Evil and stupid are two different things.

Most of these people are tea baggers and that just does not go back 30 years.. And look at all the areas in which they have not had success or in which their success has been fleeting. The folks who have been "drinking our milkshakes" aren't the people that I'm referring to: They're mainstream corporate repubs and dems.

I use the word "evil" very, very sparingly. I don't find it particularly useful or descriptive. The people I'm talking about may be "evil", but they sure as shit are stupid.

The very same people with the very same attitudes have been active since the heyday of the John Birch Society back in the fifties.

They may be ignorant in many ways, often deliberately, but a lot of them are far from stupid and they are nothing if not persistent in pursuing their goals.

Come down to red state America, ignorant and stupid is wildly popular with a massive swathe of the population.

and have to ask the same questions...

I don't have a good answer but know only this: in any state, there are pockets of voters who can be whipped into a frenzy by shrewd, manipulating people over any pseudo patriotic issue, or the latest conspiracy theory, or by playing to their most ingrained prejudices. Becasue of redistricting and gerrymandering they can elect the loonies to state office....sometimes those loonies can get elected to state-wide offices but generally the bat-shit-crazy element is diluted enough to keep them out.

What happened in 2010 was a strange incident where the loonies were joined by other normally rational people who were conned by a top-down media campaign to elect some stealth candidates...

This is just a theory..based on what I saw in Wisconsin mostly...