tactics in their speeches, such as characterizing the enemy as a low animal (i.e. vermin), or building up an image of a folksy "chosen leader who responds to an inner call." They explain the successes of mid-20th century demagogues such as Gerald L. K. Smith, Carl H. Mote, William Dudley Pelley, Joe McWilliams, and Charles Coughlin. The authors' purpose was subject appeal of these messages to a thorough analysis, to inoculate future generations of Americans against demagogues and ideologues – the "prophets of deceit". The authors define the difference between the goals of an agitator, revolutionary and reformer. The latter seeks social change and has a clear vision of his goals. An agitator seeks rejection of the status quo and instills intolerance against groups or individuals. An agitator presents himself as an advocate for social change with the purpose of defeating the underlying causes of discontent, builds a movement and proclaims himself its leader; he is "in fact, full of reactionary cliches about 'the good old days' and the 'simple American Way which our ancestors loved'." Yet the agitator fails to analyze causes of discontent, but "seems to require only the willingness to relinquish inhibition ... No resentment is too small for the agitator's attention." Löwenthal and Guterman theorize that right-wing agitation increases social dissatisfaction, while simultaneously hampering rational responses to it. Much of the basis of pro-fascist and antisemitic propaganda appears to be irrational in substance, yet Löwenthal's research revealed that it was planned and calculated to achieve a specific response. Paul Apostolidos writes that Prophets in Deceit "precisely catalogues the techniques used by the agitator to promote irrationalism in his audience." Pro-fascist sentiment in America in the 1940s was not spontaneous, more grounded on long held beliefs, which Löwenthal labeled social malaise. The authors explain the methods the Christian right use to capitalize on advantage of widespread social malaise. They sow "the suspicion that mysterious social powers are penetrating a 'hoax' on the majority of the people and depriving them of society's fruits". These suspicions create a widespread feeling of helplessness, disillusionment, and fear of disaster. According to Löwenthal and Guterman, the social discontent is real, it "reflects the stresses imposed on the individual by the profound transformations taking place in our economic and social structure – the replacement of the class of small independent producers by gigantic industrial bureaucracies, the decay of the patriarchal family, the breakdown