Right-Wing Conspiracy Thinking Predates Trump

President Donald Trump spent two weeks struggling to expel himself from the scandal that has become known as “Epstein’s files”. A conspiracy claims related to high-level government officials, democrats and wealthy financiers of covering up on how Jeffrey Epstein died-and to hide a supposed list of powerful customers who participated in sex trafficking and sexual players-was a major topic in MAGA tools for years.

When Trump seemed to block the version of Epstein’s files, and even denied that there was anything essential to reveal it, large parts of the Maga world turned against him. Tensions escalated to the point of describing Trump supporters “stupid” and “fools”.

The story is still revealing. At the present time, Trump may seem to survive the repercussions through a series of political maneuvers and pressure enough Republicans on Capitol Hill to support him. Speaker Mike Johnson went to the point of starting an early August holiday in July, to ensure that the Democrats will not have the opportunity to suggest legislation that requires the Ministry of Justice to release all its information.

Whatever the result, Epsin’s controversy remains one of the most difficult internal political challenges that Trump faced, and a blatant reminder of right -wing conspiracy policy within the Republican Party.

While many commentators attribute the rise of the conspiracy speech within the Republican Party to Trump, the political style has deep roots in the right of the right.

To understand how This style of deeply integrated policy through the veins of right -wing policy, we must start with one of the most insightful historians, historian Richard Hofstadter.

In November 1964, in the same month that the Republican senator Barry Goldotyter faced President Lindon Johnson in opinion polls, Hofstadter published a similar article in Harper Magazine Entitled “The style of great greatness in American politics”. In it, he said that there is a special style of politics that has found strong support all over the history of the United States, which “raises a feeling of hot, recovery, and conspiracy imagination …”

When determining the style of bone, Hofstadter explained that in it, “the enemy was clearly identified: it is an ideal model of slag, a type of unethical superman-everywhere, everywhere, strong, harsh, sensory, loving.” “The fate of the conspiracy in terms of conspiracy – that he evaded the birth and death of entire worlds, full political orders, and full systems of human values. He always runs the beads of civilization. He lives constantly at a turning point.”

The negotiation was impossible in this global view because everything was a battle between good and evil. The enemy, in the mind with great greatness, “controls the press” with unlimited money. In a revised version of Harper Hofstadter added that the article published in a book is that the conspirators claimed that the conspirator was “gaining strangling the educational system.” Equally important, this form of political thinking began with “large -scale provisions” before it revolves in something much broader and less motivated.

After following the history of the style with greatness-another time in “lighting” in the nineties of the nineteenth century, the anti-Masonic movement in the 1930s turned, and the anti-Catholicism throughout American history-until the period in which he lived: the Cold War. During the fifties of the last century, at the height of McCarthy, Hofstadter saw how conspiracy thinking had a strong grip on the right. Senator Joseph McCarthy and his supporters-fiery wings organizations such as the John Bersh Association (founded in 1958), and conservative radio dialogues-have supported them by neglecting fear and anger through conspiracy allegations. The tactic key was taking parts and pieces of information that was proven to be correct, then all kinds of claims and allegations revolve from those known facts to the arguments that have no basis in anything other than the mind with the madness of greatness.

In a different article, Hofstadter argued that the Gold Water campaign had increased the younger practitioners of the style of greatness, such as John Stormer and Filis Shalafli, who sold millions of books warning against “Secret New York makers” who have fermented republican policy.

Hofstadter was not alone with his evaluation. A number of scientists in the fifties and sixties wrote about the increasing reservation that the conspiracy policy was among the conservative circles – closer to the prevailing Republican politicians than they were ready to recognize them. In his edited books on the radical right, it was first published in 1955 The new American right Then he called a revised version in 1963 Radical right, Sociologist Daniel Bell and his colleagues also explored this topic. The authors, who included Hofstadter, have identified the Americans to the so -called “Status anxiety”, individuals exposed to fears that their position was taken from others, as a major audience for these arguments.

The members of the administration of President John Kennedy were also concerned about the radical right, and in 1963, Kennedy issued the instructions of his advisor, Mayer Feldman, to study this issue. Feldman found that the radical right was not marginal as many liberals assumed. Extremist -related organizations spent up to $ 25 million annually on spreading their beliefs. The main institutions and companies funded the movement. The right -wing propaganda has been deployed among the army. More importantly, Feldman found that these forces have ties with the prevailing conservative movements and the Republican Party itself. “The radical right is a tremendous power in American life today,” Feldman wrote, and it was “more successful, political, which generally realizes.”

Since then, historians have confirmed that supporters of conspiracy thinking have been a tremendous presence among conservatives. For example, in his wonderful biography of Lili F. Bacqueli, Sam Tannhyus casts a new light on the proximity that Buckley had to this kind of extremism at the height of his career.

Therefore, when Trump took advantage of this method when he entered the national scene with the Bathir movement, its political foundation was based on a tradition with very deep roots in the Republican policy. What made Trump different is that he became president.

Certainly, no You do not have a monopoly on conspiracy. In many points in the history of the United States since World War II, thin arguments have emerged around the right of right -wing activists and even some elected officials. in The era of reform, Hofstadter highlighted how conspiracies were common among populists in the nineties of the nineteenth century who were fighting for small farmers.

But what was noticeable in recent decades is how this type of speech has moved to the top of the Republican policy. Unlike the previous periods, when Republican presidents such as Dwight Eisenhower pushed back against right -wing extremist forces, with the realization of making them harm the conservative cause, Trump moved in a completely different direction. The conspiratorial discourse embraced instead of taming it, and warned of the “forged” media that manipulated the news and liberals funded by George Soros who defended the far left. The promise to “drain the quagmire” of the corrupt actors who claimed the national policy of its control. Trump sent signals to support Qanon conspiracy theories and social media figures welcomed these circles. During the peak of the roaming epidemic, he inflated unnecessary allegations about causes, treatments and injuries numbers without concern about his effect. His comfort with conspiracy became essential in his attacks in the 2020 presidential elections, where he was accused, without evidence, that the vote was “forged”. In Mar-A-Lago in 2022, he hosted a supporter of Pizzaate, a conspiracy theory about a ring that is heading towards children run by Democrats using the pizza joint in Washington as a base of its home.

With a conservative media environment that creates a huge space for these types of conversations, Trump has a lot to work with them more than supporters of the style madness in the fifties and sixties. With its attacks on autonomy and financing for higher education, he tries to undermine knowledge institutions that offer one of the best antidote to the younger Americans for this type of discourse.

Hofstadter also argued with communism, who agreed to form an international threat and needed to verify this despite criticizing the conspiratorial discourse on this issue, today there are very serious issues at stake with Epstein, who was convicted of horrific crimes.

In fact, understanding the strength of the conspiracy policy within the right, does not mean that there can be no reality based on their claims – including the possibility that President Trump tries to cover up information about his relationship with Epstein.

However, the specific methods in which the issue was discussed in a large part of the Maga world has taken the form of a paranoid style. They insisted on a concerted and coordinated process through various institutions and pockets of elites (ranging from the Ministry of Justice to prison guards, all with a clear political agenda), which fit conspiracy nails. They assumed assumptions about the reason for hindering the information and hinted that the person was in contact with Epstein, who inevitably participated in his sexual crimes. In this global view, anyone who immediately wonders the plot becomes part of the plot.

Trump, who has flourished by taking advantage of this political tradition at the highest levels of power, has learned that he could not control it easily. Unless this method is installed to enhance its position, it can even be a victim of its influence, to become a focus, rather than the warrior against the conspiracies that many of his followers believe to put civilization to some extent.

It is not surprising that Trump responded to his attack for conspiracy by trying to get the attention of the audience on other conspiracies, including his unfounded accusation that President Obama acted in ways of betrayal in 2016.

While Democrats jump on this issue, and they feel a great political opportunity, they should be careful about doing this cautiously and being wise about how they deal with this temporary alliance with the Maga Alliance. In the world of conspiracy policy, even one of the main supporters can become the accused quickly. Trump may escape this tour, but now he sees that he can become a victim and not the hero if he is not careful.