A PPP poll shows that, sure enough, about a quarter of Republican primary voters are single-issue birthers:
Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they’re willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory and those folks want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President next year. With the other 62% of Republicans- 23% of whom say they are only willing to vote for a birther and 39% of whom are not sure- Donald Trump is cleaning up.
Who seriously thinks Republican primary voters spend much time thinking about whether birth certificate views disqualify a candidate, much less are going to vote on those purported views?
I credit Smith — and to some extent Politico more generally — for not taking the Trump candidacy more seriously (although I do think there is a scenario where he affects things, more on that later today), but he’s dead wrong about the potential of fringe issues in the Republican primary. There is absolutely no reason not to believe that about 27% or so of Republican primary voters will base their vote on something as crazy as birtherism.
I’m on the mailing list for a western New York Tea Party group. The guy who runs it knows there are plenty of moles on the list (like me) so he knows what he writes is essentially public. Here’s what he wrote about biofuels and their effect on food production last night:
The plan is deliberate. Those sick ultra capitalists who rule the world from the secrecy of their billion dollar holes in the ground have devised their plan to squeeze the people of the world to the point where the food supply is insufficient to provide for the requirements of the 7 billion people who will soon inhabit this Earth. Promoting the production and use of biofuels is a major component of that plan. Their already publicly stated goal is to reduce the population to a more manageable and more “sustainable” 500 million, all of whom will be genetically superior to the hodge podge of characters that now grace the planet. It is, essentially, Nazi eugenics reborn in a world where the needs of the many will be sacrificed to the desires of a few. Appallingly and very tellingly, it is exactly the opposite of what the God-less “progressives” have been telling us that it would be if we would only allow them to bring their Orwellian version of “peace and prosperity” to the world. Dust off your copy of “1984” if you want to know how the story will play out. “Peace is war. Poverty is riches. North Korea is paradise. One who gives his life for the state will live forever in the glory of his sacrifice.” This is what is known as satanic thinking. It is the great lie, the one that all tyrants of all ages have used to control their people and keep them in slavery. We have been told that all lies proceed from the workings of satan. There is no doubt that that is true.
Now, I ask you to keep your eyes on the unrelenting squeeze and slowing down in worldwide food production and the famines that will arise owing to deliberately induced wars in Africa and other targeted areas of the world and the changes in weather patterns which the sick scientists of today are more than capable of manipulating.
Who can believe these things??? The same people who once believed that man could fly when all around him mocked and ridiculed the idea. Whoever can dream the greatest dream, whether for good or evil, will emerge as the winner and believe me, you do not want to be on the losing end of this battle.
You MUST readjust your thinking. Change your your paradigm as the old one can no longer serve you. Look around and see the evil that is everywhere including in the White House and in every level of government. Wake up. The time is now.
4tehlulz
Switchgrass is the Zyklon B of liberal fascism.
Served
Sacrificing food for fuel sounds like it would cause enough misery to be considered a very serious plan.
joe from Lowell
Noooo, Mr. Bond; I expect you to die!
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
at least he is reaching out to the “hodgepodge”, of course that may be why the tea party in new york has so much in fighting.
as to his paranoia, and by all means, the only thing you can do with that sort of paranoia is feed it fire in the hole style.
i wouldn’t point out that the billionaires of the world don’t care how many of the rest of us are here, they live, for practical purposes, like we don’t exist.
its like when al queda supposedly contacted the colombian drug lords about poisoning cocaine, and the colombians said, we don’t want to kill our customers all at once, this is a business, not an ideological war.
on the scale of such delusions its very similar. in terms of every day politics, winning the ideology matters, but it isn’t grand strategy.
RSR
oh, geez…is it too early to start drinking?
Stillwater
Is 38% the new 27%? Is the crazification factor growing?
New Yorker
Have you denounced North Korea as not being paradise yet, Doug?
Also too, this rant reads like the all-encompassing conspiracy theory convergence one occasionally sees online: “The Federal Reserve was responsible for the 9/11 attacks in order to profit on the intergalactic slave trade along with the Bilderberg Group and the Rothschild family. They’re using chemtrails to keep the sheeple from rising up against the planned mass eradication of the US population. FEMA trailers are actually death vans like the Nazis used. WAKE UP!!!!”
Corner Stone
@4tehlulz: That’s pretty sharp for 3 minutes after this was posted. It’s quality in any event, but you’re jonny lulz on the spot.
Yutsano
The comments on both those pieces are priceless. And Ben Smith needs to buy a clue. I suggest we start a collection.
BGinCHI
Short answer to Ben Smith:
Um, everyone?
It’s like they have an old stock GOP photo from 1981 on the wall and they look at it whenever they write about the party.
Fantasy Journalism.
Jay C
@New Yorker:
Really: save for the substitution of a few more-up-to-date catchphrases (“biofuels” “climate change”) nonsense like this reads like the same-old, same-old extremist/paranoiac rants one might have gotten from the political fringes at any point during the last 60(?) years? Which is probably where they’ve cribbed it from.
Yeah, they’ve swapped “Godless progressives” for “Communists”; but the gist is still the same. I don;t know what’s the sadder prospect: that nutbar fringies are still recycling the same idiocy decade after decade, or that the audience for this crap hasn’t died off or faded away.
Oh, and just for the open, public record: please note that I hereby utterly denounce North Korea for NOT being paradise. So there.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
People in the press today–well, most of them–just will not believe that the Republican Party has lost its mind. They don’t want to. I can’t believe how badly David Broder infected our press, and I don’t know what we can do to get his thinking out of the established press. I don’t even know if we can purge the stubborn hold this thinking has on our reporters and columnists.
To Broder, the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was the Truth, the Unending, Unalterable Truth. Democrats were filthy, violent, rioting hippies, drunk or high–or both–rampaging through town, burning things and looting. Republicans were the grownups, responsible and sober, and the last line against the hippies who were going to upend our very society. And he never got beyond this thinking. To Broder, it’s been been 1968 every year since, and every town in the U.S. is Chicago, overrun and threatened by anarchic hippies who are the Democratic base.
I don’t altogether understand how this mindset took hold of the minds of the press as a whole, but it clearly has, and no evidence against it seems to be enough to sway them. I guess it helps that Republicans just aren’t hippies at heart. I can see teabaggers rioting and rampaging, looting stores and burning buildings, maybe even lynching a few unlucky minorities. I can see this happening if things came together the right way, at a big rally, with some racist asshole screaming lies about minorities and Shariah and Obama the Kenyan, and who knows what spark might send things over the edge, but I know this isn’t all that far-fetched. And the sad thing is that even if this happened, still wouldn’t shake Smith and Fred Hiatt and Ruth Marcus and all the other serious people of their Broderiffic fantasies. After all, teabaggers are dangerous and might become violent, but at least they aren’t hippies; they’d be clean and they’d have short hair.
Corner Stone
OT,
Obama Sees Libya ‘Stalemate,’ Qaddafi’s Eventual Departure
“Obama acknowledged the limits to what air power can do in situations such as Misrata. “The fact of the matter is that, in the absence of actual soldiers on the ground, Qaddafi’s forces are still going to be able to at least defend their current positions, particularly when we’re concerned about collateral damage, civilian casualties,” he said in the interview.”
Common Sense
I was somewhat heartened by the results of a poll on a Texans website asking “Do you believe Obama was born in the US?” (apologies for formatting):
—–
100% Yes. 25 49.02%
90-99.9% Sure. 13 25.49%
50-50. 7 13.73%
Less than 50% sure. 4 7.84%
0% Sure. 2 3.92%
joe from Lowell
@Jay C: My first thought was of that 90s-era newsletter – maybe LaRouchite? – that was always going on about the Blidebergers, the Trilateral Commission, and the New World Order.
Loneoak
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
I really don’t see Tea Partiers rioting and looting. Those scooters don’t move fast enough.
Corner Stone
@Loneoak: You’ve obviously never seen the Seinfeld episode where George gets a scooter.
Menacing, to say the least.
Anya
@New Yorker:
I swear, I know someone who believes that, (minus the intergalactic slave trade), but more or less the same, and he’s a progressive. He also hates President Obama and wholeheartedly believes that he was promoted and is controlled by the Bilderberg Group.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
The needs of the many outweigh the desires of the few.
Isn’t that a Vulcan saying?
BGinCHI
O/T
Anyone else watching Barcelona vs Real Madrid?
Oh, mama.
shortstop
Yeah, you keep doing that. I never really understand why.
JGabriel
You know, once you’ve got a billion dollars, you can pretty much afford a studio in NYC.
For a couple billion more, you can even get an apartment with bedrooms.
.
tommybones
I love when right-wingers quote Orwell, the socialist, as though he would support their cause. Hysterical.
kdaug
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Let me begin by stating that I hereby denounce Stalin and North Korea and licorice and whatever.
But I think what you’re saying is essentially true. All this shit ties back to the Vietnam-era culture wars. Not the mindset – that’s been going on for centuries – but the identification of the “other”.
Our elder statesmen of the press and politics had their identities formed as “in opposition to the ‘other'” – in this case, the DFH. They can’t let it go.
Unfortunately, the DFH are kinda making a comeback now, what with their computers and software and billions of dollars.
Ain’t saying the old-schoolers are panicking, but I do think they’re retreating and hoarding.
shortstop
@Loneoak: Until the black “president,” who reminds me of a Black Panther, personally comes and tries to take their guns — which he’s obviously planning on doing; you can tell by the look on his face — you can shoot just as well from a scooter, a lawn chair or a La-Z-Boy as from a standing position.
bemused
Coorelating a capitalist dream plot to starve the planet’s population with the dream of men flying is just weird and awkward.
Nylund
Obviously, the only way to stop these “sick ultra capitalists” is to give them a tax cut.
dr. luba
@RSR:
That’s the beauty of time zones–it’s always happy hour somewhere.
And what’s with this “time to start drinking” thing? In Ukraine a bit of cognac with breakfast (or a shot of vodka) is considered invigorating.
Similarly, in the pre-pulbic health west, people used to consume prodigious amounts of ale and other fermented liquids, because the water wasn’t safe to drink. The state of the union in those days was mildly inebriated at best.
(I know that’s not what yo meant but hey, it’s Saturday, and I’m a font of useless trivia.)
Villago Delenda Est
Yet, Mittens didn’t “firmly reject” birfer theory. He said he “believed” that Obama was born in Hawaii.
If he were firm, he would have said, “Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. He is a natural born citizen of the United States. End of discussion.” None of this “believe” shit designed to give him wiggle room with the racist birfer vermin.
ppcli
@Stillwater: I think the point is that 27% of the population are batcrap crazy Keyes-voting birther loons who were 100% behind Bush for every second of his presidency and regarded opposition to Bush as a combination of treason and spitting on Jesus. All of those people are Republicans, so they will end up being in the ballpark of 38% of the Republican party.
Corner Stone
@JGabriel:
So YOU’RE the mole!
dmsilev
So wait, Donald Trump is running for President so he can build billionaire-shelters in abandoned mine shafts on public lands? Is that it?
“Mr. President, we must not allow a Mine Shaft Gap!”
dms
shortstop
@Nylund: I know; the cognitive dissonance on that one is particularly huge.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Served: one American SUV tank of biofuel consumes enough corn to feed a man for a year.
gnomedad
@Nylund:
Seriously, when did “sick ultra capitalists” enter the teabagger meme pool? I thought capitalism was the shizznit.
Brachiator
At this point, the only question is the degree to which this craziness will escalate. It has seeped from the fringes into the mainstream, and will soon become the main rallying cause of the Tea Party and Nutwing agenda.
Of course, I also wonder how many nutball bloggers are hailing the recently released film version of Atlas Shrugged as a prophetic masterpiece.
Corner Stone
@dr. luba:
Never understood it myself.
gnomedad
@Corner Stone:
Well, I’m pretty sure it’s the wrong week to quit.
BGinCHI
@gnomedad: Let me know when it’s time to stop drinking.
S. cerevisiae
Now I see their strategery for dealing with the weather chaos brought by climate change (which is a HOAX after all). Blame the ebbil scientists for controlling the weather with HAARP when the Great Plains turn to a dust bowl. They know it’s coming and they are setting the narrative.
Sly
All that’s missing is a giant “Impeach Earl Warren” billboard and a dire warning about water fluoridation.
I’m now somewhat saddened by the fact that Bill Buckley died in 2008. Doing so denied everyone the smug satisfaction of rubbing his face in the fact that Robert Welch beat him in the end.
Josie
I think the premise of the poll and of those who write about this subject is inaccurate. Birtherism is just the peg on which they hang their hats. The real reason they vote they way they do is racism, pure and simple. They don’t believe that he has the right to be in that office because he is black, and they are just using the slightly more socially acceptable birth issue to argue their case.
cs
@gnomedad:
I was wondering that too.
Tovarich DougJ: I know this would probably blow your cover, but I hope you will ask these questions:
“If the evil ultra-capitalists are coming after our precious bodily fluids, then why are we (the tea partiers) supporting the party which is providing them with straws?
If they’re using their money to destroy us, why do we want to cut their taxes and reduce the regulations which slow their carnivorous progress?
Why do we want to disarm and disband the unions who stand firmly in their path?”
Jay C
@joe from Lowell:
Yeah, it’s like they use and re-use the “Extremist Rant Template” from MSWord or something: y’know, the “Click Here and Replace Text” stuff:
Boogeyman: “Communists”, “Trilateral Commission”, “George Soros”
Scary Science: “fluoride”, “birth control” “biofuels”
Godwin Drop: “[X] is exactly like the Nazi policy of [Y]”
Orwell Drop: “insert ‘1984’ [HERE]”
Wake-Up Call: pretty much as in DougJ’s post: usually inserted as closing.
Usable for both Left- and Right-Wing politbabble. Not compatible with reality-based political systems. Screed-O-Matic ™ patent pending.
Svensker
@gnomedad:
George Soros = Sick Ultra Capitalist
Koch Bros = Good All Murkan Capitalist Patriot Producers!
chopper
@BGinCHI:
if i were on that teabagger mailing list, i would say ‘never. is never good enough?’
Chad N Freude
@Brachiator: Re “Atlas Shrugged (Part 1): Rotten Tomatoes reports 5% critic approval (a paltry 20 reviews) and 86% audience (i.e, people who bother to post opinions) approval. Some of the audience comments are hilarious.
Chad N Freude
@cs:
If we (the TPers) give them enough of what they want, they won’t come after us. QED.
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: In the same interview, Mittens also said “The man needs to be taken out…” Dog whistle, much?
Edit: “the man” being President Obama
Bill Section 147
Is it me or has the right suddenly redefined “1984” to be a condemnation of liberals?
1984 was anti Big Brother, Intrusive Government, and I think that the right associates the concept of government as always only that. But was I asleep when I read it? I always thought it was anti-authoritarian, anti-corporatist.
Are they making a leap to the concept that the book is liberal because they believe liberals love the idea of one government controlling everything. I suppose if Einstein can be the founder of Christian Reason anything is possible.
I thought conservatives had a philosophy at one time but I think they are just anti-liberal.
Citizen Alan
@Anya:
The funniest thing to me (and by funny, I mean sad and pathetic) is that Bilderburg is just the name of a hotel. The only reason the wacko right has seized upon this conspiracy theory while other conspiracy theories like the Trilateral Commission have fallen by the wayside is that it allows theorist to refer to everyone involved as Bilderbergers, which has the added advantage of making them all sound like Jewy Jews. If only they’d stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, we might never have heard of this group.:)
cs
@Bill Section 147:
I think that’s an interesting question. And, on one simplistic level, 1984 wouldn’t be that far a stretch for the conservatives. The Ingsoc government was socialist with national health care, subsidized food, full employment, and I would imagine the telescreens were provided at no charge so free televisions for all. Of course, there were conservative elements to the government as well, but American conservatives seem to ignore the persecution of sex and enforced puritanical morals of the Big Brother regime.
But it is an interesting line of thought, if you strip out the mindless paranoia of the conservatives, since we can all imagine how a socialistic system could ultimately be abused by an unscrupulous government.
New Yorker
@Bill Section 147:
Some of them still have a philosophy. Paul Ryan, for example, makes it clear that many on the right believe in the absolute inerrancy of the free market and the absolute evil of the regulatory state and that we should go back to the paradise that was 19th century America.
The problem is that 95% of the country would never go along with that, so they need to scare people about the lib’ruls hiding under their beds who are going take their children and make them into homosexuals who hate Jesus and America and who will marry a Mexican. That’s the Palin/Beck/Limbaugh side of things.
Trakker
It’s raining out and I’m angry at the world right now, but can we just acknowledge that about a quarter of our population has serious mental issues? Life is tough in America and it’s taking it’s toll. They need enemies, they need to blame. They will believe anything their pastor and Fox News tells them. They will give their vote to the candidate they judge hates the left the most. A tough decision nowadays.
I know it’s hard to ignore them, and they provide no small amount of humor on sunny days, but let’s just admit that the Republican party starts off every race with a built-in 25% advantage. Let’s try to win the rest.
dj spellchecka
admittedly others beat me to it, but when did teabaggers start hating on capitalism? and when did red-state farm subsidie lovers morph into treehugging eugenicists?
seriously though, the entire “we need to lower the population to sustainable levels” argument is based on family planning over a 200 year time frame, not mass extinction events.
billyraevalentine
@Bill Section 147:
i think that they feel liberalism, socialism, and communism are virtually the same thing. and since the fascist regimes of the Nazi’s were socialists, and Stalin was a socialist/communist (idk which) american liberals are fascists.
so liberals are fascists. conservatives are not and never have been.
billyraevalentine
@Bill Section 147:
also, i don’t really remember 1984 being anti-corporate. but there were not really private companies mentioned. but i think the proles were allowed to do basically whatever they wanted.
Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@New Yorker:
You got it almost right, but you left out a few things.
The liberals are going to:
Take their children and make them into homosexuals who hate Jesus and America and who will marry a homosexual atheist Mexican in a Shariah ceremony.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Duncan Dönitz (formerly Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
you forgot about the anchor babies these gay liberals will be having with all the sisters of their gay spouse. of course they won’t technically be anchor babies, if the gay liberal is technically an american, but that comes from part of the constitution they don’t like, not the one part that is sacrosanct because its in the constitution.
Kobie
North Korea is best Korea!