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

Description

#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. Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Introduction: Two Mobs Chapter 1. Backstory I: The Rise and Decline of the Grand Old Party Chapter 2. Backstory II: Fear and Loathing in America Chapter 3. The General and the Scoundrel Chapter 4. No Good Birchers Chapter 5. In Your Heart Chapter 6. Keeping the Kooks Quiet Chapter 7. “Bring Us Together” Chapter 8. Ratfucking America Chapter 9. “Make Them Angry” Chapter 10. Onward Christian Soldiers Chapter 11. Let’s Make America Great Again Chapter 12. Reaganland Chapter 13. Morning (and Nazis) in America Chapter 14. Not Kinder or Gentler Chapter 15. Spiritual Warfare Chapter 16. The Clinton Chronicles Chapter 17. A Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Chapter 18. Fortunate Son Chapter 19. What We Deserve Chapter 20. Going Rogue Chapter 21. Feed the Beast Chapter 22. The Fever Doesn’t Break Chapter 23. “I Am Your Voice” Chapter 24. Very Fine People Epilogue: The Aftermath Acknowledgments Discover More About the Author Source Notes Bibliography Copyright Title Page Dedication Contents Chapter 1: ‘I’m thinking’ – Oh, but are you? Chapter 2: Renegade perception Chapter 3: The Pushbacker sting Chapter 4: ‘Covid’: The calculated catastrophe Chapter 5: There is no ‘virus’ Chapter 6: Sequence of deceit Chapter 7: War on your mind Chapter 8: ‘Reframing’ insanity Chapter 9: We must have it? So what is it? Chapter 10: Human 2.0 Chapter 11: Who controls the Cult? Chapter 12: Escaping Wetiko Postscript Appendix: Cowan-Kaufman-Morell Statement on Virus Isolation Bibliography Index