Inside the GOP’s hallucinatory dogma: How the politics of paranoia & disorientation conquered the Re

[applegrove]

Inside the GOP’s hallucinatory dogma: How the politics of paranoia & disorientation conquered the Republican mind

by Chauncey Davega at Salon

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/18/inside_the_gops_hallucinatory_dogma_how_the_politics_of_paranoia_disorientation_conquered_the_republican_mind/

"SNIP...............


Apocalypticism: Historian Richard Hofstadter, most famously in his seminal work “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” noted how conservatives, even in the 1950s and 1960s, were creating a cult-like political system that prized orthodoxy over critical thought, alternative evidence, or empirical reality. This is the shadow under which the politics of disorientation operates for movement conservatives. On this point, historian Robert Toplin explains at the History News Network how:

Individuals who seek a broader understanding of the present political standoff in Washington may find Hofstadter’s judgments thought-provoking.

Richard Hofstadter recognized that evangelical leaders were playing a significant role in right-wing movements of his time, but he noticed that a “fundamentalist” style of mind was not confined to matters of religious doctrine. It affected opinions about secular affairs, especially political battles. Hofstadter associated that mentality with a “Manichean and apocalyptic” mode of thought. He noticed that right-wing spokesmen applied the methods and messages of evangelical revivalists to U.S. politics. Agitated partisans on the right talked about epic clashes between good and evil, and they recommended extraordinary measures to resist liberalism. The American way of life was at stake, they argued. Compromise was unsatisfactory; the situation required militancy. Nothing but complete victory would do.

Spectacle: The culture of illusion and distraction, wherein entertainment is a stand-in for full and authentic human experiences, enables the Reality TV-esque popularity of demagogues like Donald Trump, and the litany of ridiculous policy positions — again divorced from empirical fact or reality — offered by the leading Republican candidates. Here, Fox News, a “news” operation that has made right-wing talking points interchangeable with “facts,” represents the culture of illusion in full operation. That Fox News is America’s highest rated “news station” and actually has the most ignorant and uninformed viewership of any major news media outlet, signals to how entertainment is confused with substance in the culture of illusion and distraction. The masses are asses in such a system, not because such behavior is “natural,” but because such behavior is normalized and encouraged.




................SNIP"

[snagglepuss]

1. An excellent read. Thanks for posting. Bkmrd.

k and r

[mountain grammy]

2. The masses are asses......... indeed.

[Skittles]

3. too many GOPers started to believe their own propaganda

now they're looking as ridiculous as the people who vote for these clowns

[applegrove]

4. I could not make myself watch Jake Tapper nailing Jeb on hipocrisy today

for saying his brother W was not responsible for 9/11 but Hillary was responsible for Benghazi. I dislike the right but don't want to have to visually deal with that mind bleeding warpiness.