“The DNA Of Modern Conservatism”: Anti-Government Resistance Now The Beating Heart Of GOP
Some folks thought it was “inflammatory.” Some said it was “irresponsible,” others, “absurd,” still others, “disappointing.”
Those are some of the words affronted conservatives used in emails last month to describe my column on the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. In it, I noted how Timothy McVeigh’s act of domestic terrorism shed light on a movement of like-minded zealots motivated, as he was, by hatred of the federal government and rejection of its authority.
“Twenty years ago,” I wrote, “the idea of anti-government resistance seemed confined to a lunatic fringe operating in the shadows beyond the mainstream. Twenty years later, it is the mainstream, the beating heart of the Republican Party. And while certainly no responsible figure on the right advocates or condones what he did, it is just as certain that McVeigh’s violent antipathy toward Washington, his conviction that America’s government is America’s enemy, has bound itself to the very DNA of modern conservatism.”
That’s the argument conservatives found “hateful” “sickening,” and “dishonest.”
So it is, depending upon your religious outlook, a fortuitous coincidence or superfluous evidence of God’s puckish sense of humor that a few days later comes news of conservatives accusing the federal government of trying to take over the state of Texas. It seems the four branches of the U.S. military are gearing up for Operation Jade Helm 15, an eight-week training exercise across seven states. Right-wing conspiracy theorists online and on radio are claiming the exercise is actually a pretext for a federal takeover of the Lone Star State, with — get this — abandoned Walmarts to be used for the processing of prisoners!
Nor is this being laughed off by conservatives in positions of authority. To the contrary, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the state guard to monitor the exercise to safeguard Texan’s “civil liberties.” Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert has asked the military to change the exercise. Senator and presidential wannabe Ted Cruz said he checked with the Pentagon and while he accepts that it has no plans to conquer Texas — how magnanimous of him — “I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty” because the Obama administration “has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy.”
Forgive me if I don’t spend a lot of space pointing out that this is stupid, though I can’t resist asking: If the Navy, Army, Marines, and Air Force were, indeed, planning to take over Texas, just what does Gov. Abbott think the state guard would be able to do about it?
There is, however, a more pressing observation to be made. After all, chances are good you’ve never heard about any of this — the story hasn’t garnered major headlines — and that, hearing of it now, you are not terribly surprised. That speaks pointedly of how inured we have become to the insane, paranoiac, anti-government prattle flowing like sewage from the political right. Duly elected leaders, putatively responsible people, give credence to the crazy idea that the federal government is about to attack its second most populous state and we shrug because it’s just another Tuesday in the lunatic asylum of American politics.
Look, I get it: No one wants to be compared to McVeigh. And I’ll repeat: No one in a position of responsibility embraces his prescription of terrorist violence. But it seems to me beyond argument that in the philosophical struggle for the soul of conservatism, he lost the battle and won the war. Much of what now passes for conservatism proceeds from extremes of government loathing that would have stunned Ronald Reagan himself.
Some of my readers used many colorful words to characterize that argument. Here’s the word I’d use:
Obvious.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, May 11, 2015
“Speaking The Truth”: Michelle Obama Is Accused Of “Playing The Race Card.” Let’s Check It Out
One of the conservative’s favorite tools for blaming racial polarization on the current occupants of the White House is to accuse them of “playing the race card.” It happens every time one of them mentions racism as a factor in our country.
Usually the signal to noise ratio around such remarks by the President is so loud, it is difficult to unpack it all with much clarity. But recently some right wing publications accused First Lady Michelle Obama of “playing the race card” in her remarks at the opening of the Whitney Museum. It was a fairly quiet event, so let’s take a look and see what we can learn about how this kind of thing happens.
Here’s the quote from the First Lady’s remarks that they zero in on:
You see, there are so many kids in this country who look at places like museums and concert halls and other cultural centers and they think to themselves, well, that’s not a place for me, for someone who looks like me, for someone who comes from my neighborhood. In fact, I guarantee you that right now, there are kids living less than a mile from here who would never in a million years dream that they would be welcome in this museum.
And growing up on the South Side of Chicago, I was one of those kids myself. So I know that feeling of not belonging in a place like this. And today, as first lady, I know how that feeling limits the horizons of far too many of our young people.
That’s it. According to these folks, that’s “playing the race card.” It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? If anyone had any doubts that First Lady Michelle was speaking the truth, all you’d have to do is visit a local museum and count the number of young people (much less young people of color) who are there.
We know that many of the people who read the site I linked to up above will simply see what they wrote and buy that Michelle Obama is trying to stir up racial discord. That’s because it confirms what they already believe about her.
But of course, that’s not all she said. It turns out that the Whitney Museum’s current exhibit is titled, America Is Hard to See. Here’s how it’s described on their web site:
The title, America Is Hard to See, comes from a poem by Robert Frost and a political documentary by Emile de Antonio. Metaphorically, the title seeks to celebrate the ever-changing perspectives of artists and their capacity to develop visual forms that respond to the culture of the United States. It also underscores the difficulty of neatly defining the country’s ethos and inhabitants, a challenge that lies at the heart of the Museum’s commitment to and continually evolving understanding of American art.
As it turns out, Michelle was reacting to the fact that the current exhibit explores our complex cultural roots in this country. The museum is making a concerted effort to reach out to young people from all backgrounds to engage them in answering the question: “How can we truly, fully witness the melting pot of cultures and sensibilities and struggles that make America unlike any other country on earth?” That is the context for the remarks quoted above.
It’s also important to know what the First Lady said next.
You’re telling them [young people] that their story is part of the American story, and that they deserve to be seen. And you’re sending that message not just with the art you display, but with the educational programming you run here. You’re reaching out to kids from all backgrounds, exposing them to the arts, showing them that they have something to contribute.
What was a message from both the Whitney Museum and our First Lady about healing and reconciliation becomes twisted by these people into something ugly and divisive. That their anger and fear are so constraining that they miss out on the beauty of what is happening is actually rather sad.
By: Nancy LeTourneau, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, May 10, 2015
“Conservative Con Artists”: Are Republican Elites Ready To Shut Down The Circle Of Scam?
When Mike Huckabee decided to run for president, he surely knew that he’d be subjected to a level of scrutiny that your average Fox News host doesn’t have to worry about. So it was to be expected that commentators would start discussing Huckabee’s colorful history with regard to money, particularly the way he has used his email list to separate gullible conservatives from their funds, with scams like miracle Bible cancer cures. Ron Fournier looks at that today, and it just happens to coincide with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by conservative writer Matt Lewis, who excoriates conservative con artists for the way they prey on the rank-and-file. Instead of convincing conservatives to subscribe to newsletters or buy useless products, the newly loose campaign finance laws now allow them to be targeted for bogus superPACs that are allegedly for political causes but actually seem to be just a way to make money:
There’s no need to pick on one group; PACs using similar tactics are all over the place. Another one with an innocuous-sounding name, Conservative America Now, is raising money to draft Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon to challenge Sen. John McCain. But Mr. Salmon might not run and doesn’t want the help. In February the Hill newspaper reported he was prepping a cease-and-desist letter to the group, which a spokesman for the congressman alleged “appears to intentionally mislead potential donors.”
Last year Fox’s Detroit affiliate WJBK ran an exposé on direct-mail fundraising companies that continue to solicit using the names of past clients, such as former Republican congressional candidate Rocky Raczkowski. One direct-mail firm, the piece noted, “collected $1 million to support Rocky Raczkowski for races he never ran.” The Fox reporter spoke to Mr. Raczkowski, who said he’d had no idea that funds were being raised using his name. Some of the donors went on camera as well, including senior citizens living on fixed incomes, who were aghast when they were told the truth.
John McCain tweeted that Lewis’s piece was a “must-read,” and this is making me wonder if there might be an elite backlash brewing against the longstanding right-wing con industry, whereby gullible (usually elderly) conservatives are targeted for all manner of schemes and scams by operators within the movement. I’ve been writing about this for a while (see here, here, or here), and one of the reasons this stuff can persist is because it often has the involvement or at least tacit approval of Republican elites. But many of those elites dislike Mike Huckabee intensely, both for his occasional forays into economic populism and for the fact that he puts forward exactly the type of image they’re trying to get away from, by writing books with names like God, Guns, Grits and Gravy. Since Huckabee is up to his neck in these kinds of scams, going after the whole little industry would be a great way to undermine him.
By: Paul Waldman, Senior Writer, The American Prospect, May 8, 2015
“The Strategic Hamlet Of Bastrop, Texas”: Why Did Texas Politicians Cave In To Delusional Paranoia?
The real news isn’t that many Texans seemingly subscribe to an apocalyptic, delusional worldview, one that has them convinced that a U.S Army training exercise called “Jade Helm 15” is the opening wedge of an Obama-led coup d’etat — seizing guns, importing thousands of ISIS fighters to subdue local patriots, and throwing dissenters into FEMA concentration camps.
Because where else would you start a military takeover but the strategic hamlet of Bastrop, Texas, commanding the crucial highway junction between Elgin and LaGrange? Never mind that Fort Hood, the largest U.S. military installation in the world, is maybe 75 miles up the road. Bastrop is the linchpin.
No, the real news is that name-brand Texas politicians such as Gov. Greg Abbott and Sen. Ted Cruz think it’s smart to lend plausibility to what is essentially a mass psychiatric delusion. Did you know that even Walmart’s involved? Rumor says recently closed stores are being refitted as barracks for foreign soldiers.
After a raucous hearing in Bastrop, during which a regular Army colonel who pointed out that he’d served five presidents over 27 years got accused of lying and shouted down, Gov. Abbott ordered the Texas Guard to monitor U.S. Army war games this summer.
This so that “Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.”
Probably because there’s lithium in the water, stuff like this rarely happens out in El Paso — home of Fort Bliss, the 1,700-square mile HQ of the First Armored Division. But just across the border in Chihuahua, according to the Family Research Council, there’s a secret ISIS base with thousands of terrorists poised to strike. Hundreds of miles of underground tunnels have been dug to facilitate the invasion.
Also lending support to the nutball faction was Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who expressed support for Abbott’s leadership.
“I understand the concern that’s been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm,” Cruz said. “…I think part of the reason is, we have seen for six years a federal government disrespecting the liberty of the citizens and that produces fear. When you see a federal government that is attacking our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights,,, That produces distrust as to government.”
Hey Ted, Republicans lost two presidential elections. Grow up. Arkansas’ own Mike Huckabee plays to similar fears with gratuitous twaddle about “criminalizing Christianity.” All this really amounts to, as Paul Krugman puts it, is fear that Obama will “seize control of [Texas] and force its citizens to accept universal health care at gunpoint.”
Look, it’s not just Texas. Mad conspiracy theories are nothing new in American politics. Historian Rick Perlstein’s book Before the Storm describes a similar paranoid outbreak in 1963. A California GOP senator complained about an avalanche of “’fright mail,’ mostly centering on two astonishingly widespread rumors: that Chinese commandos were training in Mexico for an invasion of the United States through San Diego; and that 100,000 UN troops — 16,000 of them ‘African Negro troops, who are cannibals’ [sic] — were secretly rehearsing in the Georgia swamps under the command of a Russian colonel for a UN martial-law takeover of the United States.”
Back then it was President John F. Kennedy, an Irish-Catholic Democrat, who afflicted the John Birch Society with fear of The Other. Today, it’s President Obama scaring an Austin-based talk radio and Internet conspiracy theorist called Alex Jones.
Richard Hofstadter’s classic 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” explains: “I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.”
Left-wing paranoia is not unknown. However, in America paranoid mass movements are almost entirely a right-wing phenomenon, partly because they fit so well with the melodramatic themes of Protestant fundamentalism.
“The paranoid spokesman,” Hofstadter added, “sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization… he does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish.”
Is that not totally Ted Cruz?
But you know what? Ted Cruz ain’t Texas.
Early indications are that Cruz and Abbott are widely perceived to have made fools of themselves. Coverage in the statewide press has been derisive. A retired GOP legislator, Todd Smith of Euless, wondered if he should be more “horrified that I have to choose between the possibility that my governor actually believes this stuff and the possibility that my governor doesn’t have the backbone to stand up to those who do.”
Good question.
By: Gene Lyons, The National Memo, May 7, 2015
“Elephant In The Room”: Equality Ought To Be Considered A Conservative Virtue As Well As A Progressive One
While I remain nervous about the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court ultimately not concluding that gay and lesbian couples deserve equal treatment under the law, I was thrilled to see the scion of one of America’s most prominent right-wing families call for gays and lesbians to be treated as full citizens.
Sean Buckley, the grandson of far-right former U.S. Senator James Buckley (who was, of course, the brother of the late National Review founder William F. Buckley), points out that equality ought to be considered a conservative virtue, as well as a progressive one. Considering the rhetorical brutality visited upon another Buckley–WFB’s son Christopher–when he endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, one can only imagine how much courage it took to write this:
A clear majority of Americans now understand that being gay is not a choice. Gradually, this understanding is also extending among conservatives. And over 60% of millennial evangelical youth now support the freedom to marry.
Historically, marriage was primarily considered an economic and political transaction between families. As such, it was too vital of an institution to be entered into solely on the basis of something as irrational as love. It was not until the dawn of the Enlightenment in the 18th century that the idea of marrying primarily for love arrived. Those who opposed this shift saw it as an affront to social order, and rejected it as a dangerous change in the definition of marriage—similar to the arguments today.
But we’ve evolved, and learned that marriage matters for other reasons. At its core the institution of marriage hinges on two individuals committing to one another in life, for life, on a bedrock of love and self-sacrifice, which results in a better environment for raising children.
Above all else, the greatest gift our parents can give us is to teach us how to love—an emotion that gives the human experience both the purpose and meaning that is so critical to a happy and healthy life. I count this as one of the greatest gifts my parents have given me, and hope to one day give the same to my kids. Conservatives are right to argue that the best environment to raise children is within a marriage. However, it has nothing to do with the gender of their parents but instead the love they have for one another.
Unfortunately, Buckley fails to point out that it was progressives (including some progressive-minded Republicans such as former Massachusetts Governors William Weld and the late Paul Cellucci, who appointed three of the four Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court judges who recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry in the 2003 Goodridge v. Department of Public Health ruling) who paved the way for equal treatment under the law for gays and lesbians, over the fierce and hate-filled resistance of Wingnut World. However, to the extent that Sean Buckley’s position is being embraced by a new generation of Republicans, we could be on the verge of seeing the GOP effectively split into two parties–one representing the views of the James Dobson crowd, the other representing the views of Weld and current Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker.
Granted, I don’t like the idea of Republicans holding fast to equally backward ideas like denying human-caused climate change and embracing the Tax Fairy despite giving up on the gay-bashing in blue and purple states. However, it is of critical importance that homophobia be deprived of as much political and cultural oxygen as possible–and if Sean Buckley can help us all in that regard, then more power to him.
By: D. R. Tucker, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, May 2, 2015
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