American Psychosis

 

David Corn, “American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of how the Republican Party Went Crazy,” 12 Hatchette Book Group, 2022, 337 pp..

Psychosis: a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations.

Author David Corn connects the authoritarianism and White supremacism with a portion of the Republican party, something prevalent at least since the time of Goldwater.

At the 1964 Republican National Convention, liberal Republicans tried to introduce a resolution to condemn the extremism of the John Birch Society and Ku Klux Klan, they were shouted down by supporters of Barry Goldwater, who said that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Corn’s narrative starts there, but the psychosis goes back much further, to the anti-immigrant Know-Nothingism of the 1850s, where the author locates the beginnings of a recurrent theme: Just as Abraham Lincoln could not disavow the nationalists because he needed their vote, Richard Nixon had to ally with racist Southerners, and George W. Bush had to pal around with Christian fundamentalists to win the 2000 primary against a more principled John McCain. In turn, McCain turned to Sarah Palin to placate far-right, tea party supporters, a group that morphed into the Trumpists of today. It’s a zigzag line, but Corn makes important connections. “Nixon attained the presidency by exploiting the paramount divisive force in American society—racism—and the sense of fear and dread spreading through much of the nation.” Much of the “psychosis” of recent years has hinged on a long pattern of lies. While the author makes clear that Trump is master of the form, he had plenty of predecessors, from Joseph McCarthy to Palin’s winking insinuations that Barack Obama was a Muslim, the latter yielding what Corn calls Palinism, “a combination of smear politics, conspiracism, and know-nothingism.” Since then, it’s only gotten worse. “Formed 168 years earlier to save the nation from the expansion of slavery,” writes the author, “the Republican Party, now infected with a political madness, is a threat to the republic.”

My Notes:

Pg. 22f:  In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy in a speech claimed to be holding in his hand a list of 205 state department personnel that were communists.  That was a lie.  McCarthy was apparently referring to a 1946 letter from then-Secretary of State James Byrnes noting that the department’s screening of 4,000 employees transferred into the agency had found 284 employees who were deemed not suitable for permanent employment and 79 of them had been dismissed.  That left 205.  (Many of 284 separated was because of homosexuality, not communism.)

Pg. 44:  In reality there were few communists in the US.  From 1950 to 1951 the number of Communist Party members had fallen from 43,000 to 32,000.

Pg. 24:  The 1690 Salem Witch trials marked a delusional panic that occurred in the Massachusetts colony during a time of economic tension and increasing rivalry between Salem Village and the more affluent Salem Town.  More than two hundred people—mostly women—were accused of scheming with Satan.  Nineteen of the women were hanged before it was found to be just a big mistake.

Pg. 99:  Decades after Nixon’s resignation, evidence turned up in notes from Haldeman that Nixon used a back channel to the South Vietnamese government to sabotage the Vietnam peace talks then underway.  Nixon feared a breakthrough in negotiations would give Humphrey a winning boost.  So Nixon secretly conveyed a message to Saigon to hang tough and not cooperate, suggesting it would get a better deal during a Nixon presidency.  This act of treachery worked.  The peace talks foundered, and the war continued.

Pg. 113:  Despite Nixon’s overwhelming 1972 victory he told his aides, “Never forget, the press is the enemy.  The press is the enemy.  The press is the enemy.  The establishment is the enemy.  Professors are the enemy.  Write that on the blackboard 100 ties and never forget it.”  (The Watergate hearings would begin in 1973.)

Pg. 177:  In 1987 Reagan had killed the Fairness Doctrine, which compelled holders of radio and television licenses to present contrasting views on matters of public interest.  Freed of this burden, radio stations could sign up people like Rush Limbaugh without fretting about providing equal time to a liberal perspective.  In Congress, a new member of the Republican leadership, Newt Gingrich, echoed Limbaugh’s efforts to delegitimize liberals and Democrats.

Pg. 234:  In the summer of 2002 Vice President Dick Cheney publicly stated, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.  There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”  Yet no US intelligence analysis had reached that conclusion.  Cheney was making it up.

Pg. 304:  Trumpism didn’t start with Trump.  The party had frequently relied on racial resentment and patriotic animus to power its way into office.  Sometimes it had done so behind a veil of euphemisms and smiles.  Yet with Trump, the party exchanged a dog whistle for a megaphone.  Trump had openly displayed bigotry, validated hatred, and fueled paranoia and xenophobia.  He had unapologetically engaged in demagoguery and spread disinformation and fear to rally and rile up supporters.  He had emboldened extremists and kooks.  He had encouraged and exploited the worst elements of American life. 

Pg. 312:  On April 18, 2019, the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller’s final report of his Russia probe.  Muller did not uncover evidence that Trump and his campaign had criminally conspired with the Kremlin’s attack on the 2016 election that was waged in part to help Trump.  But the report included damning findings: The Trump campaign tried to collude with Moscow, sought to benefit from the Russian attack, and aided and abetted Putin’s operation by echoing and amplifying Moscow’s false denials.  It documented multiple contacts between Kremlin operatives and associated of the Trump Campaign, showed that Trump had lied about his business dealings in Russia when he ran for president, and revealed numerous Trump attempts to obstruct the investigation. 

Pg. 315:  On July 25, 2019, Trump called Ukrainian president Zelenskyy.  Zelenskyy requested more Javelin anti-tank missiles that could be used in his country’s fight against pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.  Trump replied that he would like a favor.  He then referred to a baseless conspiracy theory related to the Russia investigation that claimed Ukraine, not the Kremlin, engineered the cyber break-in of the Democratic National Committee computers in 2016 and that the DNC servers had been whisked away to Ukraine to cover up the real story.  Trump then also pressured Zelenskyy to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Pg. 323:  On election night, shortly after 2:00 a.m., Trump appeared in the White House and launched his latest and most dangerous conspiracy theory.  He declared the election was a ‘fraud.’  Citing no proof, Trump claimed the vote count was being rigged against him. 

Pg. 326:  Months since the election with his false claims, the Republicans collected hundreds of millions of dollars.  Casting him aside would be a blow to GOP finances. 

Pg. 329:  After Barr resigned in disgust at Trump’s refusal to accept his loss, Trump pressed the Justice Department to announce that the voting results were fraudulent, telling acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to state “the election was corrupt ad leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” 

Pg. 330:  Prominent Democratic officials have generally not accused Republicans of conspiring with sinister global forces to cook up clandestine plans to purposefully destroy the US from within.  The GOP has proffered that argument regarding Democrats for more than seventy years.