Posted on 09/05/2009 5:34:12 PM PDT by mdittmar
Forty-five years ago this November, political historian Richard Hofstadter published a provocative essay in Harper's Magazine entitled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," in which he argued that our nation "has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds."
Hofstadter, a widely celebrated professor at Columbia University who had just won a Pulitzer Prize for his book "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life," was then confronting both the ghosts of McCarthyism and the more immediate significance of Barry Goldwater's candidacy for president of the United States. Hofstadter was particularly concerned about assessing "how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority."
"I call it the paranoid style," Hofstadter wrote, "simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind."
In many ways, Hofstadter's prescient essay anticipated the entree of Sarah Palin into contemporary American politics, that last month marked the one-year anniversary of her failed candidacy as the Republican vice presidential nominee. During the past year, the former governor of Alaska has tapped into a narrow, albeit tenacious, strain in the national polity that stretches back to the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The lefties sure are scared of Sarah Palin.
I’m not sure they are that scared as much as they need a whipping person to keep their groups mobilized. Palin serves that purpose at the present time, imo.
Palin has a smile on her face every time I see her. She believes in America. How is that angry? Compare that to the always angry Barry Zero and his spouse.
Anytime they need readers that use Sarah as a topic. They are such hypocrites and they know it. It’s someone they would love to hate but just can’t seem to get enough of her.
I want them to be afraid of Sarah Palin and afraid of the rest of us who love this country and will not give it up.
Oh they’re scared,scared about 2012,their socialist agenda is going down the toilet.
I can't wait until C4P destroys this later.
Remember when the left loved moms,wasn’t patty murray was “just a mom in tennis shoes”;)
“paranoid style of politics”??? this would not be akin to branding ANYONE who disagrees with emperor obama as a racist- would it??
Hofstadter would have had a field day with the 9/11 Truthers, the Bush Lied, People Died chanters, and the “Dick Cheney started the war in Iraq for Halliburton” nutcases. For some strange reason the author seems to fantasize that it only applies to conservatives.
Oh they’re scared,scared about 2012,their socialist agenda is going down the toilet.
Oh that maybe true that they are afraid of their agenda going down. I just don’t think Palin will necessarily be the one to defeat them in 2012. But she serves at this time as a good focal point to keep their groups on point.
However, if there wasn’t an element of fear involved, I don’t think she would have been selected as their “wipping person”. The left’s need to continually keep her basking in a negative light shows fear to me. Imo ;-)
This is just made up.
He just wanted to say Salem Witchtrials, they have no relevance.
He just wanted to say >”Palin is all about small ball. While she has big personal ambitions, her political vision is both narrow and attenuated. She knows nothing about reaching out, and everything about cutting off. Expand the GOP as Reagan did? Hell no. She’s all about shrinking it.”< if that had a shred of truth in it how could a Governor like that get a 93% approval rate, the highest in the nation?
This is Junior High stuff.
More importantly she is keeping our groups on point, she has emboldened conservatives and is forcing the rinos to be a little more fearful and hesitant.
No doubt. They get real squirrelly at the mere mention of her name.
Perhaps paranoia is the best way to keep the lefties in check. Ordinary tactics haven’t proven too effective.
Interesting the author brought up the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692,weren’t two of them named Sarah;)
Basically he was an idiot with no sense of scale or proportion.
However, if there wasn’t an element of fear involved,
I think I agreed their was fear. My point is she is a good focal point at this time because of her standing with the right wing. But that said I’m not sure Palin is the one who will be selected in the nomination process come 2012.
The left is always scared. They’re surrounded by sane people.
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