F0614 Conspiracy Nation: Conspiracy theories from the Illuminati to the X-Files

The first such fears a \"fundamentalist\" fear of losing the Christian character of the United States to secular, liberal, hedonist influences.
This fear of falling away has been present in American culture ever since the Puritans, and is shared by fundamentalist Catholics, Mormons, and other conservative religious groups.

Secondly, there is a \"patriotic\" fear of the dissolution of the exceptionalist character of the American nation as well as the United States\' status as a superpower.
American exceptionalism has been a central part of American thought from colonial times through the American revolution to Manifest Destiny and beyond.

A third fear is the \"communitarian\" fear of the atomization of civil society and of the loss of community. While there is a strong American tradition of celebrating individualism, there is an equally strong belief that community is crucial but forever embattled.

The fourth fear is a \"local populist\" one.
Throughout American history, marginalized groups (and those in fear of marginalization) have suspected an elitist concentration of power either in the federal government, in an economic elite, or – more recently – in international organizations.

These fears were a major source of Anti-Federalism, Jacksonianism and the states\' rights movement; the rise in centralist power in post-WWII American has given rise to a number of conspiracy theories which often target central organizations such as the CIA or FBI.

Right wing militias fear a Zionist Occupational Government (ZOG), and this carries over into the fifth fear, a \"racist-biological\" concern that America is endangered by the racially different.
Practically every minority group in the United States has been subjected to nativism or racism; Pat Robertson mirrors this fear in his concerns about satanic evil and his somewhat veiled anti-semitism, or more currently anti-islamicism.