Pragmatically synthesizing existing conspiracy styles: blending paranoia and politics in Richard Nixon’s early-career anticommunist rhetoric

Abstract

In the field’s long conversation on conspiracy rhetoric, the most robust topic has been the theorization of the paranoid and political styles. Thus far, these styles and their evaluative criteria have been theorized as wholly separate. However, certain discourses and rhetors blend the styles. To understand this blending, I introduce the concept of pragmatism to argue that the existing styles can be synthesized. Through my analysis of three of Richard Nixon’s anticommunist conspiracy texts, I demonstrate that his rhetoric is a pragmatic synthesis of paranoia and politics. I conclude the paper by suggesting further avenues for research on conspiracy within the field, including the possibility that there may be a “pragmatic style.”

Keywords:

• Conspiracy style
• pragmatism
• dialectical synthesis
• Richard Nixon
• anticommunism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a full detailing of Joe McCarthy’s rhetoric, see Darsey’s (1995) article “Joe McCarthy’s Fantastic Moment.” Communication Monographs 62 (1): 65–86. Although Darsey’s piece is genre criticism, and understands McCarthy as engaging in the literary genre of the “fantastic,” I believe another application of this article would be to distinguish between McCarthy’s paranoia and Nixon’s pragmatic conspiracy rhetoric.

2 The importance of Hofstadter’s (1964) work is evidenced by its publication in Harpers’ Magazine the year of its initial printing, and its reprinting in paperback in 1996—32 years later.

3 Also see Creps (1981), Goodnight and Poulakos (1981), and Zarefsky (1984).

4 The antislavery rhetoric of mainstream Republicans had an ever-more-recent key cardinal function (first the Compromise of 1820, then the Missouri Compromise of 1850, then the Dred Scott decision in 1854). Conversely, paranoid abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown, kept moving the origin back in time: from contemporary events, to early antebellum, and eventually to the colonial period (Pfau 2005a, 27, 78).

5 In Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, he claims four Democrats (Sen. Douglas, Pres. Pierce, Pres. Buchanan, and Justice Taney) are the prefitted timbers of one house—meaning they colluded to predetermine the Dred Scott case. Lincoln does not explicitly say these men colluded, but his conductive argument places the premises in front of the audience, who has the wherewithal to fit the premises together according to Lincoln’s master blue print.

6 In the “House Divided,” Lincoln makes Stephen Douglas a nonperfected scapegoat. Lincoln uses humor and metaphor to avoid perfecting Douglas. For instance, although Douglas was once a “lion” of the Senate, he is now, “if not a dead lion,” then “at least a caged and toothless one.” And, although Douglas protects slavery at present, it is not a deeply held conviction, and Douglas “may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong.”

7 The pentad includes act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose (Burke 1969, xv). Rhetors stressing act are realists; those stressing scene are materialists; agent—idealists; purpose—mystics; and importantly for this paper, stressing agency—pragmatists (Burke 1969, 128).

8 Richard and his father would debate politics at the dinner table, where Richard learned to enjoy argument “for its own sake,” and “take the opposite side” as a thought exercise (Ambrose 1987, 38). Nixon’s high-school debate coach claimed his star “could take any side of a debate,” could “slide around an argument instead of meeting it head on,” and was “so good it kind of disturbed me” (Ambrose 1987, 46).

9 Nixon claimed Jerry Voorhis was tied to communist-backed unions in their 1946 debate. As Ambrose (1987, 132) writes it, “Nixon grabbed a piece of paper, held it dramatically aloft, and began striding across the stage toward Voorhis. He was simultaneously Richard the actor, the debater, the courtroom lawyer, the clean-cut Quaker kid seething with righteous indignation . . . [and] the poker player who could bet more than a year’s salary on a bluff”. Voorhis never recovered from Nixon’s accusation, and Nixon won his House seat (Black 1999). Nixon’s won Helen Douglas’ Senate seat in 1950 with more anticommunist conspiracy rhetoric—especially by naming her The Pink Lady. Her contribution: naming him Tricky Dick (Black 1999).

10 One representative anecdote illustrates the differences between McCarthy and Nixon. The story is documented in the article “Fighting Quakers,” written by Feldstein (2004). One evening McCarthy and Nixon went to dinner, but were hassled by a reporter who had a history of claiming both men accepted dirty campaign contributions. As the reporter tried to leave, McCarthy followed him into the coatroom and began to pummel him until Nixon stepped in between the men and broke up the fight. Thus, McCarthy, the paranoid conspiracist and dichotomous fear monger, fought the reporter who had made anticorruption conspiracy claims against both men in the political style, and their fight was broken up by Nixon, the pragmatic conspiracist.

11 Burke correlates his pentadic terms agent, act, scene, purpose, and agency with the journalistic terms who, what, where/when, why, and how respectively, so agency-is-how.

12 In his article, “A Conspiracy of Science,” James Darsey takes another pentadic approach to evaluating conspiracy. Darsey finds that science usually features the scene. Secret science, though, blends scene and purpose, or philosophical materialism with mysticism. Thus, overly technical science becomes mysterious to nonscientists and appears secretive to the public; secrecy gives rise to conspiracy theories, about AIDS, for example (Darsey 2002, 486–489).

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Evan Layne Johnson

Evan Layne Johnson (PhD Georgia State University) is a lecturer at Georgia State. His research focuses on American public address, congressional rhetoric, deliberation, public policy, and agrarianism.