The United States of Paranoia

I’m still reading Kolakowski, putting pieces together regarding my recollection of Marxist debates, when I was waylaid by Jesse Walker’s The United States of Paranoia. It was just too tempting, and a hundred pages in, too much fun. It’s a history of how conspiracy theories — some of which turn out to be true! — take hold of the public imagination and political debate.

I’ve always had a weakness for conspiracy theories, since I never trust official or consensus explanations of events. No doubt at times I’ve gone too far. I don’t think Oswald murdered JFK, but I doubt the existence of Bigfoot (though it would be awesome).

Walker’s book is a comprehensive historical account of conspiracy theorizing in the U.S. since colonial times. I’m not much taken with his analytical typology. The strength of the book is in the stories, not in their classification. It’s a useful guide to how absurd notions bubble up from popular ignorance, sometimes encouraged by entrepreneurial types with malign motives, that go on to have actual political impact. It’s the roots of MAGA and the foundation of Trump’s campaign.

I like one of his central points, that such theorizing by legend and the famous work of the illustrious historian Richard Hofstadter (“The Paranoid Style in American Politics”), is by no means confined to the political fringes. That was Hofstadter’s way, his own conspiracy if you will, of stigmatizing the radical left. We could say it was an ancestor to “horseshoe theory”: that the extreme left and extreme right are not so different from each other. (They are.) A ringing example of an establishment conspiracy theory, that Saddam Hussein was somehow in cahoots with Al Queda, helped to touch off a regional conflagration. More generally, any imperialist aggression is usually justified by a potted tale of conspiracy. Per Putin, Ukraine was dominated by Nazis and NATO agents. (One out of two . . . ?)

The early history of conspiracy tales taking hold in the population is also a history of random con men and con women taking advantage for ordinary financial benefit. These days such people have blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, and Tik Tock, but the same sort of thing goes on. Hysterical accusations attract monetizable eyeballs.

Rumors of conspiracy can lead to horrific violence. I made a case for that regarding the 45th president. Though released a decade ago, Walker’s book is timely. Let’s hope it doesn’t get more timely.