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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Communication

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San Jose State University

Journal

Richard Hofstadter

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Tale Of Two Paranoids: A Critical Analysis Of The Use Of The Paranoid Style And Public Secrecy By Donald Trump And Viktor Orbán, Andria Timmer, Joseph Sery, Sean Thomas Connable, Jennifer Billinson Feb 2018

A Tale Of Two Paranoids: A Critical Analysis Of The Use Of The Paranoid Style And Public Secrecy By Donald Trump And Viktor Orbán, Andria Timmer, Joseph Sery, Sean Thomas Connable, Jennifer Billinson

Secrecy and Society

Within the last decade, a rising tide of right-wing populism across the globe has inspired a renewed push toward nationalism. Capitalizing on an increasingly chaotic public sphere, leaders are stoking fear in their constituents such that their radical ideologies and hardline policy decisions may be enacted. This article offers a comparative study of two leaders exploiting the vulnerabilities of their respective citizenries: United States President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán. Drawing from and reimagining Richard Hofstadter’s germane essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” we argue that both represent a new manifestation of the paranoid style as …


#Whitegenocide, The Alt-Right And Conspiracy Theory: How Secrecy And Suspicion Contributed To The Mainstreaming Of Hate, Andrew F. Wilson Feb 2018

#Whitegenocide, The Alt-Right And Conspiracy Theory: How Secrecy And Suspicion Contributed To The Mainstreaming Of Hate, Andrew F. Wilson

Secrecy and Society

This article considers the relationship between “hashtag activism” as it is currently being used by the alt-right and the tendency to draw on conspiracy theory that Richard Hofstadter identified as being prevalent among what he termed “pseudo-conservatives” half a century earlier. Both the alt-right and Hofstadter’s “pseudo-conservatives” can be characterised by a pronounced populist nationalism that understands its aims as protecting a particular way of life whilst drawing on an aggrieved sense of injustice at being conspired against by an unseen enemy. That this “enemy” is typically foreign in actuality or in spirit confirms the cultural dimension on which their …