... suggesting for example that it was the "hate and rage" of the French revolution that caused all the problems in Europe, conveniently overlooking the income disparity that led to the revolution.

On the other hand, he's on the money about the extremists who have taken over my father's Republican Party. Hopefully this will be used to help rein in that extremism.

. . . is a desperate last attempt to rationalize a failed and inherently destructive ideology and politics. It's not that conservative politics have changed so much in Fumento's time; it's just that they've run clean out of the rope voters have given them to hang themselves over the past few decades since the purists' idol, Goldwater held their attention.

His mentor, Reagan was Fumento's fav because he was able to cloak his anti-government, anti-worker, anti-poor agenda in all sorts of patriotic nonsense for the true believers to munch on as they evicerated our social safety nets with glee and abandon.

Now, Fumento wants to bring his own brand of kinder-gentler corporatist politics out from under the rock where his party resides in hopes of providing cover for the wanton racism, sexism, homophobia, and elitism that his party's presumptive nominee and his supporters so recklessly embody and exude.

Good luck with that, Mr. Fumento.

-Laelth

it's like he's saying it's okay to be this way but we shouldn't be so blatant about it. it makes thinking people nervous.

At least since Burke. The difference between the old Republican Party and the new, improved tea party version is that the former would have read Burke, whereas the invocation of his name would be met by the latter with blank stares.

. . . found myself repeating what you wrote in my head and chuckling to myself out loud. Well done!

I've been thinking a lot about this in the last four years. Conservative intellectuals have aided and abetted the rise of the worst sorts of demagogues, despite the fact that the conservative intellectual tradition holds demagoguery in great disdain. We have seen this before, in the 1930's, when reactionary German intellectuals such as Carl Schmitt gave themselves over to National Socialism, only to find in the space of a few years, just as Schmitt did, that the political movement they had supported had no need, use or understanding of them once they assumed power. What's jarring is that conservative intellectuals today, much like Schmitt, now express shock, surprise and umbrage at this, even though their own marginalization is entirely predictable to them, using their own understanding of Gassett's "mass man."

One was Norm Ornstein...a "Buckley Conservative"...fiscally conservative and socially moderate who has expressed his problems with the hard right of today's rushpublicans. He considered Democrats to be center/left and the only party concerned with governing while the rushpublicans are in full campaign and dogma mode. His hopes were for one party or another to win (preferably Democrats) but that divided government no longer gets things done and as long as the rushpublicans have any chance at power they will obstruct and push their regressive agendas.

The ugly truth is the rushpublicans are now trying to run as if all the economic hell of the past decade is solely President Obama's fault and the corporate media has helped passed that meme along. You've got Rove out there screaming about the defecits his corrupt cronies made possible.

There was also a comparison of the rushpublicans going through a time of turbulence similar to what Democats endured during the 70s and 80s. Maybe a good ass kicking in November can finally get the big purging and implosion that's long overdue in the GOTB.

. . . and gridlock that the 'new' republicans are so fond of.

You're right that they'll work to make inroads with conservative Democrats and others to advance or preserve planks and programs which suit their agenda and interests. I'm sure it doesn't escape the notice of their moneymovers that the economy and employment always benefit, considerably more, when Democrats are in power.

but certainly worth the time to read it.

It has that delicious air of betrayal and disillusionment in it's confessional detail. I imagine the author is having a breakdown, of some sorts, right now. I say cold turkey is probably the best remedy, in these cases of revulsion with one's own entity. No good trying to hang on to bits and pieces of tainted and decrepit ideology. Best to make as clean a break from it all as possible.

You knew that it was hate, racism and ignorance that fueled the rise of the "New Right" in the 1980s and kept it going for the ensuing 30 years.

As long as it looked shiny and clean, you rode that shit-pony until the hooves came off - who cared what was beneath its red-white-and-blue hide?

Any why not? Plenty of think-tank money and a house publisher to get your effusions to a wider audience - beats real work any day!

But now the ugly truth is well and truly out of the barn. The Hysterical Yokel bloc you fed and pampered for all those years has swollen to the point where its weight is snapping the few remaining links that tether the Republican party to reality.

And what's your reaction? Responsibility? Mea culpa?

No, no, now you're going to hold forth to the unworthy, unwashed and un-Republican like ourselves as to how beneath you it all is, and aren't we shocked, shocked as to what's happened to political discourse in this country.

Two more words - fuck you. You helped it happen, you cashed in, and now you want to show how much better you are than the political monstrosity you helped create.

Bite me.

have shared that screed in comments to the actual article. Because if you don't, I may steal it and put it there myself.

All these supposedly smart conservative intellectuals, or what passes for intellectuals within the conservative movement since the death of Bill Buckley, absolutely have egged on the most reactionary, nativist, racist and stupid elements within the GOP as part of their effort to perpetuate their ideology's grip on the reins of power. They failed to see what other conservative intellectuals have historically failed to see, which is that they are creating a movment with no ideas and no room for people like themselves.

This is the same nihilism that they are so fond of accusing the left of exemplifying.

. . . right on the money!

Added to my journal. This is actually part of a project I've been working on for some time, or at least a project I've been procrastinating on for some time.

please post at salon.

. . . these are the same folks, attracted by these same bigoted appeals, that allowed Fumentos to gain and hold political power. Little late now to put down the spawns of his intellectual enterprise.

Let the feeding frenzy begin.

"Pity the poor Onion; there’s nothing left to satirize."

It amuses me to no end to see chumps like this complaining that decades of their own deception, doubletalk, and rule by fear has created this monster. "My evil people were less evil than the evil people who were indoctrinated and put in place by my evil people."

The conclusion we should all be able to easily reach is that conservatives do not think rationally and cannot foresee the consequences of their own actions.

Which is why we're f----ed now.

Mr. Fumento,

When you were writing in the umpteen major conservative publications, how sharply did you attack Nixon and his CREEPy ratfuckers? Did you condemn Reagan for feeding on racism by talking about welfare queens, "young bucks" buying T-bone steaks with food stamps, and launching his presidential campaign in a town best known for the murder of civil rights activists and talking about "states rights"?

What's your track record on Newt Gingrich, who promoted and codified caring nothing for truth and dignity, and used that to position himself as Speaker of the House? What about Rush Limbaugh and all the other radio-ranters pounding their hysterical shoes on their desks better than Khrushchev could have ever hoped?

What did your columns say during the witch-hunt for Bill Clinton? Did you attack the GOP forces that were bent on bringing down a president over behavior that was not a matter of national concern?

What did you say throughout the administration of George W. Bush? About his "gimme gimme gimme" behavior once declared as having the lead in Florida in 2000, and the array of tactics his campaign employed to prevent a full recount?
How about in 2004? What did you have to say about the swift boater attacks on John Kerry that "cared nothing for truth or dignity"?

What did you write about Lee Atwater? What have you written about Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Karl Rove, and the assortment of billionaires funding assorted "hysterical right" efforts to push their agendas?

And what have you written about the people who warned you that the hysterics would eat your movement in the end? (That would be Liberals who warned you, in case you had dismissed them as "hysterics" themselves.)



You were not way ahead of the curve, sir. Your movement rode it to power, and if all you're going to do about it now is write some "tsk tsk" articles, then you are far, far behind that curve.

You bred these ratfuckers, sir. Now that you're infested with them, don't sniff in distaste that they'll fuck you too.

Frankenstein has turned on its creator. Didn't turn out well for the Baron, did it?

these people have co-opted the name “conservative”-

It was all fine while the elites lead the rabble around as their private mob of loonies. Duping dimwits into voting against their own self-interest. Now the loonies have taken over the asylum. And who's fault is that? I think about that moment when the old lady tells McCain Obama can't be trusted because 'he's an Arab'. Conservatives have been playing with fire for years letting their useful idiots believe any manner of ridiculous crap that motivates them to go to the poles. Now we're all going to the price.

In other words we must give them tough love. We must not enable them by allowing them to govern. We must reject them as forcefully as possible at the polls. You may remember that the last time we rejected them in 2008 they scratched their heads and came up with the path of most denial, claiming their failure was that they were not "conservative" enough and that Bush was a liberal.

Unfuckingbelievable, eh?

But this is an addict in denial and I'm afraid we did them and us a disservice by enabling them in 2010.

We have to reject them at the polls, for their own good. They will either come to a point where they want to recover or they will die. Frankly I'd rather see them die off and fade into the sunset because I don't hold any hope for their recovery. "Conservatives" are reprobates, IMHO. A younger group that has more common sense and a better grip on reality will step in and displace the radical right.

They've always been money-grubbing and lying pigs. I know it's possible that some people turn their lives around and become actual members of society but claiming that repigs used to be truthful and dignified is BULLSHT.

The myth that there was once a principled Republican party is just that, a myth. Republicans have fought every major piece of positive legislation that this country has produced for over 100 years. The Republican Party of Lincoln were the liberals of their day, so they don't count.

Republicans have fought against women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, worker's rights, environmental protection, reproductive rights, prisoner rights, and just about everything else that has benefited the country in the last century.

Fuck the new crazy Republicans. And fuck the old school business butt kissing ones as well.

"The old right" is just a bullshit way of saying "I'm still a piece of shit, but I want my bill to be separate from those other pieces of shit over there"

You can't claim to be someone interested in "serious research" and then tout your writing at National review, Weekly Standard, WSJ and Forbes; those rags are the weekly sun for people rich enough to hire people to buy groceries for them.

Fumento wants to "break" with the fuckwits? Then he needs to BREAK with them and get a worldview that doesn't center around how great it is to be a fucking sociopath. Until then, all he's doing is puffing himself up by pretending to be "better" than the other assholes he hangs out with.

Fuck him.