? About the time of the hotly contested 2000 presidential election, that seemed the emerging pick.
However, as has often been said, 9/11 changed everything. With the traumatic experience that accompanied an attack, there was a quick refocusing. Islamic terrorists were quickly substituted as "the enemy," and it seems that fringe groups are quickly replicating the patterns that Hofstadter identified in 1964.
In this political season, we have seen the beginnings of a smear campaign against several Democratic candidates. From recent statements by Rudy Giuliani to Mitt Romney to Fred Thompson and others, we've already seen the outlines of a ferocious campaign of fearmongering and political manipulation to come in the next fifteen months. We should never underestimate the Republican Party's capacity to conjure up imaginary demons (foreign or domestic) to justify its continued political existence -- one that is severely threatened by the numerous and well-documented failures of the Bush Administration. They've done it in the past and, in all likelihood, will do so in the future.
The Democratic Party better be prepared for it to counter this spread of lies. Or, the Republican Party will get away with winning another political election based on the politics of fear and paranoia.
And we'll have no one to blame for it but ourselves.
(crossposted at Truth & Progress)
