When Pat Buchanan Starts Making Sense You Know We're In Trouble

[FuzzyKen]

One of the saddest parts of our history is that ultra conservatives are nothing new. If you look back at Joseph McCarthy and his communist witch hunts that destroyed not only the guilty but the innocent as well, you see a great history of open mouths that color things based on fact into a fantasy for their own gain.

Part of our problem is that we are really not recognizing where the real problems are. We are being guided and maneuvered by people who have their own goals and with their own benefit in mind.

Both sides fail to recognize this and as a result it continues. I am not fond of Pat Buchanan, I am not fond of Bill O'Reilly, I am not fond of Greta VanSusteren, and I am even less fond of Rupert Murdoch.

In Orange County in Southern California there was a blonde haired fellow who graced the the airwaves for many years. He spouted venom and would deliberately chew up anybody who disagreed with him. His name was Wally George.

Murdoch and Fox learned a great deal from Mr. George. What they did was to take the same venom and the same disrespect for opposing viewpoints and they wrapped it up in a beautiful package with a pretty bow and then because of the packaging the American People have sadly bought a great deal of conjecture and opinion as if it were in fact news.

Pat Buchanan and his ilk remain just as destructive to this country as those who represent the extreme on the opposite side of the thought spectrum.

All are bad because with their diatribes they end communication, they destroy compromise and negotiation and they have a profound effect at shifting public opinion based on "half-truth" represented as fact.

When one of these vipers makes sense it is only because what they say will keep them in the limelight and keep them employed. Common sense was at that moment the most convenient thing to say. I have absolute faith that when the opportunity shows itself in the future that Mr. Buchanan will be back to his old self.

 

[deleted15807]

I think thinking Republicans are attempting to unravel the work that Karl Rove did in making far right wing wingnut behavior respectable. It left the GOP with a big problem.

The coalition that he and Reagan hobbled together need each other to actually win elections. A theocracy isn't a winning formula by itself, it has to be combined with the ruse of 'small government and low taxes' which it too isn't enough to win elections. Break them apart and how can you win an election? That's not to say though that the democrats won't screw up enough to get enough of the 'angry' voters for the GOP to win.

 

[Mensch1351]

thanks for this discussion guys -- it's probably one of the most informative, enlightening and reasonably civil things I've read in a very long time!

 

[Calboner]

Actually, I think that this thread has gotten rather dull because of the absence of disputation. Won't somebody defend the greatness of the Southern heritage or the Confederate theory of the Constitution? By a "defense," of course, I don't mean a rant but an intelligent and well-informed argument.

I may have to wait a long time.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

I do not understand the southern culture which cannot let go of the civil war. It's just so over for the north. Surely southerners must notice this when encountering northerners. Unless you're a civil war buff or traveling through Gettysburgh, it doesn't enter into daily thought or conversation. It's not part of our identity. It appears to me southerners are preventing a wound from healing by reopening it time and again. Please tell me what it is I'm missing here.

It's a looong answer, so I will try and truncate as much as possible... Lee is revered because he first and foremost defended his family, his farm, and because he was smart, winning many battles. He is the classic underdog. It's key to understand that the Civil War was/is personal for Southerners because their homes were looted, burned, confiscated, etc, and their livelihoods ruined. That's enough to send even the most pacifistic among us out to buy a gun, and start shooting.

The other, and largely unwritten part of the war is Reconstruction. Whereas we had a Marshall Plan for Europe, there was none for the South. Sherman's March literally burned a path across Georgia ruining not only homes, but food in the fields. Much of the South was under Marshall Law for years after the war had ended. Rights were curtailed; you could not stay out after dark, etc. The dividing line between poor whites, and freed blacks became very thin, hence the horrible mass racist backlash. Most of the South did not return to prosperity till the 60s. So, that's almost 100 years of "enforced" retribution.

The fundamental issue of being able to choose to opt out of, in this case, the Union, is the same issue we see with Conservatives "opting out" (code word more choices) regarding public education, religion, health care, taxes, big government, etc. and it still continues to this day. The southern message on opting out resonates more all around the country because our society is now more diverse, and integration no longer only means blacks, it also includes Asians, and Hispanics, who interrupt the 400 year, in some cases, landscape/narrative of white protestant America.

 

[JustAsking]

duc,
Thanks for that interesting post. I think it highlights what I was recounting about Kevin Phillips theory. American anti-institutionalism is a strong force from the south that is influencing the rest of the country.

The original DNA of it comes from our rebelling against British authority and the cognitive frame that is strong in Americans' minds. This frame is the individual colonists rising up as a collection of minutemen and defeating the large oppressive institution that is British rule.

Move that ahead 75 years and the narrative is the same, but with slightly different players. The minutemen become the southern rebels fighting for family, farm, and independence, and the offending institution is the northern federal government.

Then adding to the trauma of defeat is the exploition of the south by northerners who "came to help" during the Reconstruction.

What we are left with is a strong legacy of anti-institutionalism that resonates also with northerners who think that government is out of control. Unfortunately, it also invades people's reasoning abilities and becomes a kind of ideology. Mixed with the anti-intellectualism and anti-institutionalism of the 1960s, we now have a country full of people who would rather believe any joker with a YouTube video rather than any amount of evidence or any amount of authority from an institution.

This is why we have so many 9/11 truthers, birthers, death panelers, anti-vaxers, AIDs deniers, global warming deniers, holocaust deniers, and people who think creationism is a science.

 

[D_Tully Tunnelrat]

It's a problematic pattern that you raise Just. In psychological terms it has been called not killing the King. We only threw him out. When no one is king, everyone is. Clearly an unworkable concept in the long run. The net result of such thinking is the inability to listen, put someone else's needs above your own, and to believe that any person has the right to authority over you. It becomes a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, undermining efforts of "We the People.." to self-govern.

Just as is the case with health care insurance, we can no longer allow those of us who disagree to merely "opt-out" of the system. There is nowhere left to "manifest our destiny," and there are too many of us now. Part of this is the dilemma the winner take all system creates, where by design, 49% become a de-facto "minority." A parliamentary system, which is less singular in nature and therefore less efficient, nonetheless always gives everyone at the table a voice. In a land where everyman sees himself as king, perhaps that is the only way to have it be so.

 

[D_Harry_Crax]

duc,
Thanks for that interesting post. I think it highlights what I was recounting about Kevin Phillips theory. American anti-institutionalism is a strong force from the south that is influencing the rest of the country.
The original DNA of it comes from our rebelling against British authority and the cognitive frame that is strong in Americans' minds. This frame is the individual colonists rising up as a collection of minutemen and defeating the large oppressive institution that is British rule.
Move that ahead 75 years and the narrative is the same, but with slightly different players. The minutemen become the southern rebels fighting for family, farm, and independence, and the offending institution is the northern federal government.
Then adding to the trauma of defeat is the exploition of the south by northerners who "came to help" during the Reconstruction.
What we are left with is a strong legacy of anti-institutionalism that resonates also with northerners who think that government is out of control. Unfortunately, it also invades people's reasoning abilities and becomes a kind of ideology. Mixed with the anti-intellectualism and anti-institutionalism of the 1960s, we now have a country full of people who would rather believe any joker with a YouTube video rather than any amount of evidence or any amount of authority from an institution.
This is why we have so many 9/11 truthers, birthers, death panelers, anti-vaxers, AIDs deniers, global warming deniers, holocaust deniers, and people who think creationism is a science.

Anti-intellectualism in the 1960s?!? Hofstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American Life (won Pulitzer Prize) was finished in the early 1960s and traced American anti-intellectualism back at least as far as Andrew Jackson's first election.