Increasingly the term paranoia has been used more broadly to refer not only to this specific diagnostic entity but also to a personality trait and a personality style, characterized by guardedness, suspiciousness, hypersensitivity, and isolation. An important aspect of this style is a pattern of disowning uncomfortable personal feelings and attributing them to others, the psychological defense mechanism known as projection. With the understanding that the paranoid response springs from diverse sources and varies in consistency and intensity, throughout this essay we will interchangeably use the terms paranoid and paranoia in this broader sense, to subsume both clinical paranoid illnesses as well as paranoid style and paranoid outlook. Although the paranoid outlook affects many areas of human affairs, it is most evident in the adversarial world of politics where it is a constant feature. At its extreme, the paranoid style is more destructive than any other political style.
Enemies are to be destroyed.
The paranoid message is not restricted to government leaders like Hitler and Stalin or to paranoid agitators like David Duke and Louis Farrakhan. Because it is so deep within the human condition, and because it so resonates with politics, it readily appears in the popular culture of political cinema. Paranoia in Popular Cinema. The event deserved a greater cause, to amend Horace. When they killed our president.