Politics & Government
“[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#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. Read more

 

Genre Politics & Social Sciences