The outspoken author warns yet again that America is going the way of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.
Naomi Wolf has for many years now been claiming that a fascist coup in America is imminent. Most recently in The Guardian she alleged, with no substantiation, that the U.S. government and big American banks are conspiring to impose a "totally integrated corporate-state repression of dissent." Many of her arguments rely on what she styles as rigorous historical research and analysis of current events. But if you compare her characterizations of the historical sources and current news accounts that she cites with the sources themselves, it is possible to discern a pattern of serious misstatements and errors in her political writing.
Skeptics have been raising serious questions about her books and articles since Caryn James called The Beauty Myth (1991) "a sloppily researched polemic" in her otherwise generally favorable New York Times review. Most recently, Wolf's book Vagina: A New Biography has been roundly criticized for overly creative interpretations of scientific research -- most pointedly by scientists she herself cites (though one, Jim Pfaus, also argued to Wired a case for granting Wolf latitude: "Can't we allow an accomplished writer and social critic a little poetic leeway to make a point?"). But it is when she ventures into matters of politics, history, law, and society that her failures become most apparent.