Mass Insanity

Public anger is not something new, and there isn't really a shortage of things to be angry about, but the peculiar unreality of the rage of 2009 is something new to me. Joe Klein has commented on the irrationality of it and so has Paul Krugman. It's not just that they hate Obama - it's that they hate Obama for preposterous and obviously untrue reasons. It's somehow as if some great American screw has come loose and spilled whatever it is that afflicts the street corner crazies raving about aliens in their dentures into the heads of a third of the population.

Here's Joe Klein:

I was at a Blanche Lincoln town hall meeting in Russellville, Arkansas, yesterday--and the number of people who believe that the President has larded the government with communists (!) was astonishing. One woman said there were four known communists in the government and that she'd researched it on the internet. When I asked her afterwards, she said environmental adviser Van Jones, legal advisor Cass Sunstein (who was last spotted being excoriated by the left for supporting the FISA revisions), someone named Lloyd and she didn't remember the fourth. And wasn't it suspicious that Obama had all these czars working for him--that was a Russkie commie term, wasn't it? When I asked, the woman admitted that, among other things, she occasionally listened to William Bennett's conservative radio show. I pointed out that Bennett had once been the Drug Czar, appointed by Ronald Reagan. Life sure can be complicated sometimes.

I was later told by a local observer that many of these vomitous, disgraceful notions were the fruit of Glenn Beck's fruitful imagination...

It's true, the message of the crazies isn't coming from their dentures, it's coming from their television sets. The scariest part is that most of the Republican leadership is busy promoting the lies. Klein recognizes what a fundamental attack this is on the underpinnings of the Republic.

Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous? We are heading toward a cliff and the usual brakes of civil discourse are not working. Indeed, the Republicans have the pedal to the metal--rushing us toward a tragedy far greater than the California health care forum finger-biting Karen describes below. I'm usually not one to panic or be overly worried about the state of our country--even when we do awful things like invade Iraq and torture people, we usually right our course before long--but I have a sinking feeling about where we're headed now. I hope I'm wrong.

Cue the space cadets - the first comment to his blog includes:

....Yes. We should all strive for the civility demonstrated by Klein and Soviet KGB collaborator Ted Kennedy....

A nation needs an informed and vigilant citizenry, but it's shocking how much distortion one consistent stream of lies can introduce into public thought. Nations can be torn apart by lies and strife. Can one Australian pornographer destroy what survived slavery, civil war, and depression? I doubt it, but I find it very frightening that so many Americans are willing to sign up for this attempt to turn us against each other.