Let’s talk about politics in the USA, huh? Ten years ago, the right-wing talk radio masses were still in a fury at Bill Clinton. Clinton was accused of:
- being a liar (he was)
- who cheated on his wife (he did)
- who was involved in some big-money real estate fraud (he wasn’t)
Out at the fringes, people talked darkly about the Clintons getting people bumped off for co-operating with the Whitewater investigators (they really, really didn’t).
Now, it’s 2009, and we’re back with a Democrat President. Now, the right-wing talk radio masses and Fox News punditry are:
- turning out in their thousands to protest against a healthcare system that might actually work, and along the way they’re claiming that their rally was bigger than the inauguration (er, noooo).
- shouting down govt spokespeople in public meetings
- adulating as a hero a politican who interrupted the President’s speech to scream red-faced that he was a liar
- openly speculating in detail about whether the military will side with Obama in the coming civil war, or with The People (they made a TV show to run through the various scenarios – they seriously did this)
- revering as their champion a former radio shock jock who dove into Mormon fundamentalism complete with imminent end-times, a devotee of an ideologue anti-semitic conspiracy theorist who was too extreme for the Goldwater era conservatives, and who believes that the New World Order coded secret communist symbols into sculptures in the lobby of the Rockefeller Centre.
- afraid, or convinced, that the U.S. has already been seized by the dark anti-freedom forces behind Obama, because Obama is an agent of the New World Order, and the the end times are upon us.
It really has gone bananas over there. The political ground has shifted significantly in the direction of completely bugfunk.
This is the other legacy of the Bush era. On the one hand, Bush’s ineptitude and his complete capitulation to the Cheney faction led to massive social division, which created a thus-far unique opportunity for a black man to win the nomination and be elected. On the other hand, that same social division has allowed the right-wing base to fall completely off Planet Sanity. This is the logical conclusion of the mindset that derided the reality-based community.
And yes, this matters. Because when your civic discourse starts out with people shouting that the President of the United States faked his own birth certificate, there’s nowhere useful you can go; you really need to throw the whole thing out and start over. Except you can’t. There’s no easy way out of this; like a crayfish in a pot, we’re stuck here now.
This is not good. With all this chaos, it’s hard to actually engage with what the Obama administration is doing. While the terrified Glenn Beck base tremble in fear that Obama is too far to the left, many voices in the progressive movement are beginning to claim that Obama is in fact too far to the right; that the clothes worn by the Obama administration include a surprising number of CheneyBush hand-me-downs. But how can these criticisms possibly be taken up and addressed by the citizenry, when there are birthers punching the window glass and screaming through cupped hands?
Bill Clinton said the other day that the forces against Obama are being driven by the same forces within the GOP as ever. He’s right – but what those forces are tapping into has mutated, like a Toxic Avenger villain who’s spent too long in the radioactive slime. Things have changed. It doesn’t get any prettier from here on in.
I haven’t been following the US at all closely for the Obama-era, but I have been struck by the palpable insanity of things.
Had a chat with Brian the other day, whose trenchant observation was something like “when empires fall, they go crazy on the way down…”
We did an art and architecture tour of the Rockefeller Center in April. The guide pointed out the Hammer + Sickle, and the fasces above the entrance to the Italian Building. They were part inside joke, part social commentary. The whole complex is adorned with the kinds of art jokes and symbols which excite Dan Brown-level conspiracists.
I’m not the first to say this, but there are thoroughly depressing similarities to the 1950-52 period (or the reaction to the Roosevelt New Deal). Instead of the hysteria being driven by prominent, media-savvy political figures like Ken Wherry, Bill Knowland and (of course) Joe McCarthy, it’s tear-jerking media crazies like Glenn Beck. The old American notion that socialism=communism=evil rears its ugly head again, attached to the newer fear of anything Islamic. Birthers? Not unlike ‘I have a piece of paper…names of 205 members pf the State Department…Communists…the President and his lackeys are evil…’ And the same situation regarding those on the right who actually want to engage in discourse being drowned out by the baying mob. Although, I guess the major difference here is that screeching anti-Communism in the 1950s was a product of the same administration that ended up being lambasted for being soft on it.
Cheers
Malc
billy: yeah, Brian might be on to something with that
dritchie: I wish I’d thought to do that. when i was in NYC i spent just a very short time in the vicinity of the Rockefeller Center. what i’ve heard since sounds fascinating.
Malc: if this comparison holds, that’s good because it means there is a way back – the crayfish can find their way out of the pot. Do you have a view on how the chaos dialled back from those extremes? I’m intimidated by what’s happening in the US now because I can’t see how to reclaim sane discourse.
Case in point:
http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/newsmax-military-coup-would-take-care