"The paranoid style in politics..."

"The paranoid style in politics and the paranoid style in entertainment are connected by the need for a simplified narrative that eliminates words and emphasises action…. The existence of the conspiracy reduces politics from a need for argument to a mere need for action to go stop the bad guys.... the simplified narrative of a conspiracy is used to escape the messy and inconvenient fact that other people actually disagree with you, and that you have to convince them."

~ Robert Tracinski, from his op-ed 'The Paranoid Style in American Entertainment'