By BJ Bjornson
The following video has been doing the rounds today, and I do think it says something when even Pat Robertson realizes the GOP is going too far.:
As TPM puts it:
When Pat Robertson � yes, Pat Robertson � thinks the GOP base is too extreme, it might be time for some party soul searching.
Of course, soul searching isn�t too big on the right these days, and Paul Krugman helpfully explains why.
The key to understanding this, I�d suggest, is that movement conservatism has become a closed, inward-looking universe in which you get points not by sounding reasonable to uncommitted outsiders � although there are a few designated pundits who play that role professionally � but by outdoing your fellow movement members in zeal.
It�s sort of reminiscent of Stalinists going after Trotskyites in the old days: the Trotskyites were left deviationists, and also saboteurs working for the Nazis. Didn�t propagandists feel silly saying all that? Not at all: in their universe, extremism in defense of the larger truth was no vice, and you literally couldn�t go too far.
Many members of the commentariat don�t want to face up to the fact that this is what American politics has become; they cling to the notion that there are gentlemanly elder statesmen on the right who would come to the fore if only Obama said the right words. But the fact is that nobody on that side of the political spectrum wants to or can make deals with the Islamic atheist anti-military warmonger in the White House.
The really fun part is that we�ve easily got months of this to watch before the dust has settled enough for a clear winner to emerge from whoever manages to pose the biggest challenge to Multiple Choice Mitt (currently Cain, but Perry has deep enough pockets he may yet recover from his earlier stumbles).
Sure it�s crazy, but it does make for one hell of a spectator sport, so long as you don't think too much about the fact that there remains a very real chance one of these guys can win.
The GOP takeover by extremists is very much like the KKK takeover of politics, especially among Democrats, in the Twenties. I read somewhere that Indiana even elected a governor who proudly flaunted his credentials as a big shot in the KKK.
ReplyDeleteThe McCarthy era was another such time of madness.
It reminds me of some unnamed congenital national disease, something like malaria or shingles. We never really get over it. From time to time it just seems to flare up.
Thus far it hasn't been fatal but it sure leaves plenty of scars.