The most interesting part of this article is there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that the paranoid people were wrong. Europe has spent most of the last 200 years under the control of a relatively small number of families and it is just common sense that there would be conspiracies to seize control of the US government and change its ideology. People debate which of them should gain the ascendancy every election.

> John Robison ... saw [the Masons] as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights...

That is a pretty accurate description of where Europe ended up in the 1900s to today, so it seems a unreasonable to dismiss the man out of hand. 100 years for a big social project isn't that long a time given how slowly the world moved back then. It is reasonable to say that the Masons might have been a benign organisation - but they also might not have been. There is no contest that groups in Europe were trying and succeeding to push in that direction. The communists had their big breakout in the 1900s but the personality type always has and will exist and the intellectual groundwork was being laid at least as early as the 1850s.

There is this weird social dynamic where people dismiss the idea that radical change is possible in foresight then shrug it off and basically don't care in hindsight. It results in remarkably small groups being able to achieve some incredible things, but it is a bit frustrating an attitude to argue with.