Excerpt Thomas Patterson’s ‘How America Lost Its Mind’
The following is excerpted from the new book “How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy” by Thomas E. Patterson. He is the Bradlee Professor of Government & the Press at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. It was a bright Sunday afternoon in the nation’s capital when Edgar Maddison Welch walked into Comet Ping Pong and, after telling customers to flee, searched the pizzeria and opened fire with an assault rifle. Why? Welch had driven his truck from North Carolina to “self-investigate” a story he had seen online. The fake story claimed that coded emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server revealed the shop was a front for a child sex ring in which she and other top Democrats were involved. The victims were supposedly imprisoned below the restaurant. Whatever fool Welch might have been, he was not alone in his thinking. A poll taken after Welch’s arrest...