A few years ago, in this column, I proposed a moratorium on drive-by references to historian Richard Hofstadter's classic essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Too often, pundits invoked the title of that Goldwater-era exploration of right-wing fringe politics without giving much attention to the essay's actual content, let alone the context in which Hofstadter wrote it.
How the fringe right went mainstream
A look back at Hofstadter's take on McCarthyism.