A PERNICIOUS SHIFT TO AN ANNOYING TREND…. | The Washington Monthly
More recently, however, the larger trend has taken a turn for the worse. It’s not just that the right gets worked up over stories that fall apart after minimal scrutiny — though that’s part of it — it’s also that the trumped up garbage is starting to get more focused. Kevin Drum raised an excellent point today:
There have been three big conservative outrages that have choked the airwaves over the past couple of weeks. #1 was about a bunch of scary black men, the New Black Panther Party. #2 was about a bunch of scary Muslims who want to build a triumphal mosque on the sacred soil of Ground Zero. #3 was about a vindictive black woman who works for the government and screws the white people she deals with. The running theme here is not just a coincidence.
This, by the way, coincided with leading Tea Party zealots blasting the NAACP as “racist,” and a coordinated attack against Thurgood Marshall by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
There have to be some decent folks on the right who are uncomfortable with this. I know RNC Chairman Michael Steele recently conceded his party relied on a racially-divisive “Southern Strategy” for at least four decades, and that animosity towards Barack Obama is exacerbated by race, but conservatives — Fox News, GOP activists, prominent far-right media voices — continue to push the boundaries of acceptable discourse here. We’ve gone from conservatives making up scurrilous nonsense to gin up excitement with far-right voters to conservatives making up racist nonsense to gin up excitement with far-right voters.
Steve Benen: right on target, so direct.