“Conservatism,” writes Rick Perlstein in the latest issue of The Rolling Stone, “is not getting crazier, and it’s not going away, either. It’s just getting more powerful. That’s a fact that a reality-based liberal just has to accept– and, from it, draw strength for the fight.”
I don’t know if he’s right or not, but his historical examples give pause for though:
Over fifteen years of studying the American right professionally—especially in their communications with each other, in their own memos and media since the 1950s — I have yet to find a truly novel development, a real innovation, in far-right “thought.” Right-wing radio hosts fingering liberal billionaires like George Soros, who use their gigantic fortunes – built by virtue of private enterprise under the Constitution – out to “socialize” the United States? 1954: Here’s a right-wing radio host fingering “gigantic fortunes, built by virtue of private enterprise under the Constitution … being used to ‘socialize’ the United States.” Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, “fed up with elitist judges” arrogantly imposing their “radically un-American views” — including judges on the Supreme Court, whose rulings he’s pledged to defy? 1958: Nine Men Against America: The Supreme Court and its Attack on American Liberties, still on sale at sovereignstates.org.
Only the names of the ogres have changed — although sometimes they haven’t. Dr. Noebel’s latest project is to republish a volume he apparently finds freshly relevant, Dr. Fred Schwarz’s You Can Trust the Communists: To be Communists.Schwarz, an Australian physician who died three years ago, had his heyday in the early 1960s, when he would fill municipal auditoriums preaching his favorite gospel: that the Kremlin dominated its subjects by deploying “the techniques of animal husbandry,” and harbored “plans for a flag of the USSR flying over every American city by 1973.” The new version, updated by Noebel – it comes with raves from grateful Amazon.com reviews, like this: “Just as important as it was 50 years ago”; and this: “Should be required reading for every American,” and “This book made me a conservative” – is titled You Can Still Trust the Communists: To be Communists, Socialists, Statists, and Progressives Too.
Perlstein notes that we tend to look at the last generation’s conservatives as less crazy than this generation’s, forgetting that they’ve always been this crazy. They are just more empowered to say what they think. They are more apt to hold office; mainstream news outlets provide them with plenty of media exposure; and they’re well-funded by religious organizations and think-tanks.
We liberals may see the current slate of Republicans as the implosion of the party; it may be that the movement conservatism is coming into its own.
Growing up in Arkansas and Texas, where government investment (dams, schools, space program, military bases, water projects, parks) provided great economic growth and progress, in the 1980s and 1990s, I heard many conservatives say conservative things like “all the evils of the present can be traced back to the New Deal” (and they meant things like Social Security were evil) and “black Americans had it better before the Civil Rights Act” (really… that one shocked me speechless the first time I heard it).
His twin masterpieces Nixonland and Before the Storm trace the development of modern conservatism from dual origins. Before the Storm shows the rise of movement conservatism of Goldwater (a lot closer to libertarian/paleoconservstism) with Nixonland tracing the early neoconservative “law and order” pitches to disaffected working class white in the south and urban North under Nixon that were fused into Reagan conservatism.
Perlstein is one of the few scholars on the left who appreciates the intellectual capital and history of this movement and it’s appeal while also understanding why we fail to articulate our policies coherently. We always deal with reality, facts, policy proposals, figures, etc.Liberals have failed to articulate a broar more cohesive historical and emotional narrative summating succinctly what we stand for. I think John Edwards “two Americas” and the Presidents recent talk of “fairness” are good examples of where to turn rhetorically. The right can say “faith, family, freedom” and those three words cons encapsulate an entire outlook of the world and is an appealing and simple slogan, similar efforts from the left need to be created. Peace, prosperity,progress comes to mind. Tom Frank is another journalist/scholar who gets it and one of the few still advocating unions, fair trade, and economic populism within the mainstream left.
From the New American, was Andrew Breitbart murdered?
It floats along, in spy novel fashion, with the hope that, perhaps, the coroners’ report will settle this.
Apparently, ACORN wasn’t just full of Alinsky radicals, but Stalinist agents too.
I totally agree that the right-wing has always been this deranged. Replace communism with islamofascism, etc… Same lines different spectres. I guess the question is whether the conspiratorial right is now more embedded in the mainstream of the GOP. McCarthyism was pretty powerful at one point. Hell, Goldwater won the GOP nod in 1964. They have always given a home to radicals on the right. But, they used to have a moderate wing to compete with. That is what is gone today and that is why it seems they have lost their moorings.