Written by David M Goodman   

Yes, the Republicans swamped the Democrats on Election Day, increasing their majority in the House and taking over the Senate. Their campaign demonized President Obama, from start to finish. They took serious problems, like Ebola and ISIS, which are mainly thousands of miles from our shores and turned them into exaggerated threats to national security. They played on the economic insecurities of Americans without offering much in the way of solutions. It was a campaign fueled less by traditional Republican sources and more by hundreds of millions of dark money from the Koch brothers and others. It was a campaign of fear and loathing – a perfect scenario for the politics of paranoia.

So, history repeats itself. Fifty years ago, in 1964, the historian Richard Hofstadter published his famous essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics.” Hofstadter captured the rabid partisanship that relies on exaggerated threats and fears of conspiracy, both at home and abroad. While not uniquely American, this style characterizes much of our history – a classic example being the Red Scare and smear campaigns of McCarthyism in the 1950s.

The paranoid style, according to Hofstadter, was not meant to describe a clinical disease but a metaphor for political movements led by zealous and partisan minorities. “Although American life has rarely been touched by the most acute varieties of class conflict,” he wrote, “it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds.”

America in 1964 seemed to confirm Hofstadter’s historic insights. We were becoming mired in a faraway conflict in Vietnam. The nation was dividing over the war and resistance to the military draft became a flash point. The year ended with the polarizing presidential campaign of Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. While civil rights and voting rights legislation would pass, the national political alignment was also radically altered -- setting the stage for our own era. The South, once solidly Democratic, has since become a stronghold for right-wing Republicans and the Tea Party. Other regions have lost their moderates and become home to political extremes too.

Does the paranoid style sound familiar today? The answer is a resounding yes. But, a big difference from 1964 to 2014 may be the sea change and effects of Big Money and hypermedia on politics.

In 1964, there were three broadcast networks and they provided the TV news. Print journalism was vibrant and on equal footing with electronic media. People relied on both sources for their news and information. In 2014, newspapers are shrinking in numbers and readership. For every Jeff Bezos there to save the venerable Washington Post, scores of newspapers will consolidate or disappear. Today, viewers receive 500 or more cable channels and cable news serves as the major outlet for 24/7 information. Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN all feature point of view journalism. The mouthpieces of talk radio, like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, command huge followings and disproportionate influence on politics. None of these media outlets gives even a passing glance at the old, now defunct, “fairness doctrine.”

In 1964, the political parties funded the primaries and general election. With this clout, the political parties and bosses mainly decided who ran for office. Today, the parties have been overshadowed by huge amounts of cash from unregulated, partisan Super-PACs and independent donors free to make virtually unlimited campaign contributions. Office-holders and candidates spend much of their time doing political fundraising for their next campaigns.

This cauldron of Big Money and hypermedia churns and overheats our political rhetoric; brings out zealous minorities to dominate primaries and limit broader choices in the general elections; and, ultimately, deprives the electorate and the country of the middle-of-the-road, consensus governments that have characterized our most effective problem-solving years.

The pundits who see the 2014 Republican victory as a move away from Tea Party extremism confuse a calculated strategy to win an election with the real change. It’s the financing of the Party and the Republican message that’s the real story. Most mainline media treat that as the back story focusing instead on this election as just another battle of Republicans and Democrats. But, the back story is THE story. The Koch brothers and their allies rule.

In the face of these powerful forces, reclaiming our representative democracy from corporate lobbyists and political zealots and their backers will not be easy – nor is it a short-time project. But, as a recent poll shows, the overwhelming majority of Americans (97%) believes that campaigns and elections have been corrupted and need reform. So, there is hope. First steps will happen through comprehensive campaign financial reform, like the American Anti-Corruption Act (www.anticorruptionact.org). This will also happen through media, in this case, social media as a form of direct democracy. Today, through social media all citizens can tell our elected representatives the changes we want and need. We can become citizen sponsors and advocates for positive change.

At the same time, never forget that the paranoid style of politics has deep roots. In 1964, Fred Koch funded the John Birch Society-- notorious for right-wing propaganda about Communist and Socialist takeovers of America. Fifty years later, his sons, Charles and David, are pumping hundreds of millions into disinformation campaigns about health care, climate change, and smears of Obama as “socialist” while secretly supporting Republicans in state, gubernatorial, and federal elections.