New season premieres 10 p.m. Sept. 5 on FX

For the first time in its seven seasons, FX’s “American Horror Story” need not look any further than the present moment to mine it’s inspiration.

Regardless of how you feel about the election of Donald Trump, there’s no denying America has seen better days. As disgust and sadness following the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, permeates the country, the fear of hate groups feeling a sense of inclusion is high.

It’s in that word -- fear -- that creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk have leached their latest idea for the anthology series, returning 10 p.m. Sept. 5 with “AHS: Cult.”

The show has trafficked in fear for seasons, from the supernatural history of the Murder House, to the war between witchy covens to the brutal terror of spending a few nights in Roanoke.

But with “Cult,” the idea of fear is not just a lingering sentiment like the whiff of pungent fumes after painting a room. This season, fear is the paint, coating the story of one woman’s crumbling sanity beginning with the 2016 presidential election.

Consummate “AHS” player Sarah Paulson stars as Ally, a Michigan woman left screaming into her TV Nov. 8, 2016, as MSNBC called the election for Trump -- the kind of reaction conservatives like to think all liberals had that night.

As Ally explains to her therapist (Cheyenne Jackson), she found Obama’s election and administration of inclusiveness soothing to her litany of phobias and Donald Trump’s rise to power detrimental to keeping them at bay. She fears small spaces, the darkness, blood and even porous objects (I’m with her on that one). But none of them are as threatening to her ability to function as clowns.

From the moment she sees her son reading a Twisty the Clown comic book (depicting a scene similar to “AHS: Freak Show’s” introduction of the towering murderer), visions of demented mask-wearing menaces are almost inescapable -- and they might not just be hallucinations.

She pictures them lurking in dark corners of the high-end restaurant owned by her and wife Ivy (Alison Pill), on the street and even in the aisles at the grocery story.

Like any season of “American Horror Story,” the initial concept of phobias and fears is handled with about as much subtlety as a T-shirt cannon. These aren’t balloon-twisting clowns. They are elaborately masked people having sex in the produce section or wearing vintage dresses and a ball gag -- when they aren’t maiming and murdering, of course. They are sick and they want the surreal nature of their behavior to scare Ally.

Across town on the opposite end of this partisan spectrum is blue-haired, crazy-eyed Kai Anderson (Evan Peters, in his most sinister role yet), first seen alone in a dark room also screaming, but in celebration, as the election results trickle in. After celebrating Trump’s win by smearing Cheetos dust all over his face and saying Trump-isms in the mirror, he emerges in the bright real world to talk about a desire -- previously contained to comment sections -- to see fear spread through this small Michigan community and rid it of immigrants and political correctness.

Then, there’s Winter (Billie Lourd), an intensely serious, silver-haired Vassar dropout and Clinton supporter who submits to Kai’s plan to infiltrate Ally and Ivy’s home, where she begins to corrupt their bespectacled son and desensitize him to death and murder.

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In the first three episodes given to press, Allie and Kai’s stories run parallel to each other until the moment they collide, clashing her liberal principles with his conservative extremism. To what end, however, is still unclear.

Although this season has been in the works for some time (Murphy revealed the election theme February), it arrives at a moment when it’s core message -- that Trump’s election emboldened and encouraged hate groups -- is likely to resonate with and disturb viewers even more in the wake of events such as Charlottesville.

Murphy and company could not have known domestic Nazis would slither out of their internet holes to remind their country of their shocking views. But the timely parallels between fiction and reality give unnerving heft to “Cult’s” message. While "Cult" offers knife-wielding clowns in abundance, is it any more shocking than torch-wielding white supremacists?

Like any season of “American Horror Story,” the creative intentions are executed to varying degrees of success. As usual, the incomparable Paulson fits her role like a glove, though here she is tasked with more crying and screaming earlier than normal at the outset.

Much of the premiere is spent ferociously hammering in Ally’s stunning (and stunningly quick) unraveling as images of clowns and her other phobias infect her every moment -- while those around her see nothing but a troubled woman. The girl-who-cried-clown tactic gets exhausting pretty quick, and not just for Paulson’s larynx. Nevertheless, in Paulson we trust.

The days of measuring “AHS” by its ability to scare the audience have long since past, so when “Cult” does achieve a jump or two, it’s rather satisfying. But the goal here seems to be to cast the show in an deranged and unsettling fog -- and it’s successful. The roaming gang of clowns the premiere introduces is a mix of "The Purge" and “The Strangers,” opting for slow-moving menace over full-tilt pursuit. They are the embodiment of her fear and the fears of so many Americans, who felt Trump’s rhetoric and actions brought racist extremism out into the open. Clowns and, more importntly, the people under the masks were always there, but now they are walking the streets with a new sense of welcome.

The first three episodes also layer on an amusing amount of dark humor in an otherwise grim portrait, mainly thanks to "AHS" newbies Billy Eichner and Leslie Grossman as Ally and Ivy's peculiar and shifty neighbors, who pop up in episode two as an unexpected highlight of “Cult’s” early episodes.

He’s a beekeeper with a gun obsession and she’s an Etsy seller with a fear of the sun. They are the co-vice presidents of the south Michigan chapter of Nicole Kidman’s fan club. We need their spinoff series and we need it now.

“Cult” is more reined in than most seasons of “AHS.” Whereas installments like “Hotel” and “Asylum” had sprawling casts with a half-a-dozen story threads, “Cult” keeps its focus firmly on Ally’s undoing, with the handful of other consistent players filling their roles in her story.

Pill provides a sturdy shoulder to weep on for Paulson, while Lourd is wonderfully eclectic in her creation of a babysitter with a warped mind.

This is a good sign for “AHS,” which consistently runs into trouble each season by constantly expanding its story and cast to an often unmanageable degree.

If it can maintain the pace and focus displayed in its first three episodes, “Cult” could prove to be the franchise’s sharpest and most satirical installment yet. That being said, if clowns keep you up at night, this might be one to skip.

Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com. Hunter is a member of the Television Critics Association.