In Deep With The Haties

One reason parties can't win against a generational crisis is that their failures just make them more extreme.

We saw it 40 years ago, as the civil rights movement seemed to become the black power movement before our eyes, and as the hippies became yippies became the violent Weather Underground.

My point today is these were not just elite activities. Grassroots liberals at that time were pulled toward outright leftism, and violent confrontation, because the FDR Thesis of Unity was failing to address the contradictions of urban decay and Vietnam. The New Deal Coalition, by late in 1967, was in the process of fracturing into the collection of tribes and movements we associate with the losing Democratic cause of the Nixon Generation.

The same forces existed in previous crisis periods. The rise of fascism and Nazism in the early 1930s, of union and farmer violence in the 1890s, even the Southern rejectionism of the 1850s, were all the result of similar forces. The beliefs of a generation no longer worked, they no longer held, and the reaction of ordinary people was, not to seek new accommodation, but to become more extreme.

So it is in our time:

• The War in Iraq, driven by the Nixon Cold War Thesis, is a failure. So neoconservatives suggest we bomb Iran.
• The scandals in housing and food, caused by lack of regulation, leads economic conservatives to equate even the anti-trust actions of Theodore Roosevelt with socialism.
• The failure of religious conservatism, the rejection of its extremism by a majority of Americans, leads to calls by those people for a third party.

What liberals today must understand, as conservatives a generation ago understood, is that these are not just the elites talking. Go to any right-wing community site -- PowerLine, Little Green Footballs, RedState -- and read the comments. See what the majority of the conservative grassroots feels today.

Rejectionism, eliminationism, fascism, racism, misogynism -- it's helter skelter out there. Anyone who disagrees with these morons, in any jot or tittle, becomes an enemy to be killed, a target to be exterminated. The nooses hung after Jena in solidarity with racism are the real story of our time -- it's where the grassroots are going.

Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck aren't leading anything. They are followers. What hard core conservatives are feeling right now goes far beyond their most violent rhetoric. They know this, which is why they're shocked on being called out. They are editing their audience's feelings, taking out the nastiest bits, and they're absolutely appalled that anyone would be offended by what they consider "PG-rated" rants.

Remind you of anyone? It reminds me of a lot of rock acts from 40 years ago, people who sang of drug use and sexual abandon with what they thought was artistic license, but who were in the process of being rejected, for that work, by the majority, which wanted to confront the extremists.

In the case of rock, we at least got some good music. In the case of the previous generation's trips, we got Hitler and Mussolini.

That's what we have to fear now. The violent fantasies we're seeing online right now are going to become violence itself, as the new majority view moves toward the halls of power. And unless the new majority remains united, committed to confronting and destroying those who would commit violence against the system, it could be overthrown.

I'm not so much afraid of George W. Bush as I am of those who still believe in him. You need to understand this as well.