Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Paranoid Style in American Politics


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was speedy keep. (non-admin closure) CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 15:51, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

The Paranoid Style in American Politics

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

I don't think this essay is notable enough for a standalone. I checked American Extremism: History, Politics and the Militia Movement, and while Hofstader appears in the pages cited, it is a different essay about Pseudoconservatism - the essay that is the subject of this article only appears in footnotes. Surely, we are not going to create stand alone articles for every cited paper in a secondary source. I don't think there is enough to establish independent notability for an academic paper. Seraphim System ( talk ) 19:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 19:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 19:44, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep; easily passes the notability guideline. Consider this New York Times piece alone. It's a very famous essay; maybe not as widely known as Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, written around the same time, but related to it. Antandrus (talk) 19:57, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - passes General Notability Guidelines Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * keep - and mulloy does specifically reference the book and essay - for example on page 27: "After all, once you know what you're looking for it's easier to categorize subsequent groups, and with this template firmly in place the paranoid style has been regularly applied to whatever far-right groups have subsequently emerged in the United States, often with little regard for the specific circumstances of their emergence or the specific nature of their aims and ideas. As noted at the outset of the chapter, many observers considered thai the New Right and the New Christian Right could be understood by reference to the paranoid style (despite the fact that both were composed of various groups with differing interests and aims), and the disparate elements of the Patriot movement have been categorized by the same analytical token. It is an approach which has been particularly evident in respect of the militia movement, with academics, journalists, "watchdog" agencies, and others readily finding the paranoid style to be at work. Indeed, the extensive and widespread application of Hofstadter's thesis suggests that it has emerged from the Academy to become a stable, if often unexamined, part of American political and cultural discourse. Kenneth Stern speaks for many, it seems, when he argues: 'The political historian Richard Hofstadter, writing in 1965, explained the basic ideological premises that empower America's private armies of the 1990s.' " Jytdog (talk) 20:07, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok so there is a NY Times opinion piece that Antandrus thinks is enough to pass WP:GNG on its own, and a passage that has the word "paranoid" in it, but does not actually mention this essay by name (because it is talking about his other article Pseudoconservatism) - so synth and an opinion piece. That is a good summary of why I nominated for AfD. Seraphim System  ( talk ) 20:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Umm, by ignoring other commentaries? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep, of course. An important essay in American political thought. Why people nominate articles like this for deletion remains an eternal mystery. &mdash; goethean 22:02, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. A highly influential work, oft cited and discussed (see e.g. the gBooks and gScholar links above). --Arxiloxos (talk) 22:38, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is easily one of Hofstader's most famous works and is clearly encyclopedic. A Google Books search gives me 41 pages of hits and a Google scholar search shows that not only is the original paper and book cited 500+ times, many other papers and scholarly works which seem to directly reference the work are also cited hundreds of times. Patar knight - chat/contributions 22:58, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Clearly a notable and influential essay cited and/or referenced by academics and other authors in a variety of fields and media. -Location (talk) 23:22, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.