But there is something different about their tone these days, and I can't quite put my finger on exactly what it is. My tentative take is that there's an inchoate quality to their fears that's new. In the past they were fighting against specific things: communism, hippies, Bill Clinton, Islamists, abortion, etc. But communism is dead, the hippies are grown up, Clinton is off doing good works in Africa, al-Qaeda is pretty quiet, and it's pretty obvious that the culture wars have been lost. They're doing their best to slot Obama into the old Clinton/Gore role, but he just doesn't fit and the media isn't playing along the way they did in the 90s. So they're stuck. Who, exactly, is their enemy these days?
I'm not sure they know themselves. But maybe that makes it worse. A nuclear-armed USSR may be scary, but at least it's something you can identify. These days that's a lot harder. Like a horror movie where you're surrounded on all sides by something you can never quite make out, I guess it seems to them like there's something horrible going on, but it's something so insidious that they're only allowed to catch occasional foggy glimpses of it. Budget deficits? Healthcare reform? Top marginal tax rates going back to 39.6%? Negotiations with Iran? Those aren't things that normally stir the blood. But what if they're really just stalking horses for something far more malign?
In comments: Mark Twain said, "What people don't know, they suspect." And another take on it, also from comments:
...I respectfully disagree from where I sit. The ranting I heard from John Bircher-types growing up in Idaho in the 1970s sounded pretty much the same as what we are hearing from AM radio and Faux News today. They didn't like the "Soviets" back then, but they were just as agitated over illegal immigrants, Arabs, European weakness, the UN and "world government" as they are now. "Soviets" and "the welfare state" have mostly dropped off the list of existential threats to the Union (though there are still lots of dark references to the "Russians," which is what they usually called them anyway), and gay marriage has been added to the list, but the tenor remains pretty much the same as it has for a long time. The biggest difference I see is that before Limbaugh became nationally syndicated in in the late 80s/early 90s, there were only a few oddball cranks with a national platform for this bile (e.g. Paul Harvey). Limbaugh's appearance on the national scene was a big change, and there has been a profusion of imitators since then that have turned up the volume a lot. But the music is pretty much the same.
And, I think the economic mess is more scary than the economy has been for a long time. It is very scary, and the Obama administration is downplaying how bad it is, for the good reason that economic hysteria creates its own apocalyptic outcomes. I realize that the right disowned the GWB administration as soon as their incompetence at everything including getting votes became undeniable, but it is interesting to see how quickly the economy is now the fault of Obama and the Dems. Nothing rational about it, except for the ones cynically stirring the pot in a bid for a return to power. Too bad they've got no better ideas than inflaming populist hysteria. That sort of anger is not always easily directed, however. It seems to me that with the mandate of such anger, despite his centrist leanings, the still-incredibly popular Obama could just as easily shrug and say, "well, the Establishment solutions are obviously not working, we need to go to nationalization," or to whatever other leftist solution presents itself.
I wouldn't argue with a turn to the left.
No comments:
Post a Comment