Paranoia is at the Foundation of the GOP

Pro-authoritarian & conspiracy-addled conservatives need enemies - both real and imagined

Look back one century. In 1921, the Republican Party committed to - and did - close American borders to immigrants. The GOP labeled these people from foreign lands as criminals who were incapable of being good citizens, and - in the words of Republican Congressman Fred S. Purnell of Indiana, were responsible for “the stream of irresponsible and broken wreckage that is pouring into the lifeblood of America.” By 1930, immigration was at its lowest in 100 years. The GOP celebrated that in that year’s party platform, calling those trying to come to America “criminals and other undesirable classes…(who if not blocked) would have increased unemployment among native-born.”

In 1933, a new enemy was added: FDR and the Democrats. The Proud Boys of today were no match for the paranoid conservatives of the 1930s, as heavily armed militias sprang up - people who at violent protests called themselves “patriots” fighting “tyranny.” (Sound familiar?) There were the Khaki Shirts (pro-fascism), the Silver Shirts (violent, racist Christian nationalists), the Gray Shirts (demanding the firing of “Communist college professors”) and the wealthy who funded plans to stop Roosevelt with a fascist coup called the Wall Street putsch.

The late 1940s and early 50s: China, Catholics, Jews, and an imaginary secret cabal of “enemies from within” as Senator Joseph McCarthy attacked some patriotic Americans, calling them communists bent on destroying America from colleges, the media, similar places of knowledge, and a deep state hiding within government. Late 1950s: Catholics, Jews. 1960s: The Soviet Union (a real enemy), Catholics, Jews, “socialists” advocating for Medicare and Medicaid. 1970s through 1980s: The Soviet Union. The 1990s: Bill and Hillary Clinton, “America-hating” Democrats, the “government” and the FBI that were committed to robbing Americans of their rights (a lie that resulted in Tim McVeigh’s terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, causing 168 deaths.) The 2000s: Muslims, pro-terrorism Democrats, gays. 2008 through 2016: Barack Obama, socialist Democrats, gays. 2016-2022: Completing the circle back to mostly imaginary threats: immigrants, socialists, communists, Democrats, college professors, the entire LGBTQ community, scientists, Muslims, the Chinese, African Americans (for some members of the party), Ukraine, election fraudsters, atheists, the poor, the hungry, the homeless. And this doesn’t count the 25% of Republicans who believe the central tenets of the QAnon cult: that Satan-worshipping pedophiles run a global sex-trafficking operation and control the government, media, and financial institutions. 

Throughout the 20th century, the Republican Party was built on a voter base of paranoia, one that required conservatives to rally around a series of conspiracy theories. The true leaders of the party - the rich - manipulated the fears and delusions of the conservative masses to ensure they had the votes to get in office, then push ever greater levels of wealth to themselves. We have reached the point where the GOP stands for nothing but further enriching the wealthy and fighting imaginary enemies committed to somehow destroying America in ways that range from the delusional to the insane. But now, in the 21st century, what began with the election of the first African American president and culminating with the insanity of the Trump years, the Republicans have plunged into a toxic stew of every one of its perceived enemies since the 1920s, and even some new ones. One - with one exception. Russia, the GOP’s longtime boogie man, the real enemy that kept the party sane and focused on threats from outside the United States for decades, is now perceived by the party as one of their greatest friends. 

I’m far from the first person who has recognized conservatives’ historical pathological need for enemies and conspiracy theories - character traits that make them more prone to support authoritarian leaders like Trump who pull them against democracy and toward fascism. One of the earliest works on this was the 1950 book The Authoritarian Personality, written by a team of researchers from UC Berkeley. The study found that Americans most drawn to authoritarians who use claims of enemies to rally support were white, non-Jewish, native-born, middle-class Americans - in other words, Trump’s base. They were ethnocentric with a hatred of immigrants and show a large dose of antisemitism like is found in the QAnon cult, the Groypers, and the fans of people like Kanye West. They see themselves as adhering to conventional values and crave those who portray power and “toughness” to the point of dominating their perceived enemies. They rage against those who they see as violating traditional values, they think in rigid categories and stereotypes, they project their own destructive impulses onto others, they see the world as an endlessly dangerous place, they have a hostility to human nature, and are overly concerned with modern sexual practices. What is missing is anything approaching a philosophy of effective governance - other than adoration of the wealthy.

Who does that sound like today?

The next big analysis of conservative’s obsession with enemies and conspiracy theories was written by the historian Richard Hofstadter, in the classic work, The Paranoid Style of American Politics. This was based on a lecture by Hofstadter, delivered on August 2, 1959, called "The American Right Wing and the Paranoid Style." Hofstadter said he wanted to "find a quality shared by both McCarthyism and the patchwork of grassroots organizations that, in the aftermath of McCarthy’s downfall, sustained the pseudo-conservative cause on a local level." Hofstadter labeled these post-McCarthy rightists as practicing "pseudo-conservatism," jettisoning "status anxiety" and "status politics" in favor of "the paranoid style" and "projective politics."

While Hofstadter and the UC Berkeley researchers identified the traits of fear of perceived enemies and the compulsive attraction to conspiracy theories, the 21st century has been far worse than any time in the past. Republican politicians, blessed with a black President with a foreign-sounding name, was able to tap into every irrational need for an enemy, every delusion that unified the conservative base into a fantasy world. Birtherism - with GOP politicians offering winks, nods, or outright support of the insane belief that President Obama was born in Kenya - was an easy, unifying conspiracy theory, blending the southern conservatives’ century-long hatred of immigrants, African Americans, and loss of power among the white working class. Throw in “He’s a communist,” “He’s a socialist,” “He hates America,” and “he supports the terrorists,” and the GOP base was primed by its leaders to spin out of control in its need for enemies and people to despise.

In the Obama era, no conspiracy theory was too absurd for the Republican Party and their masters at Fox News to ignore: FEMA concentration camps. Death panels. New education standards (developed by state governors but blamed on Obama) as part of an anti-Christian communist plot to turn children gay. Unemployment rates and the reported numbers for Obamacare sign-ups are lies engineered by the White House. 

And then there are those that aficionados of tracking conspiracy theories will recognize. Agenda 21 - a non-binding United Nations resolution passed in 1990 urging countries to plan urban development to minimize environmental damage. No one cared for decades until Glenn Beck - a Fox commentator - declared it a conspiracy. Then, Republicans went wild, claiming that Agenda 21 was devised to create a "New World Order" where private property would be seized to advance the causes of communism and to crush dissent. Death maps would be created to determine where people were allowed to live, some Trees would be given the same rights as humans. Electricity companies would conduct surveillance on customers. Yah, Republicans believed all of this about a 20-year-old non-binding suggestion.

And the entire leadership of the GOP made sure to keep the base riled up about the fantasy. The Republican National Committee—overlooking that a Republican president had signed Agenda 21—adopted a resolution slamming it as an "insidious scheme" designed to impose a "socialist/communist redistribution of wealth." At the convention, wild claims about Agenda 21 continued, saying the barely financed, unenforceable declaration was "insidious" and "erosive of American sovereignty."

Then there was Jade Helm 15, a standard military exercise set for 2015. Nope, that couldn’t be it to the GOP - it was a plot by President Obama to invade Texas for…reasons. Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist whose program was visited by everyone from Vice President Dick Cheney to, later, President Donald Trump, got the ball rolling. "This is going to be hellish," Jones said of Jade Helm. "This is just a cover for deploying the military on the streets…. This is an invasion" being undertaken because of an impending financial collapse and as the first step in Obama's plan to not relinquish the presidency at the end of his second term. (As mentioned above, the paranoid GOP mindset is characterized by projection.)

GOP bigwigs didn’t laugh it off. Instead, in their growing use of any conspiracy theory to unify their base, they fed into it - and often on Fox. Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor Jade Helm 15 to ensure constitutional rights and civil liberties wouldn't be infringed. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas announced he had asked the Pentagon about Jade Helm and been assured it was a training exercise; still, he said, "I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don't trust what it is saying." Republican Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas pumped the fire a little hotter, saying, "When leaders within the current administration believe that major threats to the country include those who support the Constitution…patriotic Americans have reason to be concerned.''

This wasn’t harmless goading. Just as the 1990s “government is out to get you” mantra led to the Oklahoma City bombing, the GOP’s wink-wink support for the Jade Helm conspiracy theory led to a right-wing terror plot. Walter Eugene Litteral, a conservative driven into delusions by the GOP’s need for enemies, constructed bombs with a pal to attack the military. And rumors of martial law spread, Litteral acquired ammunition for a .338 caliber rifle, handheld radios with throat microphones for communication, military issue Kevlar helmets, body armor vests and cloth headgear designed to expose only parts of the face. A third conspirator joined up, agreeing to help build pipe bombs. But the attack never took place. Someone Litteral approached for help instead alerted the FBI, which arrested the men on August 3. A near miss that, without doubt, the GOP would have blamed on Democrats had it succeeded.

This is not meaningless. The easy use by GOP leaders and their media outlets of enemies and fear creates a cracked country where delusions are on equal par with reality. "These kinds of theories have the effect of completely distorting any rational discussion we can have in this country,'' said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

More important, with their giggling dependence on fake enemies and conspiracy theories, GOP politicians created the perfect environment for the elevation of Trump. His endless lies about immigrants, the media, and Democrats could not be combated by facts; just like with other conspiracy theories, belief could not be overturned by reality, and in fact attempts to educate the deluded with truthful information only serves to drive conspiracy theorists deeper into fantasy. 

Even in the earliest days, the Republican base was drawn to Trump and his conspiracy theories - which first attracted attention with his pushing of birtherism. But then came the rest: Barack Obama wiretapping Trump Tower; Muslim Americans celebrating the 9/11 attack; global warming as a Chinese hoax; vaccines causing autism and wind farms causing cancer; the Clinton family orchestrating financier Jeffrey Epstein's suicide; Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia dying by mysterious means. And all of this being connected by a shadowy, “deep-state” conspiracy that successfully hides evidence of its existence. They grew worse as his power in the White House solidified: Obama supported ISIS, secret crimes committed by Joe Biden on behalf of Ukraine, Ukraine manipulating the 2016 election in collaboration with Democrats, the reported death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria were lies pushed by Democrats, violent protesters funded by billionaire George Soros., claims that the emerging COVID-19 pandemic was the Democrats “new hoax,” declaring that COVID deaths were overcounted to make him look bad. Late in his term, the conspiracy theory that COVID was a hoax, vaccines for the disease implanted microchips and killed people, “they” were withholding effective drugs like Ivermectin, COVID was created by an international cabal of scientists led by Dr. Anthony Fauci, and on and on. Then, of course, the big one: The 2020 election was stolen through fraud, involving voting machines flipping votes, illegal aliens casting ballots, voter impersonation, ballot box stuffing with fake votes. This should have been no surprise, given that in 2016 - when Trump won - he claimed that traditional democratic states where he lost had been overwhelmed by fraud. And the “every Republican loss is caused by fraud” conspiracy theory that is lapped up by the base continued into 2022, with the most prominent proponent being Kari Lake, the GOP candidate for Arizona Governor who has screamed “fraud!” for weeks with no evidence.

The problem here is that almost nothing will stop the GOP’s growing dependence on conspiracy theories about imaginary enemies. It has become the party’s crack cocaine - addictive, easy to use, and effective with an anti-democracy, pro-authoritarian base. Worse, beginning with Rupert Murdoch, wealthy media moguls found there were enormous riches to be gained by feeding Republican voters with endless conspiracy theories and enemies, fueling a rage addiction that led the party faithful to watch nothing but Fox News and other parts of the conservative media bubble. 

The enemies now? Democrats, a group they flat-out say are evil beings who want to destroy America from the inside. That message is pushed endlessly by the Fox Newses of the world, based on repeated lies and cherry picking. And wrapped within that are assorted conspiracy theories that bring in every other enemy that keeps the GOP blood boiling, all of which they attribute to the all-purpose boogie man, the Democratic Party: Illegal immigrants crossing into America because President Biden opened the border, LGBTQ people who “groom” children, politicians who hate America, want to ban Christianity and discriminate against white people, and are engaged in a vast conspiracy to steal elections.

This all matters. The lies of the GOP and Fox - all to keep the base terrified of imaginary enemies - has already resulted in the murder of abortion providers, police, gay and transexual people, and others. Then there are the death threats to election officials and members of the media, and the plots to murder FBI agents; these are all a consequence of the Republican strategy to keep playing into the base’s need for fictional enemies, who these days are supposed to be conspiring with Democrats. 

To Republican politicians, it seems, it’s all fun and games. But make no mistake: More people will die. The anti-government, anti-FBI conspiracy theories killed in the Oklahoma City terror attack, the pushing of the Jade Helm lies almost led to the murder of our soldiers, and the LGBTQ “groomers” lies have led to murders of members of that community. Make no mistake, this demonization of Democrats is almost certain to result in a mass murder. And then Republicans will rush onto Fox News to blame the Democrats for having been slaughtered.