The question really comes down to, do the inmates run the asylum? The concept of the loyal opposition has been utterly trashed in a scorched earth war to demonize and dehumanize anyone who isn’t conservative enough. The entire mess isn’t recent as we know, think back to the quotes about ‘real america’ in the campaign. Then look back to the elections in 2002, 2004, in which people who weren’t pro war enough were trashed and treated as little better than traitors and un-American. Heck, even now there’s a significant minority of people who still believe that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks.

At this point, I’m no longer shocked that there’s this much vitriol coming from the Republican party. They know their base, they know their audience, they know exactly who they’re talking to. And it’s the worst of America that they’re pandering to, not the best. It makes me sad, and I despair to think that we’ve reached this point.

One final thought, I remember how much the conservatives would yell and disparage non-conservatives for being upset. It got to the point where the response was, ‘if you hate America so much, just leave’. But instead of taking their own advice and simply leaving, they aim to destroy the country by splitting it up. We can argue that the talk in TN and in TX is just hot air, but I think there’s a darker and stronger undercurrent to it. That there is an undercurrent of hatred that lurks towards those people who aren’t a part of the ‘real America.’

The outrage and Bigotry against the Muslim faith is merely a symptom of the disease that has eaten at the soul of the conservative movement.