Michael Fumento, who worked for Reagan and wrote for the National Review, has published an excellent rant about the new right.
I had trouble finding a quote or two to entice you to read the article, because the whole thing is excellent. Go read it.
But if you need convincing, here’s one tidbit:
A single author, Ann Coulter, has published best-selling books accusing liberals, in the titles, of being demonic, godless and treasonous. Michelle Malkin, ranked by the Internet search company PeekYou as having the most traffic of any political blogger, routinely dismisses them as “moonbats, morons and idiots.” Limbaugh infamously dispatched a young woman who expressed her opinion that the government should provide free birth control as a “slut” and a “prostitute.”
As a conservative, I disagree with the political opinions of liberals. But to me, a verbal assault indicates insecurity and weakness on the part of the assaulter, as in “Is that the best they can do?” This playground bullying – the name-calling, the screaming, the horrible accusations – all are intended to stifle debate, the very lifeblood of a democracy.
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My summer reading, to be continued after my garden is planted, is to reread more carefully “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” Coulter, Malkin and Limbaugh are being paid huge bucks to follow Hitler’s methods: “Scream, lie, and slander.” These methods were not original with Hitler. He learned them by studying someone else. And if you have a superior people like the Jews, you wipe them out with brawn.
This is what happened in more recently Rwanda with the Hutus (the brawn) and the Tutus (the brains).
In China with the rise of communism. Wipe out the brains. Send them to tend fields.
In Cambodia. The teachers were all killed. And brawn without brains wins.
As I said to my neighbor, we go back to the Squires and Peasants. The 1% wins if R-Money gets in there.
>> Limbaugh infamously dispatched a young woman who expressed her opinion that the government should provide free birth control <<
Of course, that is NOT what she said.
I read the entire article and it's full of factual errors and/or exagerations. Don't have much confidence in this guy.
I think he is paraphrasing that when Fluke testified in Congress she advocated a widespread government mandate that birth control be covered by insurance even by religiously linked organizations. What else is factually inaccurate?
On another note, it has to be rough being an intellectual conservative and being in Fumento’s shoes, watching extremists warp and manipulate things he advocates in a reasonable way.
This has been the scary thing for me watching modern politics evolve. I was used to politicians taking things out of context, exaggerating, implying their opponent makes the (actual) decisions they have made based on (wildly inaccurate) motivations, etc. This is just politics. But what has happened on the extreme right is not that – it’s a closed-minded cult based on mass hysteria, where anyone who disagrees in ANY way is the Devil, inherently evil, and would be better off dead. Both sides use fear and propaganda to enflame their base, but only the extreme right makes a steady series of “Pants on Fire” wild lies and refuses to modify or recant them when presented with the factual evidence – instead they try to burn the evidence 9and its messenger) at the stake and double down on the crazy.
Latest example – Donald Trump continuing to promote the “birther conspiracy”.
The fact a lot of people don’t like Obama is politics. The fact a large group of Americans believes he was born in Kenya, is the Anti-Christ, and is systematically trying to destroy America isn’t politics – it is insanity. And while I agree with conservatives on more issues than I agree with liberals, and I KNOW America has to be a country where differences are not just tolerated, they are celebrated, things have gotten so bad that I think I have to be a staunch supporter of Democrats if only to resistant the slide to destruction from the extreme right.
We have to have better answers than to support one group of power hungry nutcases because the other group of power hungry nutcases is even WORSE, but we also have to survive long enough to find the other options. Current politics forces us to play Russian Roulette – the only choice we have is how many bullets to put in the gun, so I have to choose Democrats (1 bullet) instead of Republicans (all 6 bullets).