The title of this post is that of a very influential lecture by Richard Hofstadter that he gave in 1963 that was later revised and expanded into an essay and was later published in an abridged form in 1964. The full essay can be found in the collection of his essays Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. What is noteworthy is how remarkably relevant it is to what is going on today. It is a long essay and I have excerpted below just the main aspects, omitting much of the historical arguments that he provides to support his case.

We are currently living in a time in the US when we are awash in grand conspiratorial theories that are being pushed by prominent individuals, like Donald Trump about the election being stolen, to anonymous creators of fantastical ideas such as that there is a vast conspiracy of pedophiles at the highest levels of government and public life or that there is an organized movement to replace white Christians with people of color and other religions or that the Covid-19 virus was deliberately created and released and that the vaccines to combat it is also part of some diabolical plot. Going by Hofstadter, these are the just the most recent manifestations of a long-standing tendency in US politics.
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Readers may recall a recent post of mine where I described the heated emotions about the move to add a bike and pedestrian trail in the small town of Del Rey Oaks that I live in that would provide easier access to a small body of water accurately called the Frog Pond. Opponents of the move had put on the ballot an initiative known as Measure B that would have prohibited the trail and the vote was held on June 7th. Since California routinely allows mail-in voting, it takes a long time to get the final results and just this past week the official results were announced and Measure B had been defeated, which means that construction of the trail will proceed.

The result was a squeaker, with 387 ‘Yes’ votes and 399 ‘No’ votes, a narrow margin of 12 votes. Noteworthy was the fact that the total number of people who voted was 799. Since the town has a population of only 1520 with 1216 registered voters, the turn out was 65.7% of registered voters, more than twice the countywide average of 31.1%. This shows the intensity of the feeling that the Frog Pond generated. Leading up the the election, the only people who came to my door to canvass were those on both sides of this issue, not any of the candidates for office. Also, the overwhelming amount of literature that I received was about Measure B.

Of the 799 people who voted, for unknown reasons 13 did not vote on this particular issue, greater than the margin of the result. In big elections, it is is easy to feel that one’s vote does not matter and decide not to bother. It is small town elections that reveal the importance of voting.

During Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony that has been highly damaging to Trump World, committee vice chair Liz Cheney mentioned two messages that potential witnesses received before that day that contained veiled threats to pressure them to not say anything damaging to Trump and his enabling cronies. We now learn that Hutchinson was the recipient.
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Long time readers know of my antipathy towards any monarchical system. The relics of feudal systems seem to me to have no place in any Democratic society and the British royal family is a prime example of an institution that should no longer exist. Its members tend to think of themselves as above the law, as indeed they often are, using their wealth and privileged position to shield themselves from the consequences of the most shameful behavior.

For an example, one needs to look no further than the Queen’s son Andrew and his disgraceful role in the whole ugly Epstein-Maxwell affair. The latter has just received a sentence of twenty years in prison for her role but Andrew managed to settle with Virginia Giuffre the person who brought charges against him that she was forced to have sex with him while she was underage.
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The sudden scheduling of yesterday’s hearings with no clue as to what to expect made some observers think there would be something explosive. I for one thought that it might turn out to be anti-climatic but I was wrong. The two-hour session featured just one witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who was an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. I, like many others, had never heard of her before these hearings began so her sudden prominent role took me by surprise. She occupied the office right next to Meadows and just down the short corridor from the Oval Office. In her role, she was often the conduit for people who wanted to reach the president. They had to to through Meadows which meant that she was the person whom they often first contacted. As such, she was in the thick of things. Her account of the events that led up to January 6th was a must-watch occasion.

We already knew that Trump has the temperament of a petulant two-year old. What she revealed was that he has the temperament of a violent, reckless, and petulant two-year old who has been thoroughly spoiled by his parents and has a tantrum and throws food and dishes when things do not go his way.

Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Donald Trump was outraged with former attorney general William Barr for refusing to go along with the president’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

In December 2020, Barr told the AP in an interview, “To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”

Trump was so enraged by Barr’s comments that he threw a plate at a wall in the White House, Hutchinson said. She walked in to the room where Trump had eaten lunch that day to see a porcelain plate shattered on the floor and ketchup smeared on the wall.

When asked whether this was a common occurrence for Trump, Hutchinson said, “There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth.”

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I was surprised to read that Prince Charles had accepted large amounts of cash from a billionaire Qatari, apparently to go towards his charity.

Claims in the Sunday Times that Charles accepted three donations between 2011 and 2015 from former Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani – known as “HBJ” – were described as “shocking” by critics. One donation, totalling €1m, was reportedly handed over in a small suitcase and another was stuffed in a carrier bag from upmarket department store Fortnum & Mason.

The cash, allegedly then counted by Charles’s aides and subsequently collected by Coutts bank, was paid to the Prince of Wales’s charitable fund which aims to “transform lives and build sustainable communities” through awarding grants.

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