Man setting himself ablaze in NYC is a scary reflection of our new extremist politics | Opinion

There’s a paranoid sickness that unites far-left and far-right in the United States. Its latest victim, identified by city officials as Florida resident Max Azzarello, set himself ablaze in the pro-Donald Trump protest area outside the Manhattan courtroom where the former president is on trial.

Azzarello’s views include paranoid fantasies about both Trump and President Joe Biden. They’re both “in on it” he told reporters outside the trial while carrying a sign that said “Trump is with Biden and they’re about to fascist coup us” in all caps.

Before he “stood tall” and poured gasoline on himself as he lit a flame, according to The New York Times, Azzarello tossed leaflets full of bipartisan conspiracy theories while onlookers screamed and ran. Such actions mark him as an outlier in American politics — someone willing to die for his beliefs, but the crazy adherence to bipartisan conspiracies are far from fringe.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a third-party candidate for president, peddles conspiracy theories about vaccines, yet has polled at more than 20% support as recently as last fall. In some swing states his support, drawn from blue and red partisans alike, is enough to push the race to Trump or Biden.

Moreover, the vaccine paranoia once at home on the granola-crunching, Birkenstock-wearing flaky left has spread throughout the Trumpy right with enough adherents to spark outbreaks of diseases once thought defeated.

Avuncular doctor Anthony Fauci is the focus of many conspiracies that track American funding to a Wuhan lab from which the COVID-19 virus escaped leading to a pandemic that killed millions. Supposedly, the motive was imposing a new level of government control on society.

The idea that our government would kill millions to advance its goals has surprising adherents. Last week, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers claimed that AIDS was a government plot from the 1980s. He’s not the first to say that, but he may be the most prominent.

And you don’t have to be a freak or a jerk to get sucked into this national sickness. Rep. Paul Gosar was once a beloved dentist before going to Congress and then descending into paranoia while being reelected despite his irrational views.

Democrats and Republicans both have partisan media ecosystems that feature frequent stories about the other that which put them in the worst imaginable light: Democrats are advancing Marxism. Republicans want to throw working-class wheelchair-bound grandmothers off a cliff.

Each party features a brand of politicians who cater to this angry and reality-challenged view while profiting from the gushers of fundraising it drives. On the left, we have The Squad and on the right the Freedom Caucus. Each party features leaders who sometimes bow to the pressures from these fringes, giving them the power and credibility to bring in new adherents.

Those who have a hopeful, sometimes naive view of the United States work to unite Americans around a commonsense middle where we all come together to get things done, but those centrist bonds have frayed and the politicians who seek to build them have become rarer and rarer, still.

What unites America is a loony left and an angry paranoid right whose most extreme elements blend into one another seamlessly.

Max Azzarello isn’t a fringe player. He’s a blazing warning that the new center of American politics — a bipartisan sickness of the extremes — could consume us all.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square and a regular Kansas City Star Opinion correspondent. Follow him on X: @DavidMastio or email him at dmastio1@yahoo.com