At one point in the not-so-distant past, the words “democracy” and “America” were seemingly synonymous. Since the 2016 election, the American political landscape has experienced dramatic democratic backsliding and the resurgence of a political style that Richard Hofstadter famously called “the paranoid style”, a process exacerbated under the second Trump administration. From the delegitimization of dissent to the increasing engagement with partisan media, signs of democratic backsliding are measurable and dangerous.

This essay not only draws from Hofstadter, but upon media manipulation in Nazi Germany, serving as a cautionary tale. Patterns of repression, propaganda, and the undermining of institutions are not unique to the past, they are actively unfolding in 21st-century America. The Trump administration’s attack on free speech, particularly dissenting rhetoric, and the opposition as a whole, parallels these cases and is a telltale sign of a democracy’s transition to an authoritarian form of government.

Paranoid Politics 

Hofstadter notes that the paranoid style as a recurring pattern in the American political scene, writing: “The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there…but that they regard a ‘vast’ or ‘gigantic’ conspiracy as the motive force in historical events (29).” This is precisely what led to Trump’s political rise as his repeated references to the “deep state” sabotaging his presidency and electoral manipulation has undermined institutional legitimacy. This type of rhetoric pits the upper elite against the people, and as a populist style executive, Trump has equipped this language to strengthen his position as the leader of the people. Trump uses this political style to frame his opponents as traitors, delegitimizing the Biden administration at his most recent inaugural address. This rhetoric sets the foundation for framing an illegitimate opposition, and Hofstadter warns that the paranoid style tends to “[traffic] in the birth and death of whole worlds (29),” undermining any semblance of nuance. The Trump administration has only intensified its crackdown on political disagreement, continuing to frame dissidents as traitors to their nation. 

Media Control in Nazi Germany and the U.S. 

Following WWI, the Weimar Republic suffered significant political instability, creating a perfect opportunity for Hitler to capitalize on the rise of mass media. After the Nazis won a majority in the March 1933 elections, Hitler quickly consolidated power and immediately implemented anti-semitic policies. Before Hitler’s rise, radio began to spread as the main form of mass media in the early 1920s, and he took advantage of this to spread propaganda and to continue pushing anti-Semitic rhetoric. A study conducted by Adena et al. (2015) collected data on radio access to estimate the effects on local election outcomes in Weimar Germany. 

Under dictatorship, exposure to the radio increased support for Nazi policies, particularly in places where antisemitism was already rampant. The correlation between media and political ideology was paramount to the regime’s consolidation of power. 

While the U.S. media landscape remains formally independent, Donald Trump has developed an informal and powerful alliance with conservative news outlets, Fox News in particular. This association has created an echo chamber where dissent is reframed as disloyalty, and those who dare to speak against the government are shunned. Trump’s appointment of former Fox executives, such as Bill Shine, and his communication with Sean Hannity, is not extreme in a totalitarian sense, but a more muted attempt at internal institutional breakdown.

The United States has long considered Israel an ally in the Middle East, and while it has tried to facilitate diplomatic negotiations between Israel and Palestine, it is clear that under the Trump administration, pro-Palestinian sentiments are not welcome. As Hofstadter observed, the paranoid style depends on “a sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy (3).” For example, Fox News coverage of the recent Jewish Voice for Peace pro-Palestinian protests has delegitimized contention by pushing an anti-Semitic narrative, blatantly ignoring the presence of Jewish activists. Trump’s media narratives tend to follow a pattern of framing things in a mutually exclusive binary struggle, eroding the integrity of the media as an institution. 

The Road Ahead

Democracy’s doom is often slow in many cases, but when compounded with the spread of anti-democratic rhetoric in mass media, democracy faces a significant threat.  Hofstadter’s analysis poses a significant warning not only for the U.S. but for democracies around the world. The danger of Trump’s actions is amplified tenfold when it becomes the new normal. If the United States wishes to maintain a strong, free, and fair democracy, the people must present a united front across partisan lines.

Sources:

 Hofstadter, Richard J. 1964. The Paranoid Style in American Politics. 

Trump’s 1st State of the Union: Will he have a plan to reform the “deep state?”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-inaugural-address-takeaways/story?id=117898140

 Adena, Maja, et al. “RADIO AND THE RISE OF THE NAZIS IN PREWAR GERMANY.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 130, no. 4, 2015, pp. 1885–940. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26372641. 

 Mayer, Jane. “The Making of the Fox News White House.” The New Yorker. April 24, 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house.

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