The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays.

In developing the subject, Hofstadter initially establishes that his use of the phrase "paranoid style" was a borrowing from the clinical psychiatric term paranoid to describe a political personality, and acknowledges that the term is pejorative. Hofstadter asserts that, throughout American politics, politicians incite fear to sway voters toward a certain viewpoint. He argues that a "political paranoiac" engages in such demagoguery because they cannot accept society and seek to destroy the current order under the guise of a looming threat.