June 18, 2020 — The Cult to the Shining City on a Hill, by Virginia Heffernan and Jared Yates Sexton

"Conspiracy theories are simplified explanations of larger, more complex problems... So instead, you give them a story. And when you actually look at the New World Order or Deep State or QAnon, it is basically the idea of globalism and de-industrialisation that has hurt middle America. But it involves supernatural evil and it involves heroes and villains as opposed to bottom lines and profits. And when you actually look at it through that, your natural sort of prejudices start to come in. And the more that you’re hurt and the more that you do not have opportunities, the more that you might be drawn into it. So, again, it’s an illusion that is used to create this base and this anger. And when you actually look throughout history, you see that authoritarian states are always based on those groups of people who either had power, or perceived that they had power, feeling like they’re losing power. And then the conspiracy theory fills in the holes. And then also you have a person who comes in and directs the anger, which is what Trump has been doing. And what the Republican Party has done now for decades."

June 28, 2017 ⁠— How Donald Trump and Roy Cohn’s Ruthless Symbiosis Changed America, by Marie Brenner

"In 1973, a brash young would-be developer from Queens met one of New York’s premier power brokers: Roy Cohn, whose name is still synonymous with the rise of McCarthyism and its dark political arts. With the ruthless attorney as a guide, Trump propelled himself into the city’s power circles and learned many of the tactics that would inexplicably lead him to the White House years later."

May 6, 2016 — The ethnic card: Donald Trump’s mouth, Pat Buchanan’s ideas, by Clarence Page

"Opposition to immigrants is a long-held American tradition, especially during uncertain economic times. Buchanan's anti-immigrant pitch lost its strength in the 1990s, largely because the economy made a roaring comeback. Nowadays, the reality of 50 years of globalism, structural economic change and growing income inequality has given new fuel to xenophobia."