General Discussion

pampango

(24,692 posts) Thu Apr 12, 2012, 07:46 AM Apr 2012

Are wingnuts crazier than they used to be? No, but they are all concentrated in one party now.

It used to be that crazy people were more-or-less evenly divided between the (northern) Republican Party and the (southern) Democratic Party. Now they are concentrated in the Republican Party. This matters--and is a source of great terror and dismay for the non-crazy Republicans, and for us all.

But there has been no net increase in craziness.

Rick Perlstein: Why Conservatives Are Still Crazy After All These Years

It suddenly feels like conservatism has gotten crazier than ever. Republican debate audiences cheer executions and boo an active-duty soldier because he is gay. Politicians pledge allegiance to Rush Limbaugh, a pill-popping lunatic who recently offered "feminazis" a deal: "If we are going to pay for your contraceptives, we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch."

I'd argue, however, that they’ve been this crazy for a long time. Over the last sixty years or so, I see far more continuities than discontinuities in what the rightward twenty or thirty percent of Americans believe about the world. The crazy things they believed and wanted were obscured by their lack of power, but they were always there – if you knew where to look. What's changed is that loony conservatives are now the Republican mainstream, the dominant force in the GOP….

To this way of thinking, the triumph of enlightenment liberalism is always inevitable. Now it’s demographics that's the inexorable force (I debunk that argument here); in the 1960s, it was the certainty that Americans would never consent to give up their big-government perks. And yet, somehow, alongside the ordinary tacking of American political preference between Democrats and Republicans, conservatism continues to thrive. That's because power begets power: Democrats can be counted on to compromise with conservative nuttiness, and the media can be counted on to normalize it. And it's because there will always be millions of Americans who are terrified of social progress and of dispossession from whatever slight purchase on psychological security they've been able to maintain in a frightening world. And because there will always be powerful economic actors for whom exploiting such fear, uncertainty and doubt pays (and pays, and pays).

Conservatism is not getting crazier, and it's not going away, either. It's just getting more powerful. That's a fact that a reality-based liberal just has to accept – and, from it, draw strength for the fight.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/04/why-conservatives-are-still-crazy-after-all-these-years-rick-perlstein-politics-news-rolling-stone.html

Interesting theory that conservative wingnuts have "been this crazy for a long time", but "there has been no net increase in craziness". The real problem is that the right-wing crazies are now concentrated in the republican party rather than split between the parties - southern conservative Democrats and northern conservative republicans.

The split of the crazy conservatives between the parties kept them as a powerful, but usually minority, wing of both parties. "The crazy things they believed and wanted were obscured by their lack of power, but they were always there – if you knew where to look. What's changed is that loony conservatives are now the Republican mainstream, the dominant force in the GOP.

8 replies

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Are wingnuts crazier than they used to be? No, but they are all concentrated in one party now. (Original Post) pampango Apr 2012 OP

They not be crazier but IMO there are certainly more of them ..... bowens43 Apr 2012 #1

They're also being actively promoted rather than quashed JHB Apr 2012 #2

Exactly right. Thanks for posting emulatorloo Apr 2012 #5

"it has a well-funded support system...we are not the crazy ones, everyone else is." So true. pampango Apr 2012 #8

Craziness Concentrated el_bryanto Apr 2012 #3

We were warned.... Brooklyn Dame Apr 2012 #4

They have always been crazy libtodeath Apr 2012 #6

You're right: "No" is the answer rock Apr 2012 #7

bowens43

(16,064 posts)

1. They not be crazier but IMO there are certainly more of them .....

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 07:48 AM

Apr 2012

JHB

(37,161 posts)

2. They're also being actively promoted rather than quashed

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 08:08 AM

Apr 2012

The modern "respectable" (it's a relative term) conservative movement had its roots in trying to quash the free-running loopy elements like the John Birch Society and the Randites

Buckley and his editors used his magazine to define the boundaries of conservatism—and to exclude people or ideas or groups they considered unworthy of the conservative title.[39] Therefore he denounced Ayn Rand, the John Birch Society, George Wallace, racists, white supremacists (starting in the 1960s), and anti-Semites.

When he first met philosopher Ayn Rand, according to Buckley, she greeted him with the following: "You are much too intelligent to believe in Gott."[40] In turn, Buckley felt that "Rand's style, as well as her message, clashed with the conservative ethos"[41] and he decided that Rand's hostility to religion made her philosophy unacceptable to his understanding of conservatism. After 1957, he attempted to read her out of the conservative movement by publishing Whittaker Chambers's highly negative review of Rand's Atlas Shrugged.[42][43] In 1964, he wrote of "her desiccated philosophy's conclusive incompatibility with the conservative's emphasis on transcendence, intellectual and moral," as well as "the incongruity of tone, that hard, schematic, implacable, unyielding, dogmatism that is in itself intrinsically objectionable, whether it comes from the mouth of Ehrenburg, Savonarola--or Ayn Rand."[44] Other attacks were penned by Garry Wills, and M. Stanton Evans. Nevertheless, Burns argues, her popularity and her influence on the right forced Buckley and his circle into a reconsideration of how traditional notions of virtue and Christianity could be integrated with all-out support for capitalism.[45]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley,_Jr.

(on race matters it was something more like "At least cover it up a little, dammit. Stop making us look bad")

Today, however, the Bircher arguments are embraced (transferring the blame-the-jews of the Birchers to blame-the-muslims) and the Randoids are considered leadership. And to drive all this groupthink, they have their own self-referential media system (religious radio and tv channels, AM rant radio, e-mail forwarding, online sites (from the old BBSes to modern websites), spin tanks, major media, and the crowning g(l)ory of FOX News.

So it may not be crazier, but it feels freer to be crazy, and it has a well-funded support system to tell it that it is not the crazy one, everyone else is.

emulatorloo

(44,175 posts)

5. Exactly right. Thanks for posting

Reply to JHB (Reply #2)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 09:58 AM

Apr 2012

Additionally, mainstream cable news promoted Tea Party movement as if it were a credible alternative rather than the same old Bircher kooks. Partly because of need for ratings, partly because of fear of being labeled "liberal". So they represent anything right wing as credible, no matter how objectively insane it is.

pampango

(24,692 posts)

8. "it has a well-funded support system...we are not the crazy ones, everyone else is." So true.

Reply to JHB (Reply #2)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 11:48 AM

Apr 2012

Their fear-based politics and "demonize-your-opponent" electoral tactics would not have been sustainable without "their own self-referential media system (religious radio and tv channels, AM rant radio, e-mail forwarding, online sites (from the old BBSes to modern websites), spin tanks, major media, and the crowning g(l)ory of FOX News)."

I know I'm getting old when I can remember the "good ol' days" of conservatism as reflected in William F Buckley's denouncement of "Ayn Rand, the John Birch Society, George Wallace, racists, white supremacists (starting in the 1960s), and anti-Semites". All of these seem to have staged a great comeback in today's tea-party dominated GOP.

el_bryanto

(11,804 posts)

3. Craziness Concentrated

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 08:21 AM

Apr 2012

Another aspect of this is that in previous years, the media was pro-status quo but you didn't have things like fox news or the internet where you could get your news from your perspective. You were more or less required to get a variety of opinions. Now society increasingly provides news outlets that give you information that already agrees with your biases. Thus Crazy people who focus on just reading World Net Daily or Fox News never really encounter those viewpoints or facts that challenge their craziness.

Bryant

Brooklyn Dame

(169 posts)

4. We were warned....

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 08:27 AM

Apr 2012

The nation was warned by well-regarded people in the Republican party (such as Eisenhower) that too much focus on destruction of social supports, fighting with other nations, and religious extremism would lead to the downfall of the GOP. It couldn't happen to a "nicer" bunch.

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/03/this-is-america-on-wingnuttery/

libtodeath

(2,888 posts)

6. They have always been crazy

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 10:27 AM

Apr 2012

just now with a black man as President they are showing it more.

rock

(13,218 posts)

7. You're right: "No" is the answer

Reply to pampango (Original post)

Thu Apr 12, 2012, 10:34 AM

Apr 2012

But I should add the conservatives have for a long time been sweeping critical thinking out the door. It appears that the party is now spic and span.

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