Liberal power of all sorts induces an organic and crazy-making panic in a considerable number of Americans, while people with no particular susceptibility to existential terror — powerful elites — find reason to stoke and exploit that fear.

Historian Rick Perlstein has a great op/ed in Washington Post on the long, illucid history of right-wing nuttiness. A political historian, Perlstein has written comprehensively about the formation of the modern conservative movement. His newest book, “Nixonland,” is supposed to be great.