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Stephen F. Knott, "Conspirator in Chief: The Long Tradition of Conspiracy Theories in the American Presidency" (UP Kansas, 2025)
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- [01:35]
Lily Gorn
welcome to the new Books Network. Hello, this is Lily Gorn with the New Books Network. Today I'm joined by my friend and colleague Stephen F. Knott, who has a new book, conspirator in the long tradition of conspiracy theories in the American Presidency. This book was published by the University Press of Kansas in 2025, and Steve dives into quite a few of our presidents who have had some, I don't know, little paranoia about things, little conspiracy that they've cooked up over their years in the White House, as well as talking to us a little bit about some of the presidents who in fact pushed against those kinds of inclinations. But I'm going to ask Steve to tell us a little bit about himself and, and how he came to this project. Hello Steve.
- [02:21]
Stephen F. Knott
Hello Lily. It's always great to be back with you. I always enjoy sharing some war stories with you before and after the broadcast. Yeah, well, currently I'm retired, but I was teaching at the United States Naval war College until 2022, and I still do some teaching, mostly online at the Ashbrook center at Ashland University. So I keep myself busy. This book came about in part due to one that I wrote, came out in 2019 called the Lost Soul of the American Presidency. And it became apparent to me at that time I was sort of examining presidential demagoguery. And it was amazing to me how often some of our more demagogic presidents have circulated conspiracy theories, or just for lack of a better term, rumor mongering, in order to destroy their political opponents, or in many cases, to attack a marginalized group, you know, be it immigrants or African Americans, throughout a good part of American history, or Native Americans. So that's how I first got onto it. And then, of course, with the advent of the Trump presidency, particularly in his second term, Trump is the conspiracy monger extraordinaire. And, you know, that. That sort of fit as well. So I just thought it was time to take a look at presidents and conspiracy mongering.
- [03:55]
Lily Gorn
And you're not talking about conspiracy theories in general. We're not talking about, you know, like, tinfoil hats and, you know, the moon landing kind of stuff for the most part. But it is sort of like more of a bit of a political tool that. That presidents often use or have used. As you sort of talk about it, can you explain a little bit about how conspiracy and rumor mongering and the presidency have sort of grown up?
- [04:24]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, and I'm glad you clarified that for me. That's right. This is not a book about conspiracy theories per se. It's not a book about conspiracy theories surrounding, you know, the. The Cavity assassination, for instance, but it is a book about how presidents, as you put it, use these theories as a tool to fire up their base. Sometimes these presidents get this information in a way from the street itself and then incorporate it as a way to convince the man and woman on the street that he's or she is just like the man on the street. Other times, it emerges from the top and is sort of pushed down to the street in order to sideline a president's opponents, to make them appear corrupt or somehow un American. And, you know, these tools can be very effective in the hands of presidents who have the ability to communicate and are willing to pay to play this very vicious form of populist politics.
- [05:33]
Lily Gorn
And the sort of form of populist politics, when we're sort of talking about it, is what leans oftentimes into demagoguery. And the framers in particular in the Federalist Papers, there were a lot of warnings against the demagogic inclinations and possible demagogic leaders. Can you talk a little bit about what they meant by that and how, you know, how populism and demagoguery sort of work together?
- [06:03]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, terrific question. I think most of the framers, with the exception of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and I know, you know, that I suffer from Jefferson derangement syndrome. So let's get that out right off the bat. Most of the framers were very concerned that the. One of the fatal weaknesses of Republican government was the potential for a demagogue to emerge by appealing to the people's passions, by appealing to their base emotions, particularly their fears and their hatreds. And you see this a lot, particularly in the writings of both Hamilton and Madison in the Federalist Papers, where demagoguery as a topic comes up frequently. In fact, Hamilton in Federalist one warns about the dangers of demagogues undermining Republican or self government and concludes the Federalist Papers with the same warning. So this view, I think was widely shared among most the founders that in particular it was important for the president to avoid that kind of practice. One of the reasons they settle on the electoral college, granted we've seen perhaps its defects in modern times, but one of the reasons they settled on that was they really did not want potential presidents to be selling themselves to the public like almost, you know, you might market a bar of soap or a car or whatever. They wanted to avoid that. And that fear again was shared by most of them. Again, Jefferson's an exception. And the book does begin with a chapter on Jefferson, who, not directly, of course, he wouldn't speak directly to the public. He kept that practice intact. But through the use of newspaper surrogates was able to undermine his opponents, particularly Hamilton and the Federalists, by portraying them as plutocrats, if not outright British agents, certainly monarchists. It was really the politics of personal destruction through rumor mongering by Jefferson through these newspaper surrogates.
- [08:24]
Lily Gorn
And that was kind of how they did things back then, Because I know his cousin John Marshall sort of did tit for tat with him on some of that stuff and calling Jefferson a coward and sort of putting that in the papers as well. But the way that Jefferson, because he's the first one out of the gate that you sort of talk about. And you also talk about how his kind of rumor mongering and inclination in this direction gets more acute as he gets older and is tied to his sort of connection to slavery, which becomes much stronger.
- [09:07]
Stephen F. Knott
Yes, and unfortunately you Know, there's a lot about Jefferson I admire. He was the wordsmith of the poet of the American founding. You know, God bless him for the language that's in the Declaration that points a goal for all of us to, to work toward to you know, ensure that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that all Americans are treated equally under the law. I admire that Jefferson. But as you mentioned, Lilly, particularly as Jefferson ages, he begins to see efforts to contain the expansion of slavery as part of a long term, sort of Northeastern Boston, Philadelphia, New York axis, an attempt to sort of oppress the south, to oppress the, particularly the, the plantation class of which he is a part of. You know, he just flat out sees for instance, the Missouri Compromise as an effort by Hamilton's heirs to talk it to the white South. Now that's, that's me talking term. He, he would never have used the term white south. But what he was getting at was a belief that there was something of a conspiracy towards the end of his life that was being conducted by Hamilton's heirs that was at odds with the interests of Southern and Western, particularly members of the Democratic Party.
- [10:39]
Lily Gorn
And you know, Jefferson still has this influence in terms of our thinking about the yeoman farmer and the sort of the virtues of the citizen. And certainly I understand him to have skepticism about the east coast sort of financial class as being opposed to that. But the, the connection to like his, his growing endorsement of slavery is really kind of a turn that most people don't pay a lot of attention to.
- [11:16]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, that's absolutely right, Lillian. You know, it is unfortunate that Jefferson does make this turn. There does seem to be quite a difference between the younger Jefferson who inserted some pretty strong anti slavery language in the original draft of the Declaration. Of course a lot of that language gets struck out of the final document, but there's no question towards the end of his life that he sees the same forces, the same and from his perspective, moneyed interests, the same interests who want to turn the United States into a manufacturing power as opposed to an agricultural one. And you know, at, at, at part of that effort is to restrict the expansion of slavery. And of course Jefferson's solution to the slavery problem was that it should be allowed to spread, that it should be allowed to expand and that it would eventually die under its own weight. I've never found that to be a particularly compelling argument. But again, the important point here is towards the end of his life he sees northern members of this sort of Democrat Republican coalition during the poorly named era of good feelings as Sort of conspiring against southern economic and political interests.
- [12:43]
Lily Gorn
And so you have the triumvirate of Js in the first 50 years of the Republic. Jefferson, Jackson and Johnson as really being hallmarks of this conspirator in chief kind of inclinations. Particularly our pal Andrew Johnson, who is of course the first president to be impeached, although not convicted. And the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, has a real affinity for Andrew Jackson. But Jackson did play a lot of political hardball and I would love for you to talk a little bit about Johnson and Jackson and their conspiratorial ways.
- [13:26]
Stephen F. Knott
Sure, yeah. Of course, both men are from the state of Tennessee. Not to pick on the Volunteer State, but look, this in a way was the Wild west of the early Republic states like Tennessee. I'll start with Jackson. Jackson was something of a self made man, no question about it, and a bonafide war hero. Somebody who had made a name for himself with ruthless military policies towards Native Americans. But I think he cashed in on, in a sense, this anti elite, anti Eastern, anti New England sentiment that in a way persists to this day. And a good part of it was this sense that these East Coast Ivy League educated elitists like Nicholas Biddle, the president of the bank of the United States, were constantly conspiring to tuck it to the little guy, to tuck it to the man and woman on the street. Jackson had a tendency to view every issue that came down the pike through a kind of conspiratorial lens. I don't care what issue we're talking about. If you had the audacity to oppose Jackson or to differ with Jackson on any issue, then you were for all practical purposes a member of some conspiracy that was up to no good. There was no such thing as in Andrew Jackson's mind, with an honest policy difference.
- [15:03]
Lily Gorn
Sounds strangely familiar.
- [15:06]
Stephen F. Knott
Yes, it does. And there's no surprise there that President Trump, to the extent that he knows anything about Jackson, I'm not convinced he knows that much, admires him or professes to admire him. Andrew Johnson, 20 or 30 years later, similar resentment against east coast elites. A slave owner, but a much smaller slave owner than Jackson. Jackson was one of the largest slave owners in Tennessee. Johnson owned a handful of slaves throughout his life, but clearly possessed. I mean, this was a man who was deeply racist. I don't throw that term around loosely, but in the case of Andrew Jackson, excuse me, Andrew Johnson, it's a legitimate label to put on this man. He becomes president, of course, in the wake of Lincoln's unfortunate assassination, he had been put on the ticket to appeal to the border states and to appeal to Northern Democrats who were pro Union. And it's of course unfortunate on so many levels that Lincoln was murdered because Johnson fairly quickly begins to undermine the intent of the Civil war amendments. The 13th, 14th and 15th amendments undermines the Civil rights, excuse me, vetoes the Civil Rights act passed by the so called Radical Republicans, which is a name I've always recoiled at. There was nothing particularly radical. They were trying to deliver on the promises of the Declaration of Independence. But Johnson's presidency is a disaster, not just for the 4 million newly freed slaves, but I would argue for the long term health of the republic in that this brief window of Reconstruction which could have put the United States, I think, on the path towards not securing all the promises of the Declaration, but moving in that direction. Johnson undermines all of that and, and part of the way that he attempts to undermine that progress is to portray the Radical Republicans again as somehow un American, somehow corrupt, somehow in the pocket of Northeastern business elites. It, he meets with mixed success, I grant you, but he does just a tremendous amount of damage in that brief period that he's president.
- [17:38]
Lily Gorn
These Northeastern business elites are really problematic because they seem to drive lots of presidents crazy.
- [17:46]
Stephen F. Knott
That is very true. And if you couple it with an Ivy League background amongst either these business elites or their so called political puppets, that's a double whammy in the minds of any good populace. It's amazing how often a Harvard education is seen as prima facie evidence of
- [18:09]
Lily Gorn
treason or corruption and conspiracy mongering, of course. So Andrew Johnson is a sort of conspirator because he's also not necessarily trusted by a lot of the people in his party. So he maybe has some valid concerns about, about that. But you know, again, maybe not that.
- [18:37]
Stephen F. Knott
That's a, that's a very fair point, Lily, in that in some ways Johnson was a man without a party. He had been a lifelong Jacksonian Democrat. He's picked by the Republican Party, by people like Seward and Thurlow Weed, who urged Lincoln to again pick this border state senator who to his credit had remained loyal to the Union and kept his seat even when his state seceded. But Johnson is again just a man. And one of the recurring themes, Lilly, that you see in these presidents that I focus on, they don't handle criticism well at all. They do have a tendency to personalize even policy disputes. And yes, there's no question that the Radical Republicans in Congress view Johnson with some suspicion because of his Democratic Party background. But I have to say it's interesting and this surprised me. A lot of them at first thought that Johnson was going to be okay. In their book, he was saying all the right things. Things until various legislative acts and of course the three constitutional amendments were put in front of him, so to speak. Then he takes a very radical turn and makes it clear that he doesn't support any of this. So yes, he had enemies, yes, ultimately they gunned for him by trying to impeach him. Which by the way, I wish they had succeeded not so much on the Tenure of Office Act. But this is a man undermining Constitution. Those Civil War amendments were passed or in the process of being passed in one or two cases, and here he is undermining them. A president should not be undermining the Constitution. So I don't ultimately, I don't buy the argument that Johnson had a reason to be paranoid.
- [20:40]
Lily Gorn
I mean, I'm not necessarily saying that he did.
- [20:44]
Stephen F. Knott
No, I'm not. I know you are, Lily. I would never question your judgments. Never.
- [20:49]
Lily Gorn
That's very kind of you, Dr. Knott. So one of the chapters where you don't really hold back at all is on our pal Woodrow Wilson, who, you know, racist and from the south and a Democrat and. But also an elite. So the sort of northeastern business elite is now, I don't know, are they the bad guys here?
- [21:20]
Stephen F. Knott
You know, it's interesting. He's our only Ph.D. president. He had served as president of Princeton University. He had taught at a number of elite institutions. He was a well published, well respected author. So in a way, Wilson is perhaps one of the more shocking figures in this book. You could at least say with Jackson or Andrew Johnson there was some parochial qualities about them. You're hard pressed to say that about Wilson, which if somebody has a kind of more worldly experience, you would expect them perhaps to be a little more skeptical of sort of racist rumor mongering or racist racial stereotypes. But you don't unfortunately see that in Wilson. And yeah, I am pretty tough on him in that chapter. I think it's deserved. His record on civil liberties and civil rights is atrocious. And it was backed up unfortunately by a very public campaign, particularly in regards to civil liberties, where Wilson questioned the loyalty of German Americans, questioned the loyalty of journalists, certainly questioned the loyalty of socialist political figures like Eugene Debs, and of course in the civil rights arena, was racist to the core. Again, you don't throw that term around loosely, but I do think it applies here anybody who hosts a screening of the Birth of a Nation in the White House with his Princeton roommate, the guy behind the whole project. You know, look, I don't think you can say anything other than the fact that this is a remarkably racist president who trampled on civil liberties, who were. Who definitely made the condition of African Americans in this country far worse. It wasn't particularly great even before he came to power, but he reversed some of the minor progress that had occurred under a series of Republican presidents who, at least particularly with the United States post office, had allowed a number of African Americans to rise to some positions of authority. Wilson and his Cabinet reverses all that. And again, it's all done with a kind of public campaign to undermine or to question the Americanism of various unpopular groups. Again, immigrants, socialists, African Americans. You know, to me, that that's exactly the kind of presidential leadership that we don't need, and that can do a remarkable amount of damage.
- [24:15]
Lily Gorn
And one of the things that you also mentioned, which I had no idea. I just knew that she was kind of presiding as president for about two years while he was in. In more or less of a coma, was that Edith was on board with all of these conspiracies and.
- [24:29]
Stephen F. Knott
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, unfortunately, she was. Yeah. And look, I. You know, it sounds like I'm. I wrote this book to beat up on the Democratic Party. That was not my intent, as we'll see shortly here when we get to some other presidents. But within the Democratic Party, particularly In the late 19th and early 20th century, it was gospel that Reconstruction was a disaster, that Reconstruction policies were designed, as. As Andrew Johnson put it, to create a black supremacy, to put the. The white Southerners under the heel of black Southerners. Wilson bought into this. Wilson's wife bought into this, unfortunately. And that was accepted as gospel in Democratic Party circles. So it's. It's a sad fact, but it's. It's a fact.
- [25:29]
Lily Gorn
And. And so a lot of what you're writing about is essentially the different ways that some of these presidents, who were more conspiratorially oriented, also seem to really sort of feed into a lot of the antagonism between the races. And that underneath a lot of the conspiracy is unfortunately some real basic racism, but also fear of black people, fear of mixing with black people. Can you talk a little bit about how you sort of see some of that, particularly in the first wave of these presidents?
- [26:14]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, you're absolutely right. It is a thread that connects these very disparate individuals. I mean, Jefferson was about as Far removed from Andrew Johnson as you could get. I mean, Johnson was barely literate. Jefferson was certainly a literate man. But race animates the first four presidencies that we've already spoken about here. And you know, part of it, I think, was a genuine belief on the part of these four individuals of the inferiority of African Americans in comparison to their white counterparts. Part of it was an understanding that it paid political dividends to sort of cash in on this latent racism that's very much a part of American life and of America, of American society from, from day one was a winning issue of sorts. And you know, it's, it's, I would add to the list, immigrants would add to it, even Catholics for a time, certainly of the know nothing movement of the mid 19th century, you know, and, and maybe add to the list. And, and this is where maybe some of my liberal friends will not take kindly particularly. But there's also, it's an odd mix because it's an attack on those at sort of the bottom of the American society, at the bottom of the American economic order, and it's frequently coupled with an attack at those at the top as well. So it's a mix of anti plutocratic, as they would call it, elements, and anti race and ethnic discriminatory ideas as well. But it's, it could be the race and class cards in American politics can be remarkably effective. Playing those cards can be remarkably effective.
- [28:19]
Lily Gorn
So then we have a little bit of a twist though, because your next sort of case study is FDR and Truman, who are, they are both Democratic presidents, but they're sort of not the Southern Democratic presidents that you've been talking about that sort of have this connection to the south and into, you know, sort of the peculiar institution of slavery, shall we say. And, and they're also advocating, in a certain sense, against the plutocracy.
- [28:58]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, and you're right, there is, there is a shift here in that particularly both FDR and especially Harry Truman took some very courageous political stance stances on behalf of African Americans. Truman desegregating the military, for instance, and creating a number of bureaucratic institutions within the Justice Department to focus on equal opportunity for African Americans. So, you know, with that disclaimer up front, there's no question there's a bit of a break in the race thread here. And I have to say I wrestled with these two because there are aspects of FDR and Truman that I admire in the case of fdr injecting a kind of optimism into the American body politic at A time when the nation was on its knees during the Great Depression and FDR's assembling of an incredible national security leadership team to guide the United States through the Second World War. Those are remarkable accomplishments that I admire with fdr. The thing, the, the, the problem with FDR is this same, perhaps other thread that we haven't touched on as much as we have race. This idea that I am indispensable, that if, if it weren't for me, the American body politic would, would dissolve or disaster would ensue. And you see that with FDR's contemptuous attitude again towards any political opponent, whether these are opponents on the Supreme Court, whether these are fellow Democrats in Congress whom he attempts to purge, or whether it's journalists who, as World War II approaches, perhaps are taking a more isolationist stance. You know, FDR is going to sic the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover to go after a number of these dissenters. And that effort is bolstered by a kind of public relations campaign to portray these opponents again as un American or corrupt. Whether it was the supreme court in the mid-1930s or journalists and others opposed to American entry into the World War II. It's not a fair policy debate. It's these people are not one of us. They're not American. They are in fact un American, if not outright German agents and we are going to stop them. This may be a little bit of an overstatement. By any means necessary. And again, I'm talking about using investigatory arms of the federal government to shut these people down. In Truman's case, I focus strictly on the 1948 whistle stop campaign, which has been romanticized by authors like David McCullough and others as a kind of great example of retail politics at its best. Well, unfortunately, if you look closely at what Truman had to say, you know, he accuses Thomas Dewey of being a fascist. He says there are people around Dewey who are no better than the kinds of people who are around Hitler. It's an incredibly damaging, demagogic, conspiracy mongering campaign that in my view should have no place in American politics. So that's what I focus on with those, those two presidents.
- [32:34]
Lily Gorn
And in a certain sense, do I know you can't get into the mind of dead presidents and none of us can. But do you think that FDR and Truman believe this stuff?
- [32:46]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, really, really terrific question and one I wrestled with throughout the entirety of this book. I mean, in the case of Andrew or maybe Donald Trump, I don't think there's any real mystery. I think they actually do believe it. But with some of these more intelligent presidents, I'm not sure, Lily, this is going to sound like a cop out, but I really am not sure. How much of this was calculation, how much of this was an understanding that this type of rumor mongering can really produce benefits at the ballot box and how much of it was something they actually believed. I just don't know the answer to your question. I wish I could give you a better answer.
- [33:31]
Lily Gorn
So it wasn't Kevin Phillips who came up with this. It's been going on for a long time. But since we're talking about Kevin Phillips, my favorite, at least as my students say, you love talking about Nixon. I'm like, he's endlessly fascinating. Of course I love talking about Nixon. We can't not talk about Nixon because of course he's paranoid. The east coast elites come back with a vengeance, particularly the Ivy Leaguers. And he's a champion of this kind of stuff, isn't he?
- [34:07]
Stephen F. Knott
He is, absolutely. Well put, Lily. Now, the only distinction I make in the book with Nixon and some of the others, we've talked about a lot of his anti Semitism, a lot of his regressive racial views, he would keep it, you know, he would keep them under wraps. But his White House staff and those who are around him during his presidency would have to absorb these diatribes almost on a daily basis. And I argue in the book that while Nixon was not as public with his kind of rumor mongering, conspiracy mongering, it did have an impact on policy. It did affect his underlings in terms of their attitude towards the press, towards certain minority groups, particularly towards American Jews. Anybody associated with Harvard or any of the other Ivy League institutions was immediately suspect. Now, I have to add, there might be some folks listening out there. Nixon surrounded himself with a number of Jewish advisors. This is another contradiction that if you ask me to explain it, Lillian, I can't do it. I just can't do it. Okay, good.
- [35:23]
Lily Gorn
But Henry Kissinger is top of mind.
- [35:26]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But Nixon, one of the key events, I think, that leads Nixon down or reinforces what I think are sort of inbred conspiratorial paranoia on his part was his defeat at the hands of John F. Kennedy in 1960. Kennedy coming from an incredibly wealthy family, you know, good looking, Harvard educated, World War II hero, Nixon, you know, was born in a house that his father built from a Sears catalog. Ordering through a Sears catalog, you know, Kennedy's sitting in Hyannis Port eating a boiled Lobster. At the same time, you know, it's, it's just two completely different worlds. Nixon resented that east coast elitist world. The Harvards he would call them, who he, he believed looked down upon him. And by the way, to some extent that was true.
- [36:23]
Lily Gorn
He didn't go to Harvard, he went to Duke.
- [36:25]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, no, Duke's a good school. So you know, you would have thought he might have gotten past that kind of chip shoulder. But this was a man who again, I think his character from the start. Kissinger described Nixon as an introvert in an extrovert's business. This was a man who did not handle the rough and tumble of politics all that well, not well at all. And once he felt slighted by somebody, he never forgot it and was always looking for payback. And when Kennedy beats him in 1960, I think that just reinforces this idea that American society is stacked in favor of a kind of Eastern establishment and self made men like him from Yorva Linda, California are never going to be accepted in the eyes of this Georgetown Harvard elite. And that just leads to so many disastrous decisions on Nixon's part.
- [37:24]
Lily Gorn
And, but he also, I mean he kind of did some of this work himself when he was Eisenhower's Vice president in terms of, you know, sort of stirring the pot and, and trying to get the resentment going. And this is also obviously what he wants Spiro Agnew to do. And then you do have people like Kevin Phillips who are, you know, sort of running the campaigns and so it's all kind of feeding together and in kind of the rumor mongering and, and the dog whistles and the, you know, sort of casting aspersions on your, your foes.
- [38:02]
Stephen F. Knott
Yes, no, no question. And you know, Nixon was put on the ticket in 1952 in Part I think, because Eisenhower's. Gwen, it was going to take the high road. And it was intrinsically part of Eisenhower's character to want to take the high road. That's part of the reason. And Nixon's put on the ticket because he's, he's trusted by the right wing of the party as an anti communist, for lack of a better term, zealot. But one other thing I think we need to throw into the mix here, Lily, about Nixon is he does pursue a Southern strategy. He's not blatant about the, the race card. But you know, he's got people from Strom Thurman staff who. And a guy named Harry Dent, for instance. He's got Pat Buchanan who knows how to play hardball. You know, Nixon is setting the stage. He realizes that the south is no longer the solid Democratic south, and the Republican Party could make incredible advances in terms of winning over the allegiance of formerly solid white Democratic Party voters. And I think he succeeds to a good extent by sending a number of signals to that base and using particularly Vice President Agnew as the spokesman for this aggrieved white majority in the South.
- [39:37]
Lily Gorn
And, and so that sort of sets us up for the last bit of your book before we get to some of the folks who pushed against conspiracy mongering, which is our, our friend, the current president, Donald J. Trump, who, you know, sort of looks fondly, in a certain sense on the fact that Kevin Phillips and Roy Cohn were confidants of Richard Nixon and helped design some of that. And we understand, you know, Nixon had a, quote, enemies list, and Trump is acting and operating in very much the same way.
- [40:22]
Stephen F. Knott
Yes, and of course, much more overtly than Richard Nixon and really more overtly than any of these presidents we've talked to so far. Trump makes no bones about it in terms of his willingness to say almost anything, weaponizing his rhetoric to destroy his opponents. Again, it's that same theme we've touched on. You cannot disagree with this man without this man turning it into a personal battle. And he'll pull out all the stops to destroy those folks who dare speak against him. And it's. I find it remarkably destructive. And one of the things that particularly bothers me is I worry that we are sort of dividing into two separate camps with two completely separate views of reality. You know, as Lincoln would say, a house divided against itself cannot stand. I don't know how we're going to stand when you just can't agree on some very fundamental things like who won the election of 2020 or whether, I mean, it's just endless, the differing fundamental views of these two camps. This president fosters that alternate reality. And long after he's gone, that's what worries me the most, that we as a nation are so polarized by a president who loves to practice the politics of polarization and has, in order to do that, in order to secure his standing, has created a completely separate reality at odds with the facts. And I think it's going to take a long time, long time to dig ourselves out of this hole.
- [42:16]
Lily Gorn
And this seems to be the, the trajectory of this idea of conspirators in the White House that it's, it's not about, you know, again, like, who shot JFK or was there really a moon landing? It's more about how do you sort of take this idea of paranoia and cast your enemies or your opposition as enemies in that way. But you do talk a number about a couple of presidents in the last chapter of the book who pushed against some of this. You named John Quincy Adams and Calvin Coolidge. Not everybody's most popular presidents. I know Reagan had a soft spot for Calvin Coolidge, but also one of your not necessarily favorite people, John F. Kennedy.
- [43:10]
Stephen F. Knott
Well, I've softened a bit, Lily, on John F. Kennedy as the years have gone by, and I've returned to my native state of Massachusetts. But Kennedy, for all his faults, I mean, the man clearly was never going to win husband of the year by any stretch. Kennedy, I think, was a devotee of reason. Kennedy loved books. And Kennedy had this incredible capacity to kind of step outside of himself and really kind of analyze himself, which I think is a rare, you know, analyze or identify his own biases. I think it's a rare gift. But beyond that, Kennedy encountered In the early 1960s a lot of heated opposition from groups like the John Birch Society, uh, which is kind of a precursor to today's QANON movement. And the John Birch Society believed that people like Dwight Eisenhower, General George C. Marshall, and Kennedy himself were, were communists. Um, and they also focused quite a bit on what they consider to be the problem of fluoridation in the nation's water supply. But this, too was a communist plot. Kennedy was just dumbfounded by this kind of thinking. And in fact, he actually devoted one of his presidential speeches referring to this notion that fluoride was a communist plot. To give you another example, there was an attempt to boycott Polish hams at one point, since Poland was a member of the Warsaw Pact. And this was pushed by groups like the Birch Society and other right wing groups. Kennedy used the press conference to kind of push back against that, basically saying that kind of effort's only going to hurt the small businessman or woman who's trying to, you know, run a meat market. You know, if you really want to do something, you know, join the military or join the Peace Corps or all sorts of more productive ways to blunt communism. Final point, I'll mention about jfk, his, his last speech that he was due to deliver before, you know, unfortunately he was killed, but he was due to deliver a speech at the Dallas Trade March March in which he called on the citizens of Dallas and the citizens of the United States again to reject these voices, these rumor mongers, and to, you know, do the hard work of citizenship. Use your reason, you know, reason is what's going to save us. Not the kind of rumor mongering that he had seen in his lifetime. And you and I are now seeing Lilly, you know, steroids these days.
- [45:53]
Lily Gorn
So on that happy note, Steve, what are you working on next? Is there another book in you?
- [45:59]
Stephen F. Knott
Yeah, this one drained so much out of me, Lily. At the moment I don't have anything in mind, but if you have any great ideas, let me know and I'll try to run with it.
- [46:08]
Lily Gorn
Okay? Thank you, Steve Knott, for joining me today in the New Books in Political Science podcast. To talk about the new book you have written, Conspirator in the long tradition of Conspiracy Theories in the American Presidency, published by the University Press of Kansas. Where one can purchase this book is at the University Press of Kansas website and other places where we buy books. Thanks so much, Steve.
- [46:34]
Stephen F. Knott
Thank you, Lily. Always a pleasure.
- [46:37]
Lily Gorn
Thanks.
- [46:37]
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