American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

by David Corn

Overview

#1 New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia.​

A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, American Psychosis offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party’s interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections—and how this led to Donald Trump’s triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right.
 
The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was no aberration. American Psychosis shows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right.
 
The gripping tale in American Psychosis covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation’s discourse and threaten American democracy.

"[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I'm so glad he's done a super-readable, modern history of the right...We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now...[American Psychosis] is perfectly timed...Relevant history for where we are right now." —Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show

"With American Psychosis, David Corn 'did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.’" —Lawrence O'Donnell, host, The Last Word

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781538723074
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	132,028
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

David Corn is a veteran Washington journalist and political commentator. He is the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and an analyst for MSNBC. He is the author or co-author of four New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 bestseller Russian Roulette, Showdown, and Hubris, and the author of the novel Deep Background.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Two Mobs 1

Chapter 1 Backstory I: The Rise and Decline of the Grand Old Party 11

Chapter 2 Backstory II: Fear and Loathing in America 24

Chapter 3 The General and the Scoundrel 39

Chapter 4 No Good Birchers 50

Chapter 5 In Your Heart 63

Chapter 6 Keeping the Kooks Quiet 77

Chapter 7 "Bring Us Together" 90

Chapter 8 Ratfucking America 101

Chapter 9 "Make Them Angry" 114

Chapter 10 Onward Christian Soldiers 125

Chapter 11 Let's Make America Great Again 136

Chapter 12 Reaganland 146

Chapter 13 Morning (and Nazis) in America 157

Chapter 14 Not Kinder or Gentler 168

Chapter 15 Spiritual Warfare 175

Chapter 16 The Clinton Chronicles 192

Chapter 17 A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy 203

Chapter 18 Fortunate Son 218

Chapter 19 What We Deserve 230

Chapter 20 Going Rogue 245

Chapter 21 Feed the Beast 257

Chapter 22 The Fever Doesn't Break 275

Chapter 23 "I Am Your Voice" 289

Chapter 24 Very Fine People 305

Epilogue: The Aftermath 324

Acknowledgments 339

Source Notes 343

Bibliography 357

Index 371

Editorial Reviews

10/03/2022

Corn (Russian Roulette), the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Mother Jones, documents in this colorful and persuasive treatise “the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with extremism.” After sketching the party’s abolitionist origins, Corn details the rise of McCarthyism and President Dwight Eisenhower’s decision—out of fear it would cost him votes—to omit from a 1952 speech a paragraph defending Marshall Plan architect George C. Marshall from McCarthy’s attacks. Subsequent Republican presidents similarly sacrificed principle for political expediency, Corn argues, including Ronald Reagan, “an amiable vessel for a message of fear” who refused to repudiate the ultraconservative John Birch Society; George H.W. Bush, who “flirted with racism and nativism” during the 1988 presidential campaign; and his son George W. Bush, who responded to John McCain’s victory in the 2000 New Hampshire primary by speaking at Bob Jones University, “the citadel of extremist fundamentalism,” in order to attract the evangelical Christian vote. Throughout, Corn draws incisive profiles of Stuart Spencer, Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes, and other Republican operatives who “encouraged and cashed in on extremist paranoia, bigotry, and conspiracy theory,” and draws a clear through line from the rise of Barry Goldwater to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Though it covers familiar ground, this incisive political history persuades. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

David Corn’s AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is essential reading for anyone hoping to restore political sanity in America. He argues convincingly that the toxic brew of bigotry, conspiracy theories, and lies that define Trumpism started long before Trump. Corn chronicles the Republican Party’s decades-long slide into the gutter and weaves this investigative history into a compelling narrative that is equal parts horrifying and entertaining. Corn has managed to make brilliant sense of American senselessness.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money

“In this searing and deeply reported work, Corn recounts how the modern GOP succumbed to the extremism, alternative realities, and paranoia that spread the ‘American psychosis’ that exploded on January 6. A desperately important read.”—Charlie Sykes, author of How The Right Lost Its Mind

“David Corn makes the powerful case that Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere. He expertly traces the antecedents of Trump and Trumpism over the decades. This is a must-read if you want to understand what brought us to Trump and why the GOP remains a threat to American democracy.”—Jennifer Rubin, columnist, the Washington Post

“AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS requires us to revisit the dark forces that have shaped our government and charges us to safeguard American democracy from those who inflame our worst instincts to destroy it.”—Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history, Boston College

“The hatred, bigotry, conspiracism, paranoia, and rage inside the GOP didn’t start with Donald Trump. In this important and convincing account, David Corn shows that such poison has been in the marrow of the Republican Party for more than seventy years.”—Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

"AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is a brave and important book, written by one of the sharpest political writers of our time."—Molly Jong-Fast, contributing writer, The Atlantic

"The genesis from a conventional party to a fanatic cult did not start with Donald Trump. The roots go much deeper and much further back. David Corn, with rich detail and in compelling prose, gives us a full history of the journey to crazy. Whether you have read a lot about the Republican Party or are just beginning to examine how the country could have come to this deeply dangerous point, AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is a must read."—Norman Ornstein, Emeritus Scholar, The American Enterprise Institute

"David Corn was at the forefront of journalism in detailing the corruption and danger of the Trump campaign and the Trump Presidency. Now, he has taken a highly useful long look back at the far right's role in Republican politics over the decades. Trump and Trumpism did not come from nowhere. There is a long back story. Corn tells it here, bringing to history the verve and energy he brings to all of his reporting."—E. J. Dionne Jr., author, Why the Right Went Wrong

"The veteran political journalist connects the authoritarianism and White supremacism of yore with the Trumpism of today... It’s a zigzag line indeed, but Corn makes important connections. ...A sobering look at the ideological destruction, born of cynicism and opportunism, of a once-principled party.”—Kirkus Reviews

"David Corn’s new book chronicles how Republicans themselves made the MAGA Monster that now devours their party. Every modern Republican, Trump supporter or not, has been complicit in this nightmare"—Elie Mystal, correspondent, The Nation

"[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I'm so glad he's done a super-readable, modern history of the right...We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now...[AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS] is perfectly timed...Relevant history for where we are right now."—Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show

"With AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS, David Corn 'did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.'"—Lawrence O'Donnell, host, The Last Word

"David Corn “documents in this colorful and persuasive treatise ‘the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with extremism.’…[Corn] draws a clear through line from the rise of Barry Goldwater to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot….[I]ncisive political history.”—Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

2022-09-06
The veteran political journalist connects the authoritarianism and White supremacism of yore with the Trumpism of today.

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 and were shouted down by supporters of Barry Goldwater, who said that “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Corn’s vivid narrative starts there, but it 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 indeed, 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,” he writes, and substituting Trump for Nixon makes that sentence scan without a hitch. 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.”

A sobering look at the ideological destruction, born of cynicism and opportunism, of a once-principled party.

Kirkus Reviews