Euroviews. Paranoid style of American politics should be Europe's wake-up call

“American politics has often been an arena for angry minds,” wrote historian Richard Hofstadter in Harper’s Magazine in November 1964, referring to Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential campaign.

His essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” explored a recurring phenomenon: the tendency to construct paranoid visions, identifying a nefarious enemy plotting to undermine the American ideal.

Hofstadter described this as a psychological posture – an exaggerated suspicion and conspiratorial fantasy – not a psychiatric madness, but a way of thinking embraced by otherwise healthy individuals. This critique of the paranoid style is recurrently cited when American political life, as in the (new) Trump era, is marked by deep-seated fears and extremist rhetoric.

Hofstadter’s insights resonate again with today’s political climate. In the 1960s, Goldwater stoked fears of a country in peril, legitimizing extreme measures to preserve freedom.

Fast forward to the Trump era, and we find similar rhetoric, framing political opponents as existential threats to American values. Trump’s political messaging fuelled the notion that the country’s identity and future were at stake, leading to dangerous outcomes, such as the violent insurrection on 6 January 2021.

The Capitol riot was a stark manifestation of the paranoid style in modern American politics. A mob, convinced that the election had been stolen, stormed the Capitol in a violent attempt to overturn the results, threatening the peaceful transition of power — one of the cornerstones of constitutional democracy.

This event was a reminder that political rhetoric can lead to real-world violence. These are the circumstances where constitutional structures are truly tested. The existing