High Wingnuttery

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I have added a category(tag) here at Hoggers - High Wingnuttery.  The question is - will High Wingnutery save the Democrats and send the Republicans even deeper into the wilderness?  Via Down With Tyranny we have this from the New York Times.

The bitter divisions over an overhaul of the health care system have exploded at town-hall-style meetings over the last few days as members of Congress have been shouted down, hanged in effigy and taunted by crowds. In several cities, noisy demonstrations have led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations.

There is no dispute, however, that most of the shouting and mocking is from opponents of those plans. Many of those opponents have been encouraged to attend by conservative commentators and Web sites.

�Become a part of the mob!� said a banner posted Friday on the Web site of the talk show host Sean Hannity. �Attend an Obama Care Townhall near you!� The exhortations do not advocate violence, but some urge opponents to be disruptive.

�Pack the hall,� said a strategy memo circulated by the Web site Tea Party Patriots that instructed, �Yell out and challenge the Rep�s statements early.�

As I said earlier the source of this insanity may be the selection of Sarah Palin.  She seemed to bring out the crazies and the bigots.  After Bush/Cheney/ Rove destroyed the country and the Republican party much of what was left of the party were the fruits of the "Southern Strategy" - the bat shit crazy racists.  As Down with Tyranny points out John McCain, in his wishy washy sort of way, has been trying to calm the crazies.  Could this be because he has one of the racist crazies challenging him in the primary?  Main stream conservatives are finding themselves challenged by the crazies all over the country which does not speak well for the Republicans and 2010. 

As you might recall Oregon now has two Democratic Senators because  a High Wingnut was running against wingnut Republican Gordon Smith last November.

It would appear that Merkley will receive 48% of the votes to Smith's 46% with Constitution Party candidate Brownlow receiving 5%, most of which was taken from Smith.  Brownlow said that Smith was not conservative enough and that he ran to make sure Smith would lose.

Could we have a repeat of this all over the country in 2010?  In the Republican party it would appear the lunatics have taken over the asylum so the answer may be yes.

Update

I think Sully gets it right here:

Obama still isn�t president in the south

This is the silly season. But this silly story seems to me an indication of something more ominous. The demographics tell the basic story: a black man is president and a large majority of white southerners cannot accept that, even in 2009. They grasp conspiracy theories to wish Obama � and the America he represents � away. Since white southerners comprise an increasing proportion of the 22% of Americans who still describe themselves as Republican, the GOP can neither dismiss the crankery nor move past it. The fringe defines what�s left of the Republican centre.

The chilling implication is that a large number of Americans believe the president has no right to be in office and has fraudulently manoeuvred himself there.

I hope the secret service is on alert. If we thought racial panic had ended with Obama�s election, the resilience of this story in key parts of the country is a helpful wake-up call.

Unfortunately Sully has become a bit of a conspiracy theorist himself and probably lacks credibility.