![]() ![]() In his “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” (1964) - the lead essay in a book by the same name - Hofstadter offered an early diagnosis of the type of conspiratorial politics that exploded on the steps of the United States Capitol. ![]() Richard Hofstadter, a midcentury American historian and public intellectual, gives us a place to start. The case for incitement is on record or as Trump adherents repeated ad nauseam during the last impeachment: “Read the Transcript!” Yet what is much harder to explain and what future historians are likely to puzzle over is exactly how we got here - how so many Americans could not only believe conspiracies as loony as #StopTheSteal and QAnon, but could also believe them so fervently that they stormed the Capitol, ransacked the halls of our highest offices, and carried out acts of hooliganism that killed five Americans and injured countless more. His son and campaign surrogate Donald Trump Jr. At a rally with thousands of his supporters, President Donald Trump told his people to march to the Capitol his people went to the Capitol. ![]() IT ISN’T ALL that hard to explain what happened on January 6. ![]()
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