Rick Perlstein had a piece in yesterday’s WaPo that has stirred quite a bit of interest entitled “In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition.”
First, I think that the title is perfect as it it is certainly true that the kinds of raucous politics we have seen of late (Tea Parties, Birthers, town hall shouters and the like) is hardly new, rather it is just the most recent manifestation of long term behavior.
Second, while he may have a point about a certain type of protest politics (see below), the piece does have a tone that seems to suggest that only the American right has political crazies, while the American left is the home of the calm and rational (the following line has gotten a lot of play (e.g., here and here), especially the bolded portion): “The various elements — the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won’t hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension — sound as fresh as yesterday’s news.”) This is a shame because by allowing the discussion to be cast as a dichotomy between the Crazy Right and the Rational Left means that some interesting and relevant issues are ignored. One of the reactions I keep seeing from people on the rightward side of things on this topic is that they may not like the noise level or the rhetoric, but they usually also say something like “the left did it first”–a reaction which blunts any real attempt to quell these behaviors. So, casting any discussion as one in which it appears that the discussant is blaming the right only will lead to a reaction about which side’s fringe is historically worse, or somesuch. This strikes me ultimately as not a discussion about the current political climate, but a side argument that tends to ultimately devolve to “your side it worse!”/”no, yours is!”–which is not only ultimately irrelevant to the current debate, but means we get sidetracked.
Back to Perlstein’s observation: there is something of significance that is going on with some elements of the American right at the moment, which do bear closer scrutiny both from the perspective of basic understanding but also from the position of the partisan health of the right side of our political spectrum. Nothing this does not mean, by the way, that there haven’t been groups on the left that have behaved irresponsibly in the past.
Specifically, Perlstein has a point, whether we like it or not, about some of the similarities between the more vocal elements on the right at the moment and those of a few generations back. Along those line, I would recommend the the following article from Time which was published on December 8, 1961: The Ultras which details what it refers to as the ultraconservative (hence “The Ultras”) strain of the American right in the early 1960s. It was concerned primarily with Communism, and indeed was convinced the the Kennedy administration was moving the country toward socialism, if not full blown communism (sound familiar?).
At a minimum, it is difficult to read that piece and not think of some of the claims being made at Tea Parties or by the town hall shouters. It certainly reminds me of the various alarmist claims by Glenn Beck (an excellent can be found here) and that one regularly see on sites like World Net Daily (also the home of many Birthers). Indeed, all of this reminded me of a headline I noted in passing this week from WND: None dare call it totalitarianism
I’m not going to make the case that America under Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress has become a totalitarian police state.
But, I will make the case that Washington is leading us in that direction.
Read the Time piece from 47 years ago and you will see similar paranoid accusations, also from the right. That does not, however, mean that there wasn’t a fringe left in the 1960s as well.
So, in all honesty, Perlstein has a point–we do seem to be seeing behaviors that have historical antecedents. The problem with Perlstein’s piece is that he appears to assign the entirety of such behavior to the right. I would suggest another piece, also from the 1960s (November 1964), that fits the discussion quite well: Hofstadter, Richard, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” From Harper’s Magazine:
I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style”
And one has to love his concluding sentence:
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
Indeed.
What I find of note about the current period is that this paranoid style is being embraced by mainstream members of the GOP (for example) and their media allies at the moment at what seems1 like a higher level than we normally see. I think that this is bad for the republic and for the Republican Party, which is why I keep writing about it.2 I think that it behooves leaders of the party, as well as normal citizens, to not support irrational anger and to find better ways to discuss these subjects. Now, I fully understand how politics works, and that there is hay to be made by drawing strength off of this passion. Still, that doesn’t mean that we should just stand by and not comment upon the negative aspects of such politicking.
Sphere: Related Content- and I use that word specifically, because I have nothing systematic on the subject [↩]
- That and the fact that the raison d’être of the blog is for me to write to write about whatever is on my mind at the time, and this is on my mind. [↩]
August 16th, 2024 at 9:28 pm
“The various elements — the liberal earnestly confused when rational dialogue won’t hold sway; the anti-liberal rage at a world self-evidently out of joint; and, most of all, their mutual incomprehension — sound as fresh as yesterday’s news.”
I don’t know. I didn’t draw a dichotomy when I read that, but the image of Claire McCaskil standing up at her townhall, meekly asking the crowd where all the rudeness came from did come to mind.
I’ve been waitinghopefully for someone to quote Hofstadter’s lesser known essay “The Pseudo-Conservative Revolt“, myself; as this part on tv to describe what’s going on with the healthcare debate and all the fear-mongering about living under totalitarian liberal fascist marxist black nationalist tyranny:
“[I]n a populistic culture like ours, which seems to lack a responsible elite with political and moral autonomy, and in which it is possible to exploit the wildest currents of public sentiment for private purposes, it is at least conceivable that a highly organized, vocal, active and well-financed minority could create a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible.”
Sixty years on and that quote is still dead on the money.
August 16th, 2024 at 9:30 pm
Arg. I slid some text around and ended up with that disjointed bit. I meant to write I’ve been hoping to see someone on tv (or in print) quote that Hofstadter bit.
August 17th, 2024 at 1:00 pm
Well, there are always “fringe” and radical ideas being expressed, and as long as they remain non-violent or do not otherwise in-fringe on people’s liberties, their ability to speak and mobilize is one of the hallmarks of a free society.
But regarding this point, Steven:
“it is certainly true that the kinds of raucous politics we have seen of late (Tea Parties, Birthers, town hall shouters and the like) is hardly new, rather it is just the most recent manifestation of long term behavior.”
Now you give some examples from past decades, including some from the right. But the implication is that this has been a phenomenon not restricted to the right.
Yet I continue to wonder–and this is a completely honest question–where has been the similarity from the left in the past? I do not think that allegedly serious leaders and legislators of either major political party have ever so openly cultivated ties to the fringe groups as what we see with a certain party now and the various “movements” referred to in the post.
Am I missing something here? Seriously.