Frum: What I worry about is ‘not rhetoric, it’s the construction of paranoid narratives.’
If RINOs would form a party, I would probably vote for them. Take it away, Frum:
The thing we have to worry about is not the effect on crazy people. It’s the effect on normal people. And the thing I worry about is not rhetoric, it’s the construction of paranoid narratives.
When respected people say that the foreign policy of the Bush administration is controlled by a tiny cabal of Jews who are aligning the country into war, that — no matter how politely you say that, that is a false paranoid narrative. And in the same way, when people say that Barack Obama’s deliberately trying to destroy the economy of the United States in order to lead us to overthrow the Constitution, lead us to a Marxist dictatorship, again, you can say that without a single harsh syllable or negative adjective, but it’s a false and paranoid narrative. And that attacks the governance of the country.
Well spoken. Meanwhile, paranoid tribalistic nationalism is rampant on the Right. And because this craziness has become so mainstream through Fox, Beck, Drudge, etc. the following take from Alex Jones on the current hot fearmongering talking points on China doesn’t sound so fringe compared to the rest of what’s published in the wingnut universe, except that he openly endorses overthrowing the government:
