American Psychosis, David Corn
American Psychosis, David Corn
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American Psychosis
A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy

Bestseller

Author: David Corn

Narrator: Steven Jay Cohen

Unabridged: 17 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 09/13/2022

Synopsis

#1 New York Times bestselling author and investigative reporter David Corn tells the wild and harrowing story of the Republican Party’s decades-long relationship with far-right extremism, bigotry, and paranoia.​

A fast-paced, rollicking, behind-the-scenes account of how the GOP since the 1950s has encouraged and exploited extremism, bigotry, and paranoia to gain power, American Psychosis offers readers a brisk, can-you-believe-it journey through the netherworld of far-right irrationality and the Republican Party’s interactions with the darkest forces in America. In a compelling and thoroughly-researched narrative, Corn reveals the hidden history of how the Party of Lincoln forged alliances with extremists, kooks, racists, and conspiracy-mongers and fostered fear, anger, and resentment to win elections—and how this led to Donald Trump’s triumph and the transformation of the GOP into a Trump personality cult that foments and bolsters the crazy and dangerous excesses of the right.
 
The Trump-incited insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was no aberration. American Psychosisshows it was a continuation of the long and deep-rooted Republican practice of boosting and weaponizing the rage and derangement of the right.
 
The gripping tale in American Psychosis covers the last seven decades. From McCarthyism to the John Birch Society to segregationists to the New Right to the religious right to Rush Limbaugh to Newt Gingrich to the militia movement to Fox News to Sarah Palin to the Tea Party to Trumpism, the Republican Party has deliberately nurtured and exploited rightwing fear and loathing fueled by paranoia, grievance, and tribalism. This powerful and important account explains how one political party has harnessed the worst elements in politics to poison the nation’s discourse and threaten American democracy.

"[Corn is] a great journalist. I love the way he thinks. I love the way he writes. I'm so glad he's done a super-readable, modern history of the right...We just need smart, digestible history about this stuff right now...[American Psychosis] is perfectly timed...Relevant history for where we are right now." —Rachel Maddow, host, The Rachel Maddow Show

"With American Psychosis, David Corn 'did the full homework to take us all the way back to where it really begins.’" —Lawrence O'Donnell, host, The Last Word

About David Corn

David Corn is the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine and an analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Hubris (with Michael Isikoff) and The Lies of George W. Bush, and regularly provides commentary on National Public Radio.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Caitlin on August 26, 2013

I walk a lot - always have - so I observe the world from the pedestrian's point of view. Streets, businesses, people - everything is at eye level and throughout my life I've seen more and more people on the streets who are very ill. There's the girl who wanders about downtown - half naked, barefoot,......more

Goodreads review by Kathy on October 29, 2013

I’ve been talking and writing about our broken mental health care system and the need for change since shortly after our son was diagnosed with mental illness in 1999 and we began battling to find good treatment in that “system.” It’s been well over a decade now, yet nothing has changed. That we dar......more

Goodreads review by Kyle on December 08, 2015

No real review, just a few thoughts: 1. I am sick and tired of the word "hospital" and its derivatives (hospitals, hospitalization, hospitalized, etc.) For god's sake, it's called a THESAURUS. Pronouns are acceptable in the English language, too. 2. The audiobook version stinks because the narrator ob......more

Goodreads review by Amy on October 04, 2013

American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System is a must-read for anyone who is a consumer of behavioral health services or working in the field because it is such an eye-opening read about the complexities of why our current mental healthcare system (if......more

Goodreads review by Laura on March 03, 2014

Torrey's brief history of psychiatric care in the United States from the early 1960's to the present is illuminating. He pulls together the events and advances that led to the closing of our country's mental hospitals in a short, cohesive book. However, this is not just a history text. Torrey is an......more

Quotes

"We all know that the hatred, bigotry, conspiracism, paranoia, and rage inside the GOP didn’t start with Donald Trump. But in AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS, an important and convincing account, David Corn shows that such poison has been in the marrow of the Republican Party for more than 70 years."—Jonathan Alter, author of The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies

“Whether you think the GOP's descent into depravity started with Barry Goldwater or Richard Nixon or Newt Gingrich, David Corn makes the powerful case that Donald Trump didn't come out of nowhere. Corn expertly traces the antecedents of Trump and Trumpism over the decades. This is a must read if you want to understand what brought us to Trump and why the GOP remains a threat to American democracy.”—Jennifer Rubin, columnist, the Washington Post

“David Corn's AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is essential reading for anyone hoping to restore political sanity in America. He argues convincingly that the toxic brew of bigotry, conspiracy theories, and lies that define Trumpism started long before Trump. Corn writes that Trump was not an aberration. He was the apotheosis of the Republican Party's decades-long slide into the gutter. Corn weaves this investigative history together into a compelling narrative that is equal parts horrifying and entertaining. It's a tribute to Corn that with the publication of AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS he has managed to make brilliant sense of American senselessness.”—Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money, and Chief Washington Correspondent for The New Yorker Magazine

“In this sweeping examination of the United States, David Corn explains that descent of
the modern-day Republican Party into radicalism is not an aberration, it is the logical 
outcome of party leaders' decades-long weaponization of our nation's history of paranoia, conspiracy theories, and bigotry for political advantage. AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS requires us to revisit the dark forces that have shaped our government and charges us to safeguard American democracy from those who inflame our worst instincts in order to destroy it.”
 —Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history, Boston College

"David Corn has written a searing and deeply reported account of how a major political party binged on crazy pills for decades—even before Donald Trump rallied a mob to attack the US Capitol. Tracing the history of the modern GOP, Corn recounts how the party succumbed to the extremism, alternative realities, and paranoia that spread the AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS that exploded on January 6. A desperately important read."—Charlie Sykes, author of How The Right Lost Its Mind

"AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS is a brave and important book written by one of the sharpest political writers of our time."—Molly Jong-Fast, contributing writer, The Atlantic

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