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 Americans
Some 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 truths: 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 question: What exactly are we so afraid of?
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In this ambitious new book, Arthur Goldwag seeks to break down and isolate the uniquely American, molecular preconditions that allow Trump’s followers to believe in him with a messianic fervor that is immune to truth, science, and self-interest. Tracing a historical, cultural, and spiritual American arc that fosters and rewards paranoia, conspiracy theories, and fear, Goldwag makes the case that the seeds for today’s rabbit hole obsessions with—variously, QAnon, the Big Steal, Pedophile groomers, Satanism, and anti-Semitism—were all there at the founding, tended lovingly throughout history, and have flowered in the age of the internet, racism, demagoguery, and economic scarcity. Our paranoid, fearful, broken-brain moment is, as he suggests ‘a pure product of America.’
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Dahlia Lithwick, bestselling author of Lady Justice