It’s easy to mock the Republican Party, which has sunk into a morass of ignorance, intolerance, hypocrisy, and downright lunacy. But that would be too simple. The modern GOP is actually composed of two separate strands: those who truly believe the craziness, and those who know it’s all nonsense but nonetheless whip up hysteria to advance their own interests.
It is easier to forgive those who actually believe the likes of Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and even RNC Chairman Michael Steele; it’s harder to do likewise when major Republican figures such as Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Minority Leader John Boehner, and former Speaker Newt Gingrich peddle the lies and delusions that spread confusion, stir national divisions, and breed hatred.
Pawlenty, once considered a moderate, came out against Obama’s speech to schoolchildren and now espouses a bizarre strand of rightwing nuttiness that says state governments can refuse to enact specific pieces of federal legislation (in particular, Pawlenty says that Minnesota could opt out of any federal healthcare reform legislation). He and other so-called “tenthers” believe that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution grants states this right, though the idea has been discredited for more than a century.
The day after Obama’s healthcare speech, Congressman Boehner spoke at a conference sponsored by the Family Research Council, one of the most extreme rightwing depositories of misinformation and incubators of rage. There is no commensurate left-wing organization, and if there were no major Democratic figure who would dare speak to such a group.
Then we have South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson, who screamed “you lie” during Obama’s speech, demonstrating that the tactics of the teabaggers and Limbaugh are becoming more and more mainstream GOP. I don’t know what to say about Sarah Palin, who seems to grow more unhinged by the day and proves that John McCain disqualified himself from ever being taken seriously again by nominating her to a position a heartbeat from the presidency.
The bottom line is that the far-right fringe of the Republican/conservative movement has now infiltrated what is left of the modern GOP establishment; it is now impossible to tell where the fringe ends and the actual party establishment begins.
It’s best to ignore the true believers: those who, through indoctrination, lack of education, peer pressure, or too much time spent on crazy websites, actually believe the messages being propagated by the rightwing noise machine. They represent no more than 10-20% of the country; as long as Obama and the Democrats can help revive the economy and enact policies to help the middle class, their voices will eventually die down.
But the ringleaders of this crazy circus are in another category altogether. To purposefully manipulate people’s ignorance and fear in order to stoke rage and block progress on key issues that affect the majority of Americans is an evil thing to do. It’s intentional, it’s coordinated, and it serves no purpose other than personal and political advancement.
In other words, today’s GOP has become so depraved I no longer know what to call it.
Jason Scorse