Maybe this is a stretch

Lefties (obviously) and Righties (maybe less so, but check here or even listen to Mark Levin if you can stand it) have, for months, tried to understand the rise of the cult of Glenn Beck.

Yesterday, Nate Silver put it this way:

Beck is a PoMoCon -- a post-modern conservative. And his philosophy is not all that difficult to articulate. It borrows a couple of things from traditional American conservatism:

-- It shares an extreme distrust for government, particularly the Federal Government.
-- It shares the notion that American society is in some sort of state of existential decline.

On the other hand, it also features some important differences:

-- It is much more distrustful of non-governmental institutions, such as labor unions, corporations, political parties, community groups, the media, and scientific institutions.
-- It is largely indifferent toward 'social issues'.
-- It is much less explicitly aligned with the Republican Party.
-- It has much less use for elites, which it also distrusts.

The PoMoCons are not so much less self-consistent as they are less concerned with consistency, as compared with traditional conservatives. Theirs is a bric-a-brac, skeptical (sometimes to the point of paranoid), play-it-by-ear, relatively spontaneous reaction to the here-and-now -- not something cooked up by a K Street thinktank. There is no future, no past -- there is only today. And today is a pretty good day to be Glenn Beck.

This is mostly right but not entirely.

Beck constantly clings to a revisionist past, it's one of his most important rhetorical tools. He uses his own interpretation of what "the Founders" envisioned to justify any number of political positions.

Glenn Beck rails against community organizers but defends oil company profits. He might use the language of elite vs. working man, he might occasionally rail against "corporations" but on substance, he's a big defender of carnivorous capitalism except maybe when applied to the banking system.

David Frum has a post putting Beck closer to the Ron Paul side of things.

Beck does seem to share some beliefs with Paul. There is a definitive anti-establishment spirit, I agree with Silver on that.

Often in a similar breath, people have compared Beck's base to that captured by Ross Perot.

They're trying to define it as a conservative populism, which might be the best way to put it.

But when I think of Glenn Beck's rise to popularity over the last couple of years, I wonder if the historical derivative is not David Duke. I'm not suggesting that Beck shares any of Duke's neo-nazi viewpoints but I am saying that Beck's unexpected share of the airwaves is analogous to when Duke elbowed his way into the mainstream political discussion behind a cloak of anti-establishment rhetoric.

His regular referrals to perceived African American benefit at the expense of whites, his fear-mongering around the fictional power of organized labor, his inexplicable predictions that Obama is Castro in a tailored suit - it's to me, much more Duke than Paul or Perot. It's obviously way softer because Beck doesn't have a litany of ties to Nazi and KKK groups or statements to that effect. Beyond that, he is able to manufacture an aura of nice-guy authenticity using his tears and his selective memory of American strength cooperation after 9/11.

At other times, I wonder if the whole cult is overblown. Apparently 42% of Americans have never even heard of the guy. Nonetheless, his show is now the highest rated on Fox News or close to it. That's quite frightening, maybe more so for traditional conservatives than for liberals.

A loaded gun on the table

Before I get into this, let me first say that I would agree with some reasonable conservative critiques of the legislative process related to healthcare, that people are not as informed as they need to be on the different proposals on the table. I agree that a sweeping overhaul of the systems that govern 17% of our GDP represents an immense undertaking that should be pursued very deliberately. I agree that President Obama overestimated the capacity of the American public to conceptualize the legislative process. I also agree that the President has done real harm to healthcare reform's chances at passing in a reasonable time frame because of a failure to get out in front of some of the more ridiculous lies and smears. That such a large percentage of Americans now view this bill as an imminent threat to their health instead of an imperfect and evolving improvement to our system is deeply troubling.

The problem is, unfortunately, that I'm not sure what I would have had the President do differently aside from getting out in front of the smears faster. In '93, when Clinton dictated a bill to Congress, they freaked. So this time, Obama decided to let Congress do it's constitutionally-authorized job, only to be criticized for not exercising leadership. So I think we're seeing some real structural problems with our civil society that can't really be reduced to "if only Obama had" or "if only Obama hadn't."

I wonder what is salvageable in the current hysterical climate. Can the President wait for comprehensive bills to reach the floors of the House and Senate before swooping in with his own plan - maybe one that incorporates some GOP standards like TORT reform? Will members of Congress just decide that these town hall mob scenes won't sway them from voting for something really critical for the short term health and long term wealth of the country?

I'm not sure.

I just know that I'm getting increasingly, well, frightened by the hysterical lying about the President's plan - and not just by the outer fringes of the right win - but by members of Congress and by veteran GOP talking heads.

It's not just Sarah Palin claiming the end of life counseling clause (an idea offered by Republican Rep. Charles Boustany of Lousiana, by the way) would result in death panels that would kill off her parents and child; it's also Newt Gingrich refusing to repudiate that remark on national television and instead highlighting by parsing together some obscure old speeches by Rahm Emmanuel's brother.

It's not just Glen Beck joking around about poisoning Nancy Pelosi, it's Representatives actually getting death threats at their offices. There have been fistfights at town halls and at least one instance of someone bringing a concealed gun to a meeting.

These people aren't angry because they don't think the bill being debated by the House Energy Committee doesn't quite strike the right balance between cost controls and extended coverage; it's because they've been heinously mislead to believe that the government is going to make it more difficult to receive coverage than it is now, cut medicare, or worse, send death panels out to kill old people.

A lot of these same people have also been lead to believe that President Obama is not a legitimate elected leader. There is an all-too casual invocation of Nazi Germany and Hitler.

Add it up.

We've had people going out in record numbers since election day to purchase weapons. We've had a growing movement to discredit the President's legitimacy as an elected leader. We have a shameless push to convince people that his moderate initiatives to stabilize the economy represent dictatorial socialism. We now have a transparent effort by GOP leaders - role models for some - to trick already frightened Americans into the belief that healthcare reform will literally bring about some form of medical genocide. And we are also witnessing seemingly unchallenged efforts to invoke the personification of evil (Hitler) in describing what this healthcare bill represents.

It is vile and sickening. It even makes me afraid.

We have really dark history of racism and violence in this country and it appears as though GOP leaders are ginning up unrest amongst the kinds of people who have been alienated because of their resistance to the progress we've made in our society.

And it doesn't seem like anybody in the Republican Party leadership cares about the tipping point.

Rachel Maddow had a really jarring segment on this last Friday that I think everyone should watch in entirety.

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If you can't spare the 15 minutes, skip ahead to 7:55 and watch Rachel talk to Frank Schaeffer, an original founder of the political evangelical movement who has since repudiated his past views.

I was really struck by Mr. Schaeffer's alarm and after sleeping on it for two nights to pass it through the hyperbole scan, well... he's got me quite on guard.

--

If the default position of 100% of the Republican Congress wasn't just to kill whatever healthcare reform proposed by the President or by Congressional Democrats, it would be a lot easier to have a civil discussion about the best way to achieve sustainable reform.

But most elected Republicans and the conservative base aren't at all interested in that.

The GOP is oriented to fight any healthcare reform bill 'by any means necessary.' But it's scarier than that. The GOP is oriented to fight any progress possible.

As Mr. Schaeffer puts it, the GOP strategy is to leave a loaded gun on the table, stop just short of calling it honorable to halt Obama's policies with violence, and walk away.

I'm not sure GOP leaders know how to stop the hideous monster they've reanimated.

This is the America the world fears; not the America the world respects.

--

Organizing For America has unenviable task of trying to cut through all this BS with actual information about the actual reforms being debated in Congress.

They have an office here in New Orleans and they really need our help.

842 Camp St. in the CBD.

There are phone banks every Tuesday and Thursday from 6:00PM to 8:30PM and they canvass on Saturdays.

Their number one priority is to reach individual voters and to attempt to disabuse them of the baseless lies being spread about healthcare reform.

If you want to get involved, e-mail BayasW@dnc.org or call the HQ at 504-302-0802.

Call the senior citizens in your life.

Go to www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck to arm yourself with tools you can use to debunk the lies.

Emboldened or Increasingly Marginal?

A few weeks ago, I added The New Majority to my feedreader. It was founded by former loyal Bushie David Frum, who has become a major pariah on the Right for telling the truth about the political perils of right wing extremism. His efforts advocating for the "modernization" of the GOP is, I think, a great service to our discourse.

At first, I thought his critiques of the right were just going to last the length of the post-election honeymoon, but he is committed to walking the GOP and the conservative movement back from the brink of crazy.

There are a number of conservatives who are frustrated with the ignorant extremism dominating discourse on the right that read this blog. I especially recommend The New Majority to them.

That's a lengthy way of introducing this interesting piece by TNM's Tim Mak that makes the case that the increasing craziness of right wing talk radio is fueled by rapidly declining revenues.

Conservative talk radio has never been more angry and extreme than today. You might think that’s a response to the Obama presidency. But even more, conservative talkers are responding to a collapse in advertising revenues.

According to Scott Fybush, the proprietor of North East Radio Watch, talk radio has lost 30-40% of its ad revenues over the past two years.

Further, in an interview with a talk radio trade publication, Talkers Magazine, late last year, Talk Radio Networks CEO Mark Masters said: “2008 will be known as the year that weak syndicated programs began dying off in droves,” adding that “it has only just begun.”

In this environment, radio hosts believe that anger is their only path to survival. “If you’re not the most extreme person on the radio or making the most outrageous headlines,” says Fybush, “there is going to be some portion of the base that is going to ignore you and move onto someone who is more extreme.”

Civil Discourse

I went to the OFA press conference in support of healthcare reform outside Mary Landrieu's office earlier today.

We were rudely received by a phalanx of tea-baggers from the 'Baton Rouge Tea Party,' who I guess represent Mary Landrieu's base now (and I'm only sort of kidding).

I have got to say, these people are out of their effing minds.

Even liberal-ole-me will concede that there are some occasionally reasonable conservatives out in the world (sometimes they'll leave comments on this blog) but the folks that came out to protest this press conference were for the most part, well, crazy.

There's nothing quite like having a middle-aged woman scream in your face that you're a socialist communist at ten in the morning.

"You guys don't care about freedom."

"Barack Obama is taking our way of life."

They shouted over speeches by OFA's Steven Walker and Rep. Karen Carter Peterson, which I guess is fair game.

But when they continued heckling a volunteer speaker who offered a personal story of breast cancer survival and the difficulty of obtaining insurance as a carrier of Crohn's disease, well, I was disgusted.

Then, of course, there was the middle-aged white woman who deemed it appropriate to inform a couple of African American volunteers from SEIU that they were "lucky to be here."

But my favorite teabagger comment came from a woman standing right behind me who said:

"My brother pays $1,000 a month for health insurance and he doesn't complain."

I've been chuckling at that one all day long.

I have to also admit that I was a little bit humbled by the conduct of the progressive press conference attendees who exhibited near excessive patience with some of the protesters, sticking around to answer their questions and to try to engage them in a reasonable discourse.

I certainly will not talk to anyone that screams in my face that I'm a communist socialist or a freedom-hater or whatever because I want universal healthcare.

One older African American woman was walking away from a heated discussion with one of these people and smiled at me.

"How can you not forgive them? They're crazy."

I laughed. That's probably the right attitude.

Does the Left care about progressive reform in the South?

I flagged a number of blog posts from two weeks ago about Texas Governor Rick Perry's secessionist rhetoric. If you're not familiar or not quite remembering, Perry spoke to one of those tea party things in Texas:

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Perry is facing a tough reelection road. Not only might Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson challenge him in the GOP primary, but some pretty strong Democrats (Tom Shieffer maybe?) could be waiting in the wings in the general. As a result, many viewed his foray into the world of organized tea bagging as a pretty predictable pandering to the ultra conservative base that he'll need to beat Hutchinson in a possible primary.

But by using the language of secession, Perry made national headlines. Maybe Perry was just being flip but politicians in former Confederate states that raise the specter of dissolution of the union should probably know to expect that comments like those he delivered are going to cause a commotion. That's not even addressing what it means when that rhetoric is used because the nation's first African American President wants to increase the marginal tax rate on the top 1 or 2 percent of income earners back to the rate it was under Reagan. Suffice it to say, the optics are horrendous if one cares about what anyone outside of the base of the Texas GOP thinks about you.

Obviously, I was pretty disturbed by Perry's rhetoric and other instances where professional conservatives have seemingly embraced the language of insurrection.

But I was also not particularly pleased with the reaction to Perry's comments by some of the more respectable progressive bloggers out there.

For instance, Matthew Yglesias:

Honestly, though, I agree with Mike Tomasky that if Texas wants to leave the union we should probably just let them go and I’d say the same for other southern states that feel oppressed by our efforts to use federal tax money to help them take care of their unemployed citizens. Back during the Civil War, the cause of keeping the union together was intertwined with the cause of fighting the great evil of slavery. But assume we just welcome migrants from the Republic of Texas with open arms if they want to flee north, there’d be no comparable problem with letting Texas leave.

A day or so later, he went into a longer policy-based rant about how secession might be handled.

Another favorite, Nate Silver, responded to Perry as follows:

Then he rattled off a series of points about how much better off the Democrats would be without Texas.

I don't think that Nate Silver or Matthew Yglesias actually believe that Texas should secede from the union or that the US would be better off without Texas or any of the other former Confederate states whose Senators and Governors have mounted stunningly politicized opposition to stimulus funding that would help their own states' flagging economies.

Yet, there's something quite unfortunate about their dismissive tone that's indicative of a larger pervasive and insidious national attitude toward the South. The problem is not just that people are too insulated in the culture of the Beltway or the major media centers of New York, LA, and Chicago; it's that for so many on the Left view the South derisively as purely a symbol of extremist conservatism while expressing so very little empathy for the people of the South who actually are suffering from the consequences of this kind of GOP-inspired institutionalized poverty.

For instance, let's take the stimulus bill.

When you really distill down what has happened, you basically had a bunch of ultra-conservative Southern governors and senators screaming bloody murder because the Obama Administration was giving them money that they could use to improve institutions, infrastructure, and services. While conservatives of course would argue that improved institutions, infrastructure, and services represent larger more intrusive government, the reality is that these are the poorest and least developed states in the country with huge populations of impoverished residents and minorities saddled with the most institutionally dysfunctional justice systems in the industrialized world.

When viewed using this lens, the resurgence of the extremist rump of the GOP has absolutely nothing to do with an ideological opposition to government spending, pork, or the national debt.

Instead, it is more indicative of a long-standing ideological refusal by wealthy Southern elites to do anything at all that might address the really messed up dynamics of race and class that are still disproportionately omnipresent throughout the old Confederacy compared to other regions of the country.

The attitude exemplified by Yglesias and Silver reaction to Perry's ridiculous secessionist rhetoric wasn't about bolstering an ongoing meme about how Southern politicians were working against the interests of their own constituents and how to help the residents on the ground that are fighting for reform from within.

Instead, it was about how obstructionist these politicians are and how best to usher their states clean out of the union.

That anything resembling secession would spell doom for the huge population already bearing the disproportionate negative impact of being born in the wrong region of the country didn't seem to cross their minds.

Rather than discussing how the mechanics of secession might work to the Democrats' advantage, I think it would be much more helpful to the majority of people from Texas, the rest of the old Confederacy, and to the nation at-large if progressives instead concentrated on how best to enact policies that will improve conditions in the nation's most at-risk communities and how best to organize for grassroots progressive reform from within.

The whole pervasive good riddance attitude is something that people in the South have become really sensitive to, consciously or not, and it alienates many that otherwise would really benefit from and support progressive public policy.

Update: Hendrik Hertzberg does the same thing starting at 9:00 in.

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And more eloquently in this column.

I think Sullivan might call this an "Yglesias award nominee"

From Danny Fisher at ORR:

I want to believe in these tea parties, I really do. But they bug me just a little bit. First of all, the Boston Tea Party was an act of outright rebellion by fed up colonists, this is a planned rally by the dorkiest segments of the GOP.

Already, organizers are trying to preempt any liberal backlash by saying “it’s coming, they’re going to call us racists.” This is exactly what Obama did in the campaign by “predicting” that conservatives would try to scare voters because he was “different.” It might have worked, he did get elected after all. The thing is, the vocal part of the anti-tax crowd overlaps with the lock-and-load gun lovers, the Jeffersonians and the John Birch Society. I hate taxes and government excess, but I would never trust any of these people under any circumstances. There’s internet kooks, then there’s the REAL kooks!

Glad to see some good folks on the Right are giving these things some consideration.

Kudos.