The "Paranoid Style" Redux: Leftists, Historians, and Conspiracy Theory

July/August 2008 · Historically Speaking 35 The "Paranoid Style" Redux: Leftists, Historians, and Conspiracy Theory John A. Grigg Arthur Dent, the antihero of Douglas Adams's classic science-fiction satire, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, learns that the planet Earth was but part of a 10 million -year-old computer program designed to find the ultimate question about Life, the Universe, and Everything (the ultimate answer was forty-two, but no one knew the exact question). Arthur's discovery prompts him to declare to his source, the improbably named Slartibartfast, that this information explains a great deal. "All through my life," Arthur recalls, "I've had this strange unaccountable feeling that something was going on in the world, something big, even sinister, and no one would tell me what it was." Slartibartfast dismisses Arthur's insight, noting that such a feeling was "just perfecdy normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that."1 Historians would beg to differ with Slartibartfast. Ever since Richard Hofstadter's seminal essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," historians have been confident diat paranoia is found only on die Right in American society. In recent years, however, conspiracy theory has spread from its traditional home. Today, in addition to its familiar residence on the Right, paranoia has a home on the Left and at least visitor's quarters in the academy. Perhaps the most fertile field for leftist conspiracy thinking revolves around die September 1 1 terrorist attacks. Conspiracist interpretations surfaced within days and currently range across the political spectrum. Among this mélange of views, one interpretation has a home on die American political Left In its most benign form, those who hold this view believe diat die Bush administration had prior detailed knowledge of die attacks but chose not to stop them for political reasons. In March 2002 Democratic House member Cynthia McKinney of Georgia implied during a radio interview that the administration had advance warning of the attacks, charges that she repeated in a newspaper column: "What did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered ?"' Two months later, the idea had developed sufficient cachet for Senator Hillary Clinton to refer to it from the floor of the US. Senate. Citing a newspaper headline diat charged diat "Bush Knew" A downtown Manhattan scene not far from ground zero, September 11, 2001. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division (reproduction number, LC-DlG-ppmsca-02121-0088). of the attacks in advance, Clinton asked rhetorically, "(t]he President knew what?"5 Clinton noted that the attorney general had directed Justice Department officials not to fly commercially some time before the attacks. While it seems unlikely diat Clinton believed die charge of prior knowledge, her willingness to give voice to it suggests diat she believed diat a limited public embrace of the view had political value. Indeed, in 2007 a Rasmussen Reports survey found diat 35% of self-identified Democrats believed diat Bush had prior knowledge of the attacks while a further 26% were uncertain.4 More extreme views of September 11 argue that die attacks were masterminded and carried out by the Bush administration. While not limited to Leftists, the majority of Web sites espousing such views seem to share an essentially leftist outlook. Examples of such sites are bushguiltyof911.com and Emperors-clothes.com. While these two Web sites, and many others, seem to exist solely for the purpose of exposing the "trudi" about 9/11, conspiracy thinking can be found at leftist sites widi broader agendas. For example, on DissidentVoice .org Bill Christison alleged diat an "airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon" and that the "World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to die earth because hijacked aircraft hit [it]."5 Leftist activist Carol Brouillet informed her readers that September 1 1 was "a 'Special Operation' designed to gain public support for a war by the world's richest country against the world's poorest country."4 Even democraticunderground .com, a semi-official Democrat Party Web site and emphatically...