The GOP's American psychosis didn't start with Trump. It won't end with him, either.
Republican Party has enabled an American psychosis, says David Corn. And it didn't start with Trump news or the latest Trump rally or January 6 or Qanon.
This piece has been adapted from "American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy,” by David Corn.
Nelson Rockefeller stared into a sea of hate.
Standing at the podium of the Republican National Convention of 1964, the 56-year-old patrician politician who symbolized dynastic American power and wealth was enveloped by waves of anger emanating from the party faithful. Delegates and activists assembled in the Cow Palace on the outskirts of San Francisco hurled boos and catcalls at the New York governor.
He was the enemy. His crime: representing the liberal Republican establishment that, to the horror of many in the audience, had committed two unpardonable sins. First, in the aftermath of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, these turncoat, weak-kneed Republicans had dared to acknowledge the need for big government programs to address the problems and challenges of an industrialized and urbanized United States. Second, they had accepted the reality that the Cold War of the new nuclear age demanded a nuanced national security policy predicated on a carefully measured combination of confrontation and negotiation.
Rockefeller’s crime: representing the liberal Republican establishment that, to the horror of many in the audience, had committed two unpardonable sins.
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