Every single person I know is troubled by what is going on in the politics of the USA. Political life in Canada is not perfect by any stretch, but at least, or so I believe, it has so far escaped the profoundly bitter and antagonistic nature of the divides in the USA — over guns, race, economic inequality, and the way people vote.

For whatever reason, I woke up in the middle of the night and recalled a book I had once read, one written by the American historian Richard Hofstadter. entitled The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It’s a book that explains a lot, because, here we are, more than fifty years later, and the paranoid style of American politics is still around, more virulent than ever. As Canadians, let’s do our best never to go down this path.

Here’s a link to the magazine article Hofstadter wrote before putting out the book. https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/