Paul Krugman brings up Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” in his column today, noting that much of what Hofstadter wrote about the far Right in 1964 sounds just like the far Right of 2009. The biggest difference, Krugman says, is that in 1964 both parties rejected the wingnuts. It was Ronald Reagan who began to cater to them and gave them a foot in the door, and Republican politicians began to win elections by stirring up the wingnuts. I have some quibbles with that analysis, but let’s skip that for now.
Until recently, however, that catering mostly took the form of empty symbolism. Once elections were won, the issues that fired up the base almost always took a back seat to the economic concerns of the elite. Thus in 2004 George W. Bush ran on antiterrorism and “values,” only to announce, as soon as the election was behind him, that his first priority was changing Social Security.
Pretty much what Thomas Franks wrote in What’s the Matter With Kansas?
But something snapped last year. Conservatives had long believed that history was on their side, so the G.O.P. establishment could, in effect, urge hard-right activists to wait just a little longer: once the party consolidated its hold on power, they’d get what they wanted. After the Democratic sweep, however, extremists could no longer be fobbed off with promises of future glory.
In Wingnut Lore, “Republican elites” have joined the ranks of the “Liberal Elite” as betrayers of American values.
Furthermore, the loss of both Congress and the White House left a power vacuum in a party accustomed to top-down management. At this point Newt Gingrich is what passes for a sober, reasonable elder statesman of the G.O.P. And he has no authority: Republican voters ignored his call to support a relatively moderate, electable candidate in New York’s special Congressional election.
Newt’s political career is long over; only he and Big Media don’t seem to know that. He still has some uses as a shill for corporate interests, which makes corporate media take him seriously. But he has no actual following among the plebes that I can see.
But I want to go back to the history of the Republican Party and its relationship to right-wing whackjobs. It’s not entirely accurate to say that the GOP rejected wingnuts until Reagan. Much of the Red-baiting of the 1950s and 1960s amounted to a shout-out to wingnuts. During the height of Joe McCarthy’s Reign of Terror, for example, ca. 1952, many GOP leaders publicly supported and encouraged him. However, it was also a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, who helped orchestrate his demise.
A great deal of today’s political landscape also was determined by the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. Every facet of conservatism was opposed to civil rights for racial minorities in those days, and part of the pushback came in the form of connecting civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King to the Communist Conspiracy. Some libertarians today still try to make that connection.
Barry Goldwater flirted with the whackjobs in his failed presidential bid in 1964. Richard Nixon, a master Red-Baiter in his prime, also played a role. To counteract news stories that made Tricky Dick look bad, the Nixon Administration created the myth of the liberal media that gave wingnuts permission to ignore any news they don’t like as “media bias.” This in turn paved the way for manufactured news from the Wingnut Alternative Reality to be given the same weight and respect as accounts of stuff that actually happened.
So what we saw from the end of World War II to today was a process by which the extreme Right created its own mythical narrative (beginning with “stabbed n the back” at Yalta). At the same time, the authority of news media — an Edward R. Murrow; a Walter Cronkite — to set the record straight was undermined. And a big chunk of the American public became putty in the hands of unscrupulous demagogues.
Krugman continues,
Real power in the party rests, instead, with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who at this point is more a media figure than a conventional politician). Because these people aren’t interested in actually governing, they feed the base’s frenzy instead of trying to curb or channel it. So all the old restraints are gone.
This is essentially true, although we could argue how much anyone in the Bush II administration cared about governing, as opposed to looking out for the interests of the financial and defense industry sectors.
Krugman’s concern is that the poor economy and high unemployment could help Republicans take back many seats in Congress next year. Republicans can stomp around staying that President Obama’s big-spending stimulus failed. The irony is that it fell short largely because Obama watered it down to please Republicans, but good luck getting that message out past the Wingnut Noise Machine.
Krugman concludes,
And if Tea Party Republicans do win big next year, what has already happened in California could happen at the national level. In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing — but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis. If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster.
The U.S. has been nearly ungovernable for some time, thanks to the Right, but I agree there is some room for matters to get worse.
Goldwater’s failed presidential bid was in 1964, not 2004, as I’m sure you know. Otherwise right on…
Date fixed, thanks. And I was thinking 1964, too. I swear my brain is melting down.
Yes, there’s definitely room for even more disaster, alas.
“In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing — but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis.”
I think Dr. Krugman should stick to economics and leave politics to people who know something about politics. He certainly should leave California politics to people who know something about California. The statement is a grade school oversimplification of the problems that exist in California, which is geographically more Republican than it is Democrat, and is a great deal more populist than it is either, and is suffering from an out of control initiative process.
The Republican minority presents a problem, no question about that, but many issues contribute to the financial crisis we are in and simply blaming the Republican minority is absurd. One of the problems is the Democratic majority’s (who my votes helped put in the majority) refusal to limit spending in times of high revenue, but the biggest problem is spending that is mandated by the initiative process and over which legislators of both parties have no control.
Bill “The statement is a grade school oversimplification of the problems that exist in California.” Well, yes, Bill, but this column is not about the problems that exist in California. The New York Times gives Krugman a word count limit, I’m sure, and because the column is not about California, the problems of California by necessity were boiled down to one representative sentence that ties into the larger point. As I writer I appreciate what Krugman did here. I might have done the same thing, given the same constraints.
Further, I don’t think the representative sentence is wrong. Yes, California is suffering from an out of control initiative process. But unless everyone else writing about California is lying, the reason the California legislature cannot deal with the state’s current budget crisis is that (as a result of rules passed through the out of control initiative process) a small group of wingnut Republicans is able to hold the rest of the legislature hostage and keep them from passing any measure that might actually be effective. Is that not true? And if so, isn’t that what Krugman wrote?
In Wingnut Lore, “Republican elites†have joined the ranks of the “Liberal Elite†as betrayers of American values.
Therein lies the problem, that they maintain everyone but them is the problem. We’re going though a process of defining ourselves in constrast to them. I sincerely hope that they’ll soon decide that the rock they climbed out from under is a great place and then long for home or find some populist figure to channel their confused ire productively.
Furthermore, the loss of both Congress and the White House left a power vacuum in a party accustomed to top-down management.
That’s what happens with the more authoritarian “Daddy-style” politics as opposed to more collaborative albeit messy kind — when Daddy leaves the kids get a little crazy.
The U.S. has been nearly ungovernable for some time, thanks to the Right, but I agree there is some room for matters to get worse.
Time will tell but there is a chance that many will be driven leftward. This might even be upon us before we know it. I am reminded of one of R.D. Laing’s quotes:
We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
The Republican elites have been feeding the rubes a heady mixture of mythology and diversions for decades, and foolishly trained up a mob of the willfully ignorant and selfish, each equipped with a large-sized chip on their shoulder. After training them up to abandon compassion, distort reality, nurse grudges, reject rationality, and crave an ever-more-extreme flavor of cant from their TV machines, the Beltway elites are starting to realize their creation is gaining a rudimentary self-awareness.
The monster is alive, and it may no longer behave as they command. I think a few Republican elites have begun to notice it getting breezy, but soon, I think, they will be reaping the whirlwind. We will all suffer for it.
My fears are more pessimistic than Krugman’s. I’m worried less about what happens when Tea Partiers run for office and more about when the more extreme and impatient among their number take the step beyond, rejecting the electoral process entirely. I fear the mob’s hateful unreason will lead to assassinations and bombings before long. It wasn’t that long ago when lunatics in our country chose those methods, and they didn’t even have a Fox-fueled “movement” egging them on.
I really want to be wrong about this. Really, really.
It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once said. ‘When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.’ The GOP wanted the right wing’s votes and money – I don’t think they expected them to take over. These people that “Want their Country back” don’t seem to realize that it’s been bought and paid for. K Street lobbyists do more sway legislation than “We the People”
Then I probably shouldn’t mention the Malta/Yalta thing…
It is kind of along the same lines as this thread but there’s now tape of Boehner ranting about “forcing people to do” this or that as he holds a copy of the contitution and ostensibly quoting it but the quote was from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. A history-challenged product of a failed education. The more I hear this crap the more I’m impressed by the fact that there would not be a government in existence that they’d not liken to fascism or socialism.
They just hate us for our civilization…our modernity. LOL.
They just hate us for our civilization…our modernity.
Wow, very sharp.
This reminds me that theologian Karen Armstrong defines “fundamentalism” as a backlash against modernism.
Bigger Box said: The Republican elites have been feeding the rubes a heady mixture of mythology and diversions for decades, and foolishly trained up a mob of the willfully ignorant and selfish, each equipped with a large-sized chip on their shoulder.
I always wonder what the nature of “the rubes” are, that is, what is the cause and effect process in the present context that produces their behavior, but also, what is it about their developmental path that produces high levels of anxiety in response to uncertainty, low frustration tolerance and a tendency to dogma like white on rice?
Whatever; the scary thing is that they quickly reach a point where they cannot accept influence outside their established sphere, are suspicious of difference and can only be calmed when they are in control of decision making. That makes for an all or nothing dynamic that requires fight, sometimes down to demolished, which in turn diminishes the opposition’s integrity and nobody wins. Sad.
I always wonder what the nature of “the rubes†are, that is, what is the cause and effect process in the present context that produces their behavior, but also, what is it about their developmental path that produces high levels of anxiety in response to uncertainty, low frustration tolerance and a tendency to dogma like white on rice?
That’s an excellent question, and I think it’s one to which we need to find an answer, pronto.
I think part of the answer is that much of small town and rural America remains physically and culturally insulated from the rest of the world, and people who have lived their lives in rural/small town America tend to be more fearful of strangeness than, say, New Yorkers. Well, OK, nothing is strange to a New Yorker, which is why I love them, but you get the picture. Note that I’m from small town/rural America myself and know there are intelligent and modern people living in such places as well; they just have to keep their heads down.
And part of the answer is that we’ve had generations of demagogues exploiting that fearfulness and encouraging it. Now we’ve got a positive feedback loop going on between right-wing media and its followers, so that they’re all pushing each other to get crazier and crazier, and they’re so insulated from other influences nothing seems to be able to stop it.
It also strikes me that many Americans have been conditioned to think dogmatically. They hold on to opinions not because the opinions are rational or useful, but because it’s what they “believe in.” It’s one thing to “believe in” religious dogmas, but large chunks of the American public don’t seem to be able to use their brains in any other way except to absorb tribal dogmas and hang on to them fanatically. Notice, for example, the way they treat the Constitution as if it were the fifth book of the Gospel. Of course, they don’t know what’s in the Constitution any more than they know what’s in the Gospels, but they sure as heck “believe in” the Constitution, don’t they?
I wish you would quit picking on us rural Americans. I’ll have you know we have given Congress great leaders like Colin Peterson and Michelle Bachmann. OOPS
Pastor Dan — They don’t make clergy persons like they used to!
Wait, did you just call Richard Nixon a master baiter?
Keep in mind how much damage the hard right has already done. During Cheney’s watch, they already drove America over most of the rubicons that separate civilized countries from despotisms: kleptocratic looting of the public purse, abridgment of the rule of law, rigged elections, institutionalized torture, effective revocation of habeas corpus, pervasive surveillance, aggressive war, show trials of political opponents, and concentration camps (look up how ICE houses detained illegals). Some of these abuses have been curtailed under Obama but the odds are very good that all of this will come back as soon as the White House is recaptured by the Republican party.
As far as governability goes, the line was crossed a long time ago. What remains is a broken shell of a government that is too weak to govern in the public interest and is only capable of moving forward with legislation that is rammed through the legislative process by massive bribes from business interests. The system has only avoided complete collapse because it has not been faced with any existential crises that 1) haven’t caused businesses to buy corrective legislation and/or b) cannot be handled by the more automatic components of government.
The hard right has already done so much damage to American governance that the appropriate questions are not when the US will become ungovernable but rather how steep the remaining downward trajectory will be and if the end result will be an existential collapse (a la the USSR) or failure into a permanent low-level equilibrium.
I have some grudging respect for Goldwater and his statement, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” I don’t agree with who said it, but I agree with the idea – from a libral standpoint.
What I object to is what it has EVOLVED into, “Extremism in the defense of corporate interest’s is no vice.”
When you convince imbeciles being driven in buses paid for by corporations, and then have them carry signs made by those same said corporations, that they are grass-roots patriots, even P. T Barnum would marvel at the gullibility of the American public. Ol’ P. T. wouldn’t be devious enough to run a campaign for an Alderman in today’s world…
biggerbox… The answer is “insecurity”. I know that seems vague or non specific, but because insecurity manifests itself in so many multifaceted ways it has to be accepted as the bedrock principle in order to find the answer to your question. It is the same reason why Jesus has been hitting it out of the ball park for over two thousand years. Fear is the absence of faith… That same dynamic of insecurity can be applied to any aspect of human endeavor… and hold true.
I can’t find the articles now – I saw 2 items on Palin yesterday which were interesting. She’s giving a speech to a pro-life group. The press is un-invited and there will be no cell phones or recording devices allowed. I would be willing to bet that there will be security & metal detectors to enforce this. Then, in a second item – SP is hosing a media event – I think in DC. What this suggests to me is that she’s going to control two separate messages (if she can). One message for the faithful will be kept off the MSM – but it’s intended to fire up the teabaggers. Then she will change faces and put out the message for the media. I am speculating, but this may be the method in the future for teabagger candidates.
I can think of one solution – and it would take a little time an a LOT of money – and it has to be done EARLY. Swiftboat the teabaggers. Get a director like Michael Moore to get films of the teabagger assemblies – the speeches – document the component pieces, the fetus people – the anti-immigrant crowd, the NRA faction, and then start to interview them on the ‘Founding Fathers’ – show just how ignorant and how potentially violent and revolting this gang is. Next move – a buy of network time well BEFORE the 2010 elections. Then when people have some idea just what the teabaggers are, after the primary, have the MSM ask the candidates where the hell they stand! Do NOT let a GOP candidate waffle.
The outcome of the elections that Krugman is concerned about will be determined by independent voters. I was surprised and delighted that they rejected the teabagger in NY. The teabager candidates in 2010 are going to put on sheep’s clothing and try to run for office with one face for the MSM while they court the teabaggers in secret. If we out the movement and the candidates, I have faith in the voters.
Sadly, if we leave it to the MSM, the voters will go to the polls ignorant.
Excellent assessment of the so-called “rubes” who form the wingnut base. Fear definitely is a key motivator and characteristic of what passes for their discourse; I find also that, generally speaking, they’re the most intellectually lazy people on the face of the earth. The ones I know wouldn’t have a single thought in their heads if it weren’t for Faux Nooz or talk radio; they don’t even understand the Sunday funnies, except for “Family Circus.”
Scattered among them, however, on a slightly higher tier in Hell, are the quasi-intellectuals who obsessively read military history and Churchill biographies and highflown surrealistic crap from the likes of little Davey Frum. This would be my brother’s brother-in-law, aka “The 50-Year-Old Who Lives in Mom’s Basement.” (He really does.) These are the shepherds; the “rubes” are the sheep; and the creeps making money off them (Limbaugh, Coulter, Beck, Murdoch, etc.) are the butchers. Mmmmm… mutton.
There is a little marina close to where I live. I go down there most weekends for a little while to talk to the local boys, and have a beer or two. Last weekend, the conversation turned to the shooting at the Texas Army base. Of course, the opinion was militant Islam is to blame. Like most things, it’s a bit more complicated than that. The crazy dude that shot the abortion doctor in church several months ago was no doubt, a religious fanatic, yet I didn’t see any reports of “Christian extremism” in out local press.
we have had several terrible crimes in the past few years, one which a drug dealer shot and killed a polk county sherrif’s deputy, and was pretty much executed by the cops when they chased him into the woods just off 1-4( over 60 gunshot wounds), and another where a young mother allegedly killed her beautiful young daughter.
The guys all thought the drug dealer had it coming, and that the mother should just be taken out and shot to save the court system money.
These same guys talk about their right to bear arms, and are concerned about Obama being a “socialist” and being a closet Muslim.
So I said “Let me get this straight, you guys believe the cops can act as judge, jury, and executioner? That is Tyranny. We are a nation of laws, the constitution protects us from just that sort of thing, as well as allowing you to keep your guns”
Several of the guys have recently lost their jobs, and have recently gotten popped for driving under the influence. Suppose we are fed up with drunk drivers, how about we execute them on the spot?
I think a big part of the problem is people just don’t take the time to think things through. For every action, there is a reaction. It is so easy to get people riled up over letting illegal immigrants have free health care, but would you like to see the streets littered with dead and dying people?
The opposition can try to derail a health care bill with abortion b.s., but it is far scarier to think that almost 20% of the population may have lost or may soon loose their health insurance.
I play mental hockey with those guys weekly, and they are begining to see the light….especially when it is getting difficult to pay the bills.
Fear is a major driver. Little Kissimmee is now home to two Mosques and a Sikh Temple, scary shit in Kowtown……….
I don’t know where the quote came from but here it is (maybe not exact). ‘the pain of the present is not a bad as the fear of change.” That seems to be where we are now. It fills me with fear to think about how much pain is necessary to switch it balance.
“It also strikes me that many Americans have been conditioned to think dogmatically. They hold on to opinions not because the opinions are rational or useful, but because it’s what they “believe in.†It’s one thing to “believe in†religious dogmas, but large chunks of the American public don’t seem to be able to use their brains in any other way except to absorb tribal dogmas and hang on to them fanatically. Notice, for example, the way they treat the Constitution as if it were the fifth book of the Gospel. Of course, they don’t know what’s in the Constitution any more than they know what’s in the Gospels, but they sure as heck “believe in†the Constitution, don’t they?”
Yes! This! This! This!! This cannot be emphasised enough!
“I saw 2 items on Palin yesterday which were interesting. She’s giving a speech to a pro-life group. The press is un-invited and there will be no cell phones or recording devices allowed. I would be willing to bet that there will be security & metal detectors to enforce this.”
Oh, the irony! When Dems had their town hall meetings, they needed metal detectors for the gun nuts. Palin would need them to keep out… recording devices.
Excellant post – great comments. This IS the issue facing us and whether or not the USA will remain a country. Ungovernable ? That’s on a teeter-totter, I’d say.
I am on a mailing list with a lot of ex-military, a lot of which are retired military. A good number, including the ol’ Chief are in their 60s and 70s.
The vast majority seem to believe that WorldNetDaily IS the gospel, Obama is a Muslim/Socialist/Nazi.
Maybe it is simply racism. Maybe they feel that being white makes them superior to any person of color. But that is only the immediate situation.
The eing-nuts have been around for 30 – 40 years.
I have searched for a common thread – can’t find one. Lack of education? Did they stop learning when they graduated high school? Do they watch too many 1/2 hour sitcoms? Do they not read books?
I would like to be able to get to the bottom of how someone who’s spent 20+ in the Navy, rising to a senior enlisted status has such a closed mind.
RE:It is so easy to get people riled up over letting illegal immigrants have free health care, but would you like to see the streets littered with dead and dying people? Erinyes
I have said this same thing to many people in the discussion of single payer, everybody in, no body out health care financing. It is a punch in the face to hear them say, ‘they can go to the emergency room.’ I get the feeling I am wasting my breathe. Can anyone say, ‘let them eat cake,’ any better?
Wingnut stage right? This is like a WASP family fighting for Daddy’s Rolex by the coffin at his funeral
The Sunday firings of executives at the Washington Times and the possible exit of its top editor are apparently being driven more than previously known by last month’s transfer of power of the Unification Church and associated business empire from Rev. Sun Myung Moon to his children.
A newsroom source familiar with church politics tells TPM that the root of the shakeup at the Washington Times is a feud between Hyung-jin Moon, 30, and Hyun-jin Moon, 40, also known as Preston, both U.S.-educated sons of church Father Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The church announced in early October — in an exclusive given, notably, to the Associated Press not the Washington Times — that day-to-day operations were being handed over to Preston, Hyung-jin, and a third son.
Preston is chairman of News World Communications, the church-owned parent company of the Washington Times.
The youngest of the three sons, Hyung-jin, was selected last year to be the church’s religious leader, presumably a responsibility that will fully vest when his father, who is nearly 90, dies. Hyung-jin may have won Rev. Moon’s favor with feats such as his reportedly performing 21,000 “full body” blows bows in honor of his parents over the summer.
But the selection of Preston’s young brother for the high-profile role — along with Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s doling out of powerful posts to other siblings — rankled Preston, a Harvard MBA who has competed in two Olympics on the Korean equestrian team, the source tells us.
Just hasn’t been a good week for conservative rags so far, has it?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/10/shocking-allegations-levi_n_352314.html
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is usually thought of as a loyal Republican in Washington — but he has now been censured by a county Republican organization back home, for working too much with the Democrats.
The Charleston County GOP has censured Graham, citing his work with Democrats on a climate change bill as the final straw, and saying that he he has weakened the Republican brand.
I think that brand’s been sliding downhill since Saint Ronnie was at the helm
I always figured that Reagan and the Religious Right’s ascendancy was partly the result of Watergate. The scandal almost certainly damaged the Republican Party. As I understand it, many GOP politicians lost their seats. I remember a special on Bob Dole (back when he was running for President) that indicated that he only narrowly won his post-watergate election. There was presumably a shakeup in leadership, and people like Jesse Helms gained greater power.
However, those are some very good points about the Red Scare, the fight against Civil Rights, etc.