One theory is that we are in the grip of something new and terrifying that has never before happened: The rise of an American autocrat.
Another theory is that what we’re witnessing has deep roots in American history, and has been building for years.
Historian Richard Hofstadter, in his classic 1964 work offered an eerily accurate description of 2019 politics.
You can read the book here.
Hofstadter conducted a thorough review of American politics from before the founding of the nation through McCarthyism and noticed a pattern among a small impassioned minority on the fringes of the political spectrum.
He called their behavior the “paranoid style” in politics.
The paranoid style afflicts radical movements on the left as well as the right.
During the McCarthy era and then Goldwater campaign, Hofstadter concluded that paranoid elements were no longer contained on the far right wing fringes. After Goldwater’s defeat, Hofstadter noted that some of the worst distempers of American democracy and become “a formidable force in our politics” and quite possibly, a permanent one.
He also writes about “those who had moved from the paranoid left to the paranoid right.”
Those embracing the paranoid style of politics believe that unseen satanic forces are trying to destroy something larger in which they belong.
Hofstadter mentions that the paranoid style exists on both the far left and the far right fringes of the political spectrum, but he spends most of the book discussing the far right wing.
(This could be because the rise in this branch of psychology arose in an attempt to understand the wave of fascism we saw in the 1930s and 1940s, and because Hofstadter himself was writing just after the McCarthy era)
According to Hofstadter, the “something larger” to which they belong is generally phrased as “the American way of life.”
They “feel dispossessed” and that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind.”
They are “determined to repossess it and prevent the final act of subversion.”
They therefore adopt extreme measures. They will stop at nothing to prevent what they see as an impending calamity.
This is what Harvard Prof. Levitsky calls “hardball tactics.”
These apocalyptic warnings arouse passion and militancy: The evil enemy must be destroyed—and the fight must go beyond the ordinary “give and take” of politics.
In other words, hardball tactics, even if it means ignoring norms and laws.
In 1992, Newt Gingrich captured this frustration—and call to militancy—when he said Republican must resort to any means necessary.
For more on how the GOP morphed from a conservative to an anti-democratic authoritarian party, click here.
“Any means necessary” naturally leads to the kind of obstruction of justice and general cheating and lawbreaking we’re seeing now— and the odd spectacle of a major political party shielding a lawbreaking and lying president.
(As an aside, Hofstadter points out that the paranoid style exists on the far left as well as the far right.)
Keep in mind that those with a paranoid style (on the left and right) exert power beyond their numbers. This makes sense given their militancy and willingness to break rules, and the general appeal of demagogues.
This raises the question: Where do we go from here? How do we neutralize the threat to democracy posed by those with authoritarian leanings?
Harv. Professor Levitsky and Columbia law prof Pozen suggest anti-hardball tactics. If you missed that post, click here.
It’s easy to see, given the paranoid style, that trying to fight fire with fire is likely to burn down the place. Put another way (or maybe to extend the metaphor) when you’re sitting on a powder keg, it’s better not to do anything inflammatory.
Again, Prof. Levitsky makes the argument for avoiding hardball better than I can.
What happens next? Most likely, the Democrats take the issue to the courts, and they’ll win.
This week demonstrated that the courts are not caving in to Trump. Gamble v. U.S. didn’t come out the way many people expected, and the Supreme Court delivered a win to the Democrats in Virginia.
In the best of times, Democracy is slow, grinding work.
Levitsky and Ziblatt discuss the slow grinding work of democracy in their book👇
It’s easy to lose patience with the process, but democracy is worth a little patience.
We’ll get there, but not as quickly as people want.
Remember: Part of the democratic process is to make your voice heard. Last weekend I marched for impeachment and gave a speech at the Santa Barbara rally.
I’m saying don’t lose faith in the process if things take longer than we wish—and some things people are demanding as a way to speed up the process may be allowable, but perhaps too inflammatory, so not necessarily advisable.
Notes: Pseudo-Conservative Revolt: Distinguishes true conservatism from right wing recklessness like McCarthyism. Although the new right-wingers masqueraded as conservatives, they actually expressed a “profound if largely unconscious hatred of our society and its ways.”
They called themselves conservatives to enhance their political respectability, but they wished to destroy far more than they wished to conserve. In rejecting compromise, they would only settle for total victory. (Notice that he wrote this before Newt Gingrich)
Class or economic theories could not explain the right’s fevered attacks on the Supreme Court and the United Nations, as well as the income tax and social welfare legislation. Nor could economic self-interest explain why pseudo-conservative fervor gripped so many lower-middle income households, whose lives would suffer if the right wing extremists prevailed.
He noted that pseudo-conservatives exhibited an angrily authoritarian temperament that was especially compelling in times of acute political anxiety.
He talks about how groups are mobilized against supposedly sinister foes, including the authority of the post-New Deal federal government.
