Paul Krugman succinctly sums up the media’s belated understanding of the relationship among Fox News, Rightist Talk Radio, political extremism and now murders. He says in passing, “And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.”
Here at STSOZ since the early 2000s we diagnosed the differences among the Movement, its various strands and ‘Republicans”. Long ago we tried to explain that the Movement is the controlling parasite astride its enfeebled Republican host. The Movement’s reaction to Obama’s 2008 victory only underscores the point.
Today’s ‘mainstream media’ still do not fully understand the dichotomy. Or its implications. They still treat ‘Republicans’ and Democrats as equivalent political actors playing the same game by the same rules for the same prizes. As long as relative neophytes view politics in this prism, the Movement wins.
What we here at STSOZ call the Movement within the conservative base always plays a different game for a different prize. The Movement may speak in normal political talking points from ‘Republican’ institutions. Yet it isn’t not committed to Dahl-esque pluralistic politics. It has never sought or tolerated compromise or ‘moderation’. That’s because for the Movement, politics is existential warfare. Compromise is defeat.
Because Krugman et al. fail to grasp the fundamental differences among the Movement, the former Republican and Democratic parties, talking heads tell Americans the Movement is just the ‘Republican base’. As if somehow the Movement and its Manichean zero-sum nihilism is the same as the Democratic base. Say like the Sierra Club or unions.
It wasn’t always like this, of course. Until 1992 the Republican Party remained the dominant organizational entity and kept the Movement as a subordinate coalition partner within bounds. But after the Bush debacle in ’92, the Movement learned to seize power on its own within and without the Republican Party. The signs began with the Movement’s no longer filtered rage, paranoia, and conspiracy fever in 1993. By the 1994 midterms, the Movement began to eclipse the Republican establishment. By 2001-2008, the Movement completed its eclipse and take over of the old Republican Party.