This is a genuinely fascinating question. Some people are saying: Fox News. That (and talk radio) are obviously crucial, but it's worth asking why crazy media people got so big on the right rather than the left.
As of, say, 1970, I think there were more crazy people on the left than on the right. (This stuff is cyclical.) So I don't think there's some sort of special conservative susceptibility to strange cult-like thinking.
3/ Antecedents present in the 60s on the right: as I just said in a reply, southern Dems (who became GOP) taking for granted that what their politicians said and what they meant were two very different things. Doublespeak was standard there.
4/ Antecedents, cont: the crazy version of anti-Communism. (Sane version: the USSR is genuinely awful. Nutty versions vary, but the idea that keeping Vietnam from going Communist was essential to the defense of the free world was one.) Also, of course, Birchers.
5/ A key turning point was the election of Reagan. Many people were really worried about his lack of experience and curiosity. (Seems v. quaint now.) When he won (both in primaries and in general), it was a victory for looking like a President.
6/ So many of the things that people think about Reagan now are just false. "The always stood tall, never cut and run" -- um, Beirut? "He never palled around with our enemies" -- um, Iran/Contra?
But he LOOKED tough and full of resolve. For some, that was enough.
But he LOOKED tough and full of resolve. For some, that was enough.
7/ He also really began the GOP's combination of claiming to care about the deficit while actually blowing it up. Once you think you can cut taxes without really paying for them, anything goes.
I think Ed Kilgore once called it "the bottomless crack pipe." It was.
I think Ed Kilgore once called it "the bottomless crack pipe." It was.
8/ And, of course, Reagan also took the GOP's "we are the party of white flight; we have ours; just cut our damn taxes" ethos to another level.
9/ Not to mention his and his party's slurs against minorities of all kinds, and their callousness.
10/ The importance of FACTS dwindled throughout the 1980s. I always volunteered for the campaigns of Dems who promised to *raise* taxes, on the grounds that someone had to stand up for basic math. (Futile gesture, I know. Sue me. :) )
11/ In the mid 80s, talk radio hit, and that introduced a kind of generalized meanness into things. I recall seeing a car w/a bumper sticker saying "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE", and thinking: seriously? That's the sentiment you want to introduce yourself to strangers with?
12/ Apparently, it was.
And at the SAME time, people were really figuring out how to monetize things like direct mail. And those people were on the right.
Then: Bush breaks his promise on taxes, and is clobbered. And Gingrich and the Hatefulness Caucus' takeover of the House.
And at the SAME time, people were really figuring out how to monetize things like direct mail. And those people were on the right.
Then: Bush breaks his promise on taxes, and is clobbered. And Gingrich and the Hatefulness Caucus' takeover of the House.
13/ And then there was the totally bizarre Clinton hysteria of the 1990s. I could never wrap my mind around it: like him, don't like him, but killing Vince Foster, running drugs in Arkansas, or hanging crack pipes on his Christmas tree? Huh?
14/ That was when generalized insanity took over a really large chunk of the GOP. And I really don't get that part at all.
Then the parts more people remember: 9/11, Obama and the crazy racialized panic that ensued, etc.
Then the parts more people remember: 9/11, Obama and the crazy racialized panic that ensued, etc.
15/ I haven't mentioned enough the fact that people figured out ways to *monetize* this stuff. I'm on a bunch of conservative mailing lists, and the number of scams is really hard to believe. It's endless.
And fundraising off panic about what horror Dems will perpetrate next.
And fundraising off panic about what horror Dems will perpetrate next.
16/ Ever since about 2000, another driver is the fact that as the GOP drifts further and further from, you know, FACTS and sober policy analysis, more and more people who care about those things become Democrats. Whole swaths of the policy world defected.
17/ Do you care about climate change or the environment? About health care? About foreign policy? About, well, ANY significant area of policy? Good luck being a Republican.
18/ That's one thing I think that the "both sides have their nutty people" really miss: we have a kind of immune system in that *many, many* wonks are now Dems, and many non-wonk Dems care about that stuff in principle.
19/ @kbcrhn mentions the support of big business. That's right, but I don't think it would have worked had the GOP not been willing to basically auction off chunks of its policy. (E.g., its *entire* energy policy.)
@kbcrhn 20/ We're no angels, and we should be much better, but the party as a whole does not have a giant neon FOR SALE sign on it.
The GOP does.
The GOP does.
@kbcrhn 21/ Dana is right. But that wasn't true 20 years ago. There really were policies -- I disagreed with them, but they existed. Serious policy wonks have mostly left the party.
It's especially shocking in foreign policy, I think.
It's especially shocking in foreign policy, I think.
@kbcrhn 22/ Anyways, that's all I got. I'm sure I've missed a lot. (E.g., I haven't said nearly enough about the role of the GOP becoming the White Flight party. That has to do w/nuttiness and not just badness because of the role of fake nightmare visions of cities, race, etc.)
@kbcrhn 23/ Oh, one more thing: when you read biographical pieces on GOP operatives who came of age in the 70s/80s, it's fascinating to me how many of them basically cheated in ingenious ways in e.g. College Republicans.
newyorker.com/magazine/2003/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2003/…
@kbcrhn 24/ They were rewarded, not reprimanded, for trying to win by cheating. I've been struck by the number of times I've come across stories like this.
Totally minor detail, but why not throw it in, I thought.
Totally minor detail, but why not throw it in, I thought.
