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No sacred cows

How paranoia has infected our politics

25 May 2019

9:00 AM

25 May 2019

9:00 AM

The politics professor Matthew Goodwin made an interesting observation on Twitter this week. He pointed out that many of the characteristics of the ‘paranoid style’ in American politics — a phrase coined by Richard Hofstadter to describe right-wing populists such as Barry Goldwater — apply to left-wing anti-Brexit campaigners. They are convinced that the 2016 referendum result was due to the machinations of sinister data-mining companies, Kremlin bot factories and Vladimir Putin.

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