BOOK REVIEW: American Psychosis

American Psychosis - A Historical Investigation of How The Republican Party Went Crazy -- David Corn, 337 pages (388 pages including notes and index)

American Psychosis covers the evolution of electoral strategy within the Republican Party from its formation in the 1850s to the present. In its three hundred and thirty seven pages, author David Corn draws out three key areas of consistency across all of that history:

• the presence of conflicting core goals from the party's inception that repeatedly complicated attracting independent voters as political winds shifted decade to decade, yielding razor thin election wins rather than landslides party leaders felt they should have achieved or deserved
• a consistent presence of paranoid, fantastical, truth-denying fringe elements who were always available to provide extra votes if the party core could stomach dealing with them
• a consistent pattern of party leaders and front-runners choosing immediate expediency over long-term principals -- choices that not only starved legitimate issues of the attention they deserved but instead lent credence and financial support to fringe elements, mainstreaming those fringe ideas not only within the Republican Party but the general public

Here is how Corn summarizes his thesis for the book in the first chapter:

There are no Big Bangs in history. No events that materialize -- or explode -- out of nothing. January 6 seemed a break from the past and from the nation's political reality. But no person -- not even Trump - could have engineered such a profound rupture on his or her own. This was an instance of a man meeting a moment shaped by the actions and inactions of others over a lengthy stretch. The GOP had long played with and stoked the fires of extremism for political advantage. It had encouraged and exploited a psychosis. This sickness reached an apotheosis on that cloudy and chilly winter afternoon. Yet it had been years in the making.

For reasons to be addressed later, this book won't serve as an educational aid for those holding the fringe beliefs now crippling the ability of the United States to tackle real problems. The nature of their belief system is antithetical to "book learnin'" and -- as often said -- it is easier to fool an ignorant person than it is to convince an ignorant person they've been fooled. For those that have yet to sail off the edge of a flat earth, the book is a useful read because it corrects a false (wishful?) belief that current problems with extremism and sheer kooksterism appeared from nowhere or could have been caused by a single person. Reading this history raises additional questions about more universal problems with human psychology, social / economic / military unrest and power that merit public debate.

Rather than attempting to recap the entire book, this review will only summarize a few of the more important or less known aspects of the history that underpin the key bullets above. An outline of questions stemming from this history will be provided along with some analysis / opinion.

Conflicting Goals from Inception

The first key point made in the book is that at its founding, the Republican Party combined two political interests that today are typically seen as politically opposed. One faction focused improving economic fairness and bolstering key national assets like railroads, public universities and ending slavery. The other faction focused on helping business and the wealthy through tariffs, tax breaks, friendly regulation, etc. Neither of these policy areas were well matched to Democratic Party tenets at the time so these factions had nowhere to go but the new Republican Party.

This dynamic created perpetual power struggles within the party and they began IMMEDIATELY after the Civil War and Lincoln's assassination as Andrew Johnson became President and fought most actions aimed at assisting newly freed blacks in the South. Each subsequent election over the ensuing decades essentially pitted the two factions against each other as the party gauged its overall prospects against the competition. If the competition was weak, both factions might get a few pet issues pushed during the campaign and subsequent legislative / executive control. If the party's position was thought to be weak, expediency would jettison anything controversial or requiring a conscience and the easy positions would be espoused.

As described in the book, the collection of issues and goals claimed by the Republican Party ceded so much centrist ground to the Democratic Party that, over time, most elections involved razor thin margins and left Republicans with little political capital to last over multiple terms to do difficult but worthy things. It also created a dependency on devising issues to turn out the factions of potential voters whose issues only found support in the Republican Party in order to win. (Sound familiar?)

Paranoia at Every Phase

Much of modern political writing from the left and the right quicky resorts to pat phrases that become an internal shorthand for true believers and true opponents alike. One of the most common shibboleths seen in writings about politics between the late 1950s to roughly 1990 involves mentioning membership in the John Birch Society. Saying it to an ultra-conservative is mentally decoded as "ah… one of US." Saying it to pretty much anyone else is mentally decoded as "ah… one of THOSE." The John Birch Society was created by candy mogul Robert Welch and eleven wealthy men (including Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries) invited to a meeting at Welch's home in 1958 to hear his theories on the forces threatening America and his plan for defeating those forces. As Welch described it, communists had a well-coordinated plan to topple America by subverting its currency, sparking racial unrest and taking over churches, unions, government agencies, etc. Even Sputnik was a distraction to convince America to focus on military capabilities instead of the subversion within. Welch's solution? Establish a centrally controlled (of course…) board of wealthy business leaders who would manage local chapters of members who would fight the subversion at the local level.

Okay, but who's the John Birch guy? John Birch was a Baptist missionary turned US military intelligence office working in China who was killed by communists within days of World War II ending. Welch wrote a glory-drenched biography of Birch earlier in the 1950s and used Birch as a martyr figure -- the first casualty of a new cold war against communism -- to hype the importance of his new organization's operations. In some sense, it was a perfect name. It was meaningless / bland to outsiders without context and to get the context, you had to be exposed to paranoid, conspiracy-driven thinking.

But the paranoid fringe wasn't introduced into American politics (Republican or Democratic) by the John Birch Society or even Joe McCarthy in the 1940s and 1950s. It can be traced back to 1798 when a prominent preacher supporting the Federalist Party and President John Adams referenced crackpot theories in a book published the year before that described a secret Masonic society called the Illuminati (ahhhh, THAT'S where THAT reference comes from…) that was -- according to media of the day -- bent on "rooting out all the religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe." The fears expressed in the book had an easily explainable origin -- the French Revolution toppled a king and scared the bejeezus out of the established order in Europe. Those European fears were Americanized and turned into fears about French operatives working with Jefferson to eliminate the "Christian underpinnings" of American's government.

The resulting turmoil resulted in the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, which every middle-school American history student recognizes as one of the first examples of truly awful legislation enacted by a country that had yet to find its civil sea legs. The same paranoia about the Illuminati was later broadened to all Masonic groups and litmus tests about being anti-Mason became core to the Whig party which eventually replaced the Federalist Party when it fell by the wayside by the 1830s.

Mainstreaming the Fringe

Throughout American Psychosis, the author provides example after example -- election after election -- of how the Republican Party's choice of initial platform issues left it feeling perpetually at risk at the ballot box, leading to short term tactics that surrendered power within the party from centrist thinkers to those on the fringes.

• while watching KKK thinking incorporated into Democratic Party platforms and tactics in the late 1800s, Republicans countered by leveraging anti-Catholicsm and anti-immigrant sentiment as a key part of protecting its base
• satisfied the KKK had sufficiently compromised the Democratic Presidential candidate selection for 1924, Calvin Coolidge refused to publicly reject the KKK on behalf of Republicans, even though he won in a landslide and had the "juice" to make a meaningful condemnation
• American First adherents influenced Republican Party decisions right up until Pearl Harbor - which was then turned into a conspiracy theory that Roosevelt allowed the attack to eliminate opposition to entering the war
• in 1952, Eisenhower was aboard a train whistle-stop campaigning IN Wisconsin WITH Joe McCarthy and failed to refute McCarthy's facts and condemn his tactics, despite the fact that McCarthy's nonsense really took root by claiming George C Marshall and his recovery plan for Europe was a conspiracy to topple the US when Eisenhower SERVED with Marshall in WWII and obviously knew Marshall to be of unimpeachable character
• after Barry Goldwater won the Republican nomination for President in 1964, party elder Eisenhower gathered party leaders after the contentious convention to drive an agreement between moderates and Goldwater ultra-conservative backers regarding how much participation fringers would have in the campaign -- the group could not bring itself to publicly condemn the Bircher fringe, Goldwater was correctly tagged as giving support to Bircher thinking and lost in a popular vote landslide
• Goldwater's loss taught Ronald Reagan to negotiate with the fringe to offer private access to power in exchange for a lower public profile that might repel other voters or drive Democratic turnout, allowing him to win the California Governor race in 1966.
• Nixon's 1968 run for President expanded the Reagan lesson by refusing to condemn racist policies touted by Independent George Wallace, essentially winking to voters that Nixon agreed with Wallace's racism but implying that voting for Wallace would only aid LBJ

There are entire chapters devoted to the evolution of smear tactics first pioneered by Lee Atwater and Roger Stone but those details are likely more familiar to most Americans and don't need summarization here. The most interesting conclusion from the more recent iterations of Republican tactics is the skullduggery isn't limited to Democratic opponents. Smearing opponents through racism and scandal is equally effective on primary opponents at all levels.

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So if people most in need of learning the lessons from this book aren't likely to read it, what IS the value of this book? If one imagines re-reading the book after substituting all references to Republican and Democrat with some other duopoly (Hobbit / Dwarve?) carrying no visceral political baggage with the words, the book triggers important questions that are not explicitly itemized or covered in the book itself.

• Are there aspects of party-driven democratic systems (election laws, federal / state segmentation, party-based legislative rules in federal / state / local government) that will always spontaneously trigger the creation of fringe movements that move harmful ideas from the edges into the core of public thought?
• Are there aspects of human psychology that will always spontaneously trigger the creation of fringe elements and their subsequent mainstreaming?
• Are these systemic or psychological predispositions (if they exist) made more dangerous with modern telecommunication technologies and mediums?
• Are there unique aspects of principles within specific parties or specific locations along an abstract, unbranded political spectrum that are more prone to being corrupted by fringe thinking?
• What can rational thinking people of all stripes do to combat this corrosive fringe thinking?

Attempts at addressing some of these questions are provided below.

Do party-based mechanisms inevitably pull bad fringe ideas into mainstream public thought?

The real value of political parties lies in their ability to find commonality among millions of ideas and boil them down to s smaller number of simple ideas that can be efficiently communicated so people can act as a group to get something done. Three hundred and fifty million Americans might have ideas on accelerating the shift from fossil fuels but it is impossible to evaluate and choose among three hundred and fifty million ideas. It's likely not possible with only twenty ideas. Parties help boil down choices to digestible options (maybe conservative = offer investment incentives to business to build electric or hydrogen vehicles, maybe liberal = impose taxes on gas guzzlers, set ever-higher fuel efficiency and pollution requirements). However, the use of parties within politics to simplify discussion of issues is equivalent to digitizing an Ansel Adams print of Moon and Half Dome -- with two bits of resolution per pixel. Two bits only allows four distinct shades -- 00, 01, 10, 11. It is impossible to preserve the nuance of an Ansel Adams black and white print with four shades -- information is GOING to be lost. Or distorted.

It can be said America has a two-bit political system -- we only have Democrat, Republican, Libertarian and (sometimes) Green denominations -- with some Independents floating between them. Once politicians win office, America is further distorted into a one-bit resolution world of (0) Democrat and (1) Republican because legislative rules make it impossible for candidates outside the two parties to control any legislative work -- minor party politicians are limited to shifting their alliances vote by vote between the two big dogs as best they can to promote their interests. In a world with very complex legal, economic, social, ecological and technical problems, it is highly likely some of the right ideas needed cannot fit into the neat boundaries arbitrarily chosen by existing parties.

By artificially constraining ideas into the brand space of a small number of parties, it becomes possible for really bad fringe ideas to become homogenized somewhat in a larger party brand while they continue to evolve and become more unhinged. Of course, it is problematic beforehand to differentiate a "bad fringe" idea that needs to be stomped out from a "fringe idea" that might avoid some future calamity by better preparing the country for some economic, social or ecological shock. Nonetheless, the risk is present and magnified by the oversimplification created by a limited-party system.

Is human psychology predisposed to conspiracy thinking and paranoia?

Centuries of recorded history would appear to make that answer a definite yes. But it is important for people to understand what drives that predisposition. It definitely starts with ignorance. It is impossible to have a rational conversation on any contentious issue if the parties to the conversation do not share a common understanding of facts. Ignorance of facts extends to ignorance of basic physical science, biology and even simple economics. Without a grounding in these areas, it is impossible for someone to appreciate the nearly infinite number of factors that affect their daily life and how uncontrollable / random those factors often are. If your life is being turned upside down in a world in which you understand virtually nothing about the forces (natural and man-made) at work, it's much easier to conclude an individual or small identifiable group is responsible / accountable and shift blame for your plight to that group.

With ignorance as a key ingredient, the impacts of all the other psychological tendencies become amplified. A generally ignorant person likely lacks any understanding of how fear distorts decision making and also likely lacks any understanding of how leaders learn to exploit those distorted decision processes for their benefit. A generally ignorant person is also likely innumerate and unable to understand the math and statistics that would otherwise help identify life-changing scams (stock pump and dump schemes for a firm with zero profits) or understand why voting for someone promising EVER LOWER TAXES won't keep the drinking water clean or rebuild seventy-year old bridges at risk of collapse in the middle of rush hour. But conspiracy theories don't require understanding complexity. They solve all problems by assigning blame to hidden, monolithic "others" operating to take away freedom and prosperity.

Is kooksterism being made worse because of unique aspects of modern communications?

The examples Corn provides in American Psyschosis begin in 1798, only ten years after ratification of our current Constitution ("U.S. version 2.0"). Those examples make it clear that the organizational names and the "others" involved with conspiracy thinking change over the decades to reflect current fears but the underlying forces blamed as part of conspiracy theories are disturbingly familiar -- immigrants, religious minorities, foreign governments, unions, communists, etc. Internet era communication tools don't seem to change the plot and actors in conspiracy stories, they just simplify their distribution.

Search engines certainly make it easier for like-minded kooks to find each other. This has the additional consequence of making such groups seem larger in footprint / influence than they really are. (Sure, WatchingTheHerd has a blog with INTERNATIONAL reach but, on the other hand, total page reads over 18 years total 11,625. Yawn.) The legitimization of anything seen on the Internet may also help convince new recruits of the voracity of the organization they found online as well as the validity of their own kooky ideas that got them searching in the first place.

Private chat rooms and "disappearing message" platforms pose more unique concerns since they aid in the communication of strategies that might stray into actual criminal conspiracy and auto-destruction of potential evidence of such crimes. On the other hand, I would bet that for every group that succeeded in hiding their tracks with these technologies, there are a dozen others too ignorant to administer them correctly and thus leave behind the best audit trail possible -- full text messages with timestamps, IP addresses and all recipients identified.

Are there unique aspects of political thought along the spectrum that make conspiracy based kooksterism more likely at some points of the spectrum over others?

I would argue it is absolutely the case that generically labeled "conservatism" is more prone to this bug than "liberalism".

• conservatism by definition leans towards preservation of the status quo over change
• preservation of the status quo predominately benefits the wealthy, that's why they want it preserved - they're already on top of the economic / social / power ladder
• the very word conservative implies a focus on keeping what one has, which mentally predisposes one to viewing all change as a zero-sum game where if others gain, I lose
• conservatives typically value individualism over group identification and tend to be suspicious of ideas promoted by large groups or aimed at helping large groups
• an affinity for individualism increases the propensity to resist control exerted by larger groups, something particularly challenging in a democracy when your candidate / party loses an election
• conservatism is more likely to expect "public goods" such as educational systems, roads, railroads, bridges, etc. to be provided by proper incentives to private entities and are thus more prone to underfunding such efforts from the public sector
• since market failures OFTEN produce underspending on such public goods, education levels of the general public may be far below optimal values, making it easier to mislead or scam the public at large
• conservative thinking, while promoting the value of the individual above the group, tends to view education as a means to ensure the individual can find useful employment as the primary goal rather than protecting the individual's independence of thought

As a broad generalization, the dynamics of conservatism seem to precondition its adherents to fear change, focus on education as a means for income only, avoid most new ideas but adopt a smaller set of ideas without much critical thought.

In contrast,

• liberalism assumes the status quo is not optimal for all and has room for improvement
• liberalism assumes the best way to imrove the status quo for the general public is to improve the rights and opportunities of all individuals
• liberalism sets the expectation that changes are not only inevitable but signs of progress rather than signs of likely backsliding to be feared
• liberalism tends to promote individualism in the context of "politically correct" group boundaries but also tends to promote education as both an economic and civic value

As a broad generalization, the underlying dynamics of liberalism seem to precondition its adherents to expect change, pursue education for use beyond mere income, seek out new ideas and critically evaluate them and toss them aside or adopt them based on a grounding in basic math, science and history.

What can rational thinking people of all stripes do to combat this corrosive fringe thinking? Can it be avoided? Can it be reversed?

This is the most important question in the near term not only for the United States but for any democracy navigating extreme economic / social / technological / demographic changes. Answering this question will require doubling the length of this commentary so an attempt at an answer will be published in a subsequent post.

WTH