Greg Sargent finds Republicans aren’t backing away from their embrace of the right-wing extremist label or their mockery of the DHS report on right-wing extremism:
The Liberty Counsel — a Christian right group whose support is courted by mainstream GOP politicians — is still raising cash by mocking the “right wing extremists” report, despite the identification of the suspect in yesterday’s Holocaust Museum shooting as a white supremacist and anti-government zealot.
The Liberty Counsel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, is a non-profit that describes itself as “dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family.” It allies with GOP politicians in legislative fights such as the one against hate-crimes legislation, and no less a mainstream Republican than John McCain courted its support during last year’s presidential race.
But right now, the group is still mocking the “right wing extremists” report right there on its Web site, offering people tongue in cheek ID cards labeling them “right wing extremists” and asking for donations in exchange.
I’m still waiting for a way for this all to be blamed on liberals, the way that Ross Douthat blamed the Tiller murder on the pro-choice movement. Trust me, someone besides Debbie Schlussel will do it.
TenguPhule
Rush beat you to it.
TenguPhule
Linkie
Hat tip to C&L.
superfly
Dear Leader has.
via Media Matters
SGEW
Ahem.
Wasn’t hard to find. Read more Neiwert.
cleek
one of those bullet points is “Interpreting the Bible literally is not a crime”. and yet, the Biblical punishment for adultery is stoning, which is clearly against the law.
how can this be?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets their eye poked out.
IOW, for Liberty Council and friends this is going to seem like a really great idea right up to the moment some “lone nut” turns up at the scene of one of these massacres with one of those cards in his wallet. Then the backpedalling will be spectacular.
SGEW
@cleek:
Literally? Magical thinking.
SATSQ
Origuy
An acquaintance of von Brunn said that he was mad because his Social Security had been cut. Any true conservative would have been delighted to prove his ability to thrive without government interference!
TenguPhule
This means McCain and Limbaugh must die.
A silver lining to every cloud.
jrg
Presumably they mean “religious freedom” for Christians only, as “America is a Christian Nation” is one of their favorite lies.
Presumably they mean “sanctity of human life” besides doctors they don’t like. Oh, and anyone living in the Middle East, or anyone enlisted in the military.
Presumably when they say “traditional family”, they are talking about Bristol Palin and her baby-daddy, not a bunch of happily married fags and their “San Francisco Values”.
These people make me sick.
Cat Lady
It will be interesting (not in the Cokie Roberts way) to watch the Villagers close ranks around any discussion of media culpability for giving Glenn Beck and Limbaugh and O’Reilly such high visibility. It will give “we surround you” new meaning.
DougJ
I honestly believe they will use it a proof that Obama is polarizing.
cleek
he’s clearly a lefty. it’s undeniable, given his many essays in favor of government-financed health-care and greater money for education. and let’s not overlook his series of feminist novellas, which were well-received at lesbian bookstores all across the country.
i hear his latest essay, “Multi-love: Loving People of All Races” was set to be published by a small Berkeley book co-op this fall, with a small promotional tour of arts festivals scheduled for next spring. he had also done spoken-word shows opening for Brandie Carlile and the Indigo Girls.
all wasted, now.
Tony J
You recall that the Far-Right British National Party won a couple of seats in the Euro Elections last Thursday? It was mentioned in a thread down there.
Yesterday morning, the BBC’s current Early Morning Eye-Candy presenter introduced a story about it by refering to “…the Right Wing BNP, though some say Left.”
So this whole “Blame Teh Left” defence mechanism isn’t confined to the USA. There’s co-ordination and a whole lot of ass-covering going on wherever you look.
OH
[Just a stylistic quibble, is there any way to make quoted text appear in something other than Super Extra Bold?]
jnfr
By existing, we force them to hate and kill us. If we would cease to exist, they would have no provocation, and everything would be peaceful.
Cat Lady
@DougJ:
They will indeed say “some say Obama is polarizing”.
d0n Camillo
I’ll kinda miss Bill Clinton though. On the other hand, bye bye Newt.
Comrade Dread
New Testament. Christians are not as bound to the Old Testament laws. There’s a new set of guidelines set out in the gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters.
As to blaming liberals, as a potential sell-out to the GOP establishment, I would go with the “why didn’t Obama’s justice department enforce the gun laws to prevent felons like this from owning firearms. It’s because they want incidents like this so they can justify stricter gun laws and eventually taking your guns away.” angle myself.
Not only does it blame Obama, but it also plays upon my key demographics native fears about scary Muslim Democrats who want to disarm you and make you buy GM cars. (Cue ominous laughter)
Call me, Salem. I’m cheaper than Rush.
jrg
That’s got to be one of the dumbest arguments coming out of this mess: that von Nutso a liberal because he receives Social Security. Wouldn’t that mean that everyone over 65 is a liberal?
Ash Can
People lining up willingly to get “right-wing extremist” cards? Beautiful. The Liberty Council is doing the FBI’s job for it. Are you sure this web site isn’t a Fed front?
(Disclaimer: No, I don’t think everyone who signs up for one of these cards is a criminal or should be investigated. This site merely furnishes a data point that could be useful for anyone on the domestic terrorist beat who’s working on connecting dots. If it helps a pattern emerge in an individual case or two — and helps prevent murders and assassinations as a result — I’d say it’s worth it.)
Calouste
@cleek:
You can either interpret things, or you can take thing literally, but “interpreting something literally” does not compute.
But if the Christianist are going to take the Bible literally, when can we start seeing the protests outside Red Lobster for selling shellfish and outside JC Penney’s for selling polycotton? And when are they going to give away all their earthly riches as Jesus asked?
blogenfreude
@d0n Camillo: And let’s not forget David Vitter – I’m sure whoremongering gets you at least a stoning.
Da Bomb
I love how the card lists a point about literally interpreting the bible as being a conservative. If that’s the case, then right-wing extremists are the biggest hypocrites.
So I guess, Love thy Neighbor is only enforced if the neighbor isn’t a minority, participates in “opposites marriage”, and speaks amerikkkun.
I am with jrg, these people make me sick too!
thalarctos
Oh, well—omelette, eggs, all that…
Paul L.
Where are the posts condemning the
RightReich wing for demonizing neocons on Mr 90 % lie site?Tony
Hoot-Smalley tag — I love it!
Paul L.
Don;t forget Ezra Klein’s favorite progressive heroes Gavin Newsom, Elliot Spitzer and John Edwards.
Joshua Norton
Hell, they started calling Chimpy’s mess the “Obama recession” months before the election when it started looking like Walnuts was going down in flames.
The phases of wingnuttia closely mirror the first 4 stages of grieving.
They never quite make to stage 5 because Limpballs and BO Reilly always come up with something new to rattle their cages.
jake 4 that 1
This bears repeating.
Really the entire right-wing is a bunch of chickenshit bullies. They talk tough but they’re scared to death of everything. If they didn’t have such a low threshold for acting in self-defense they’d be completely hilarious.
slag
@cleek:
I call BS. Do lesbians really have their own bookstores?
Still…hilarious.
SpotWeld
Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but I always found the right-wing love of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag rather disturbing when I remember it’s predecessor is a similar flag (with a cut-up snake) with the mottor “Join or Die”.
This earlier phase is one I rather imagine gets repeated under the breaths of a lot of extreamists like von Brunn, but with somewhat different connotations.
d0n Camillo
That’s still a sacrifice I’m willing to make. My biggest worry would be running out of stones once we got to the Congressional Republicans.
Comrade Dread
I know plenty of Republicans who hate neo-conservatives too.
Oh, but I forgot the cardinal rule of wingnuttery. Anyone who disagrees with the GOP cheerleaders is a librul.
Paul L.
or this
Zach
Andy McCarthy already called him a liberal fascist:
I would right now challenge him to a bet if he were up for it: if evidence arises that von Brun voted for and/or supported Obama for President, I’ll donate any amount of money to the charity of his choice, provided he’ll do the same if von Brun supported McCain.
slag
@Paul L.: So, you’re calling Neiwert a “liar” because he quoted an ABC News story that contains facts which Fox News disputes?
You should consider purchasing a dictionary of some sort. You can find “liar” in the Ls, where you should also look up “loser” and “looney” for your own edification.
SenyorDave
I once read that many of the Nazi leaders were drug addicts. I guess Rush would fit in perfectly, both in ideology and recreational pursuits. Now I wonder how does finding viagara on his trip to a child-sex haven fit in?
Paul L.
I’ll bet that most members of that set also voted for Obama in the last election.
Jason
@SGEW:
wow – it’s almost as if they knew this would happen.
Tsulagi
Trust me, someone besides Debbie Schlussel will do it.
Well, it’s not Schlussel-grade batshit loony, but you can always count on the teabagging ball buyers of the RSSF to provide at least weak tea. One front page post: Has Anyone Checked to See if the Holocaust Museum Shooter had a DailyKos Account?
Earlier, Field Marshal EE took time out from dreaming of dreamy rough men at the ready stiffening up his wrists to write a particularly lame post.
Paul L.
@slag:
I have adopted the Keith Olbermann standard, Anything inaccurate stated by someone I disagree with is a lie.
El Cid
I think that a lot of right wingers out there are about to realize that the DHS really is listening in on them, and not just releasing accurate reports they don’t like.
I think America is tired of their temper-tantrum fits, and the ones leaning towards violence will learn very, very quickly that America is damn fed up with their shit.
Dave S.
Liberty Counsel – provider of legal advice or Epic Spellcheck Fail? And no, I really really don’t want to go there to find out.
slag
@Paul L.: Using others to justify your own inappropriate actions? Maybe you should spend some time meditating on your own behaviors before lashing out at other people. It’s this kind of intense outward focus–blaming the world for your problems, if you will–that compels people to do crazy things. We wouldn’t want you going off the deep end.
R-Jud
@Dave S.:
I’m glad you noticed that, too.
Ash
From something in von Brunn’s notebook:
From the DHS report:
Gee, IMAGINE THAT YOU ASSHOLES.
Jason
I take it back, and furthermore add this to the Conservapedia page on “Liberal Fascism”:
Goldberg theorized quantum fascism so long before conditions could be recreated in the lab that we could not have expected visible phenomena to appear so soon (or not at all, and in addition, what?). Now that the von Brunn particle is a documented, physical reality, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to say that any action is verifiably ‘left’ or ‘right’ wing, because both are also at once both also, and at once both also become the other, so we can pretty much conclude that everything we were once mad at is now mad at us, and so we are right to have been mad at it and right to now be mad at the opposite of it. In turn. And thus we put to rest persistent rumors of the McVeigh particle, 9 divided by 11 equals zero, is A, also, I think the Dead Kennedys are a gr8 band, lets pretend, listen to the lyrics: perceptively right-wing. Suede-denim secret police! Ha! My fingers hurt.
Brachiator
[The Liberty Counsel, which is affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, is a non-profit that describes itself as “dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family.” ]
Goddamn. The universe loves itself some irony. Along with all the other noxious, murderous craziness, his ex-wife notes that she divorced him because of his racist anger. So much for family values.
This has been noted on other blogs, but even the NY Times blog is picking up on how traces of von Brunn’s online work are being erased from the Web.
This is troubling, as troubling as any aspects of the global war on terror, in that it suggests that extreme right wing crazies are willing to amp up the violence, but will do what they need to do to remove evidence of their intent to do harm.
That the Liberty Counsel and other organizations continue to entangle themselves with this scum is not only intellecually reprehensible, it is skirting the edges of criminality.
And opponents of these openly racist thugs are not just blogging about them, they are pelting them with eggs, making them scamper back into the sewers from which they emerged (More protests before BNP meeting).
To be clear, I absolutely am not advocating physical violence against any wingnut or conservative group.
But I really don’t want to see mainstream GOP politicians or conservative movement leaders pop up on pundit shows talking false equivalence nonsense, or being allowed to wriggle out from under either condemning extremists or confessing their allegiance to these groups.
I want GOP politicians asked if they believe that “enhanced interrogation techniques” could be used against suspected von Brunns, and if these terrorists should be sequestered in someplace similar to Gitmo. They should be asked to name names. After all, as they so often like to say, “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Shygetz
@slag: Like most trolls, Paul L. shows up to try to change the subject when any story that is patently unflattering to his cult is the topic of a post. It is best just to ignore him until he comments on-topic.
@El Cid: The problem is, the “America that is fed up with their shit” tends to be the part of America that believes in liberal standards of free speech and does not violently react to opposing views. All this “America” can do is shun these right-wing nutjobs, but most of them are already shunned.
I guess what I’m saying is, so what if America gets fed up with their shit? What are we gonna do about it? Answer: Take our casualties and toss ’em in jail, usually after the fact (unless they are dumb enough to actively threaten or incite violence before a terrorist action). It’s not an answer I like, but it’s the only one I can think of that is consistent with our liberal values.
kay
I’m surprised. They really don’t know how to turn it off, or around.
I don’t know either, but embracing this is probably a mistake.
ibid
@Origuy:
Aha! It’s the liberals’ fault because they have eroded the American spirit of self-reliance that hearkens back to the days of the Donner Party. The guy fought in WW2 in his youth, but he was emasculated by the Social Security crutch, and driven to (completely non-ideologically motivated) murder when he couldn’t cope with being pried from the government teat. Which begs the question, How many deaths of this sort is history’s greatest monster FDR responsible for?
rob!
Hey, as long as we still have preventative detention under Pres. Obama, I say lock up EVERY SINGLE PERSON who owns that ID card.
LD50
@TenguPhule:
Plus Gingrich’s days would be numbered.
Looks like win/win.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
random thought:
Demonization is a hell of a drug.
someguy
Shygetz – nailed it. It’s unflattering to the right to have to admit this guy is center mass conservative: pro-gun, anti-government, racist, anti-semitic Christian. They look at him and they seem themselves – hateful anti-American people that they are. I don’t know why you feel constrained to do nothing about these people; as was pointed out by the Supreme Court, the Constitution is not a suicide pact.
My only question is why this guy wasn’t hired as a Fox news commentator before this… he’s got all the qualifications.
Joshua Norton
@Dave S.: Actually, Counsel is a lawyer appointed to advise and represent an individual client or a public body in legal matters. So that’s about the only thing that they have right.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
Weekly Standard May Have Been Shooter Target
whoopsie
Joshua Norton
More likely where he was supposed to go to pick up his check.
LD50
I thought Jimmy Carter was agreed to be History’s Greatest Monster….
Garrigus Carraig
@Dave S.: They are, in fact, primarily a provider of legal advice, according to their website. [Edit: Beaten by Joshua Norton]
slag
@Shygetz:
I know. I just thought that rightwing lunacy was the topic.
Besides, don’t take my toys away.
Irrelevant,YetPoignant
@Joshua Norton: An anti-semite was going to pick up a check from Jews? Check your head, please.
Shygetz
@someguy: Because the Constitution IS a suicide pact. I thought the Civil War cleared that up pretty well. If you don’t like the Constitution, you change it. Ignoring it whenever you like is equal to not having a Constitution at all, just some guidelines that you follow when convenient.
Shygetz
@slag: Awfully broad topic…we’re gonna need a bigger thread.
Jim-Bob
Andrew over at NRO further pimps Jonah’s advanced theories
Jonah is an intellectual like ketchup (catsup?) is a vegetable.
slag
@Shygetz: Hehe. Or a Master’s course of some kind.
Deborah
Well, James Kirchik and Ben Smith have suggested that he may be a bipartisan wingnut. The fact that rightwingnuts are furiously distancing themselves and trying to reassign him, while left wingnuts (Sheehan? Moore?) don’t feel any need to weigh in, would seem to suggest the actual wingnuts don’t have any trouble classifying him politically.
Joshua Norton
the Weekly Standard is wingnut central. He was probably going to give them the exclusive story.
Charon
@Joshua Norton:
You have to remember that to the antisemitic parts of the paleo-conservative movement, neo-conservative just means Jew.
Think Pat Buchanan’s defense of Nazi camp guards.
SGEW
Right?
Montysano
Has anyone heard any details re: what happened to the shooter’s Social Security? So far I haven’t found anything.
cleek
hating neo-cons doesn’t necessarily make a person a lefty. Buchanan and the rest of the paleos had no love at all for the neo-cons. hating neo-cons just means you can’t be a Bush-era Republican, and that’s about it. hating neo-cons because you think they’re part of some Zionist conspiracy definitely doesn’t make you a lefty.
once again, Republicans are confusing Republicanism and conservatism.
noncarborundum
@Dave S.:
The former. One of their cards (you can see it at Right Wing Watch) describes Liberty Counsel this way:
Charon
@SGEW:
Absolutely true as you restated, but I was also trying to do some push back against the stuff from Kirchik and Smith that Deborah highlighted @66, hence the reason that I put it the way that I did.
David Hunt
So that’s what happened in the Bush Administration! They saw Pirate’s of the Caribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and thought that the Constitution was like the Pirates’ Code: more like guidelines.
Gus
What a surprise that a pathological Jew hater hates a magazine that is strongly supportive of Israel that is edited by Bill Kristol. Of course “conservatives” will use this as proof of liberal fascism.
SGEW
A truly excellent metaphor for the shooter’s “political leaning”:
That’s from The Economist, by the way. How times have changed.
SGEW
@Charon: Fair enough.
Grung_e_Gene
I blame the shooting at the feet of the Daily Kos, Andrew Sullivan, and Sonali Kolhatkher. The blood at the museum is on your hands.
http://valley-of-the-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/06/shooting-at-washingtons-holocaust.html
Hussah!
Will
I’ve noticed something peculiar today. On 2 of the major right-wing news aggregates–RealClearPolitics and Drudge Report–there is not a single mention of yesterday’s shooting.
gex
@Will: As though that helps. Like their readers don’t know that it happened. They do themselves no favors by just pretending this shit isn’t happening.
SGEW
I’ve noticed something even more peculiar today. Two of the best posts on the subject of the Holocaust museum shooting have come from Wonkette and The Economist: Wonkette for their restraint and moderation, and The Economist for their vulgarity.
Truly peculiar. Remarkable, even.
BDeevDad
Hell, Glen Beck is defending Brunn:
R-Jud
@SGEW: WHOA. Cats and dogs, living together.
Martin
I have a question along these lines:
If you have a gun, then commit a felony, how does the government confiscate that gun? I know you can’t buy new guns, and I can see that enforced, but what about existing guns legally obtained?
This whole ‘taking our guns away’ bumper stickerism always seemed to be focused on felons being able to keep their guns, since it’s the largest context in which the government would actually take guns away.
SGEW
@R-Jud: Alas, mass hysteria is all too common nowadays.
And Lily and Tunch are reportedly copacetic, so stop with the blame game already.
steve s
Yes, but you’re not allowed to insert a stiff bookmark between the pages. To keep your place, you have to open up another book, turn it over, and smoosh it down onto the first one.
gbear
edit: deleted. wrong thread
Zach
It’s worth going back to February and rewatching Glen Beck’s war room segment where he gamed out the forthcoming survivalist civil war, perpetrated by the “bubbas” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8La5xLYo2-s
I wonder why he thought it would take until 2014 for this to happen, and whether he still sympathizes with the bubbas.
LD50
I see someone’s never lived in the SF Bay Area…
Will
@Will:
For what it’s worth, Real Clear Politics just responded to my email that they added a section on the murder a few minutes ago.
someguy
We’re getting handed a lot of political opportunities here, and it strikes me that a lot of our discussion about who is to blame for creating these monsters is irrelevant.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. If it hands you a big lump of shit, like we’ve gotten in the von Brunn or Tiller cases, why not make shit-covered political enemies with it? Pin it on Rush and Cantor and McConnell for all I care. I like to think Rush creates people like this, but logically, I’m not sure that he does any more than I think Randy Rhodes creates the people who set fire to chain coffee shops and car dealers. But little inconsistencies be damned, it’s true enough for me to think Rush does create ’em. It’s not about high ideals and all that George Will inside baseball and republic of noble yoeman farmers crap, it’s about winning. We ought to be donating money to take out billboards before the next election showing pictures of these bastards next to Rush and whatever Republican is running in that district. Pin it on ’em and hear ’em squeal.
theturtlemoves
@SGEW: That is the funniest description of extremists of any bent I believe I have ever seen. They are a third, ungainly, crippled wing unto themselves, unfettered by either the right or left wings, flapping manically somewhere around the arse of the body politic…
dslak
People with Nazi sympathies tend to fall into the Left/Authoritarian quadrant of the Political Compass. This is simply because they generally favor stricter regulation of the economy than more pro-capitalist conservatives.
While they may nominally fall on the left on economic policy however, much of their rhetoric, like that of the mainstream right of the contemporary US, is decidedly anti-liberal. On the one hand, people like Brunn fall outside of the usual left/right divide that permeates mainstream political discourse. On the other hand, they share in common with some of the mainstream right a tendency toward eliminationist rhetoric and a sense of victimhood. If anything ties the two together, it is this symbiotic relationship, which does not exist between neo-nazis and the far left, nor between the far left and mainstream left.
Wile E. Quixote
@Paul L.
Dude, I’m totally down with that, because it means that I’ll get to watch Larry Craig, Neil Bush, Bill O’Reilly, Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Rudy Giuliani and of course Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, John McCain, Bob Livingston and Tom DeLay get stoned to death. We won’t get to stone Henry Hyde because he’s already sucking Satan’s cock in Hell for his adultery. I’m totally willing to get rid of self-righteous schmucks like Spitzer, Edwards and Newsom if it means that I get to see Gingrich, Limbaugh and O’Reilly having their skulls caved in with jagged hunks of concrete.
We should also probably have a front-loader dump a few dozen loads of broken cinderblocks on Joe Scarborough as well for that thing that happened back in 2001 when one of his aides was found dead in his office. Joe was a lucky man though, everyone was too busy paying attention to his Democratic colleague Gary Condit and the disappearance of Chandra Levy to go after him, despite the fact that the circumstances surrounding Lori Klausutis death stank as much as those surrounding the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. (Oh wait, that means that Ted Kennedy gets stoned as well. Oh well, can’t make an omelet and all that.)
Anybody I’m missing from the list above? If we start literally enforcing the Bible’s prohibition of adultery with the attendant penalties will there be any conservatives left?
Wile E. Quixote
@Paul L.
What the fuck are you babbling about? “Reich wing demonizing neocons”? Are all Republicans suffering from neurosyphilis?
binzinerator
@Jason:
Of course they did.
We think of the rightwing as stupid. I often do. Because yes lots of them are. Really fucking stupid. But a goodly chunk — and that would include most of its leaders — are not stupid but simply calculating liars. (This reminds me of that earlier post by John on that Capt. Ed lie. Demimondian pointed out the lie is not stupidity, it’s evil. )
It’s an evil thing too, that book Liberal Fascism. It wasn’t done out of stupidity or not knowing, It was done in spite of thinking and knowing. Expressly to shield the right from what they know it has been shown time and again to be responsible for.
I’m sure the people who funded that book saw it as an investment for the right, a way to buy some insurance against future claims of any right-wing violence. (It wasn’t too hard to see that coming as the right became more fringe-dominated and angry and unhinged after the Iraq war didn’t go as promised) And so it has proved. It’s now used to support the assertions that all the rightwing terrorists are really lefties, because Liberal Fascism shows that the far right is really the far left.
There’s some pharmaceutical grade banality of evil right there.
At the very least, with money for promotion and repetition by various wingnuts, fools and tools such a nonsense revisionism would help blur the true meaning of the word fascism and ultimately obfuscate which political ideology is responsible for the things we associate with it, especially thuggish political and deadly eliminationist violence.
For the right, there was no upside to leaving the meanings of certain words intact — if such words can’t be re-made to fit their purposes it is better the meanings are destroyed.
Anne Laurie
Hitting the {p} button to wrap around the {b-quote}’d text will do it… except when it doesn’t.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@binzinerator: First of all, great comment.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a Letter to the Editor published. A local wingnut had written in, accusing Obama of Economic Fascism. He went on that “Economic Fascism is classically defined as…..”, to which I essentially wrote “Whoa there, buddy-boy. A term that was just recently created out of thin air cannot have a classical definition.”
This week, another GOPer leapt to his defense: “Whether Tom or I call Obama a liberal, a fascist, or a socialist, isn’t the point. The point is that he is trying to lead this country in the wrong direction.”
In a country where 70% of the populace is satisfied with being spoon-fed information, it’s an effective tactic.
demimondian
Never mind — others already handled it.
Jason
@binzinerator: Thumbs up, nicely put.
Though y’know I always kind of wondered if they thought Hilary would walk away with it, and stockpiled munitions against an enemy that never materialized. That’s why they look like they’re flailing – not because it isn’t effective strategy, but because they’re reorienting their attacks on a target they didn’t expect.
demimondian
@binzinerator:
FTW.
mclaren
Wingers grow speechless with apoplexy when I point out this whole trend started with Saint Barry, but it’s true. Goldwater started this toxic putrid ball rolling with his 1964 proclamation “…Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Uh, yeah, Barry, it is, when “extremism” means hurting or killing people, or for that matter, urging other people to hurt or kill people.
Reagan made his career by urging the murder of campus anti-war protesters in the early 60s. “If it takes a blood bath,” Reagan said 4 months prior to the Kent State massacre, “let’s get it over with.”
Ever since the 60s, the “conservative” movement in America has been based on nothing but hate. Now it’s returned to it’s toxic roots.