NPR: If You're Just Joining Us, The Republicans Are Dangerously Extremist
Perhaps the people at National Public Radio are worried that a new Republican Congress could threaten the lavishness of its federal subsidies again. Or maybe NPR is just a sandbox for the Left. But on Wednesday, the show Fresh Air spent most of its hour suggesting the Republican Party was dangerously infested with extremists. The guest was socialist Princeton professor Sean Wilentz, who has written that George W. Bush practiced "a radicalized version of Reaganism." Host Terry Gross was promoting Wilentz's article in The New Yorker on Glenn Beck and the Tea Party:
GROSS: Can you think of another time in American history when there have been as many people running for Congress who seem to be on the extreme?
WILENTZ: Not running for Congress, no. I mean even back in the '50s.
This is par for the course, since Gross promoted a New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer just a few weeks ago (on August 26) on how the Koch brothers were funding the Tea Party as part of a "war" on that secular saint, President Obama. What stuck out in this interview was the use of "extreme" labels for the conservative movement and the GOP -- twelve of them. In Sesame Street lingo, the hour was brought to you by the letter E for Extreme. Most of them came in Gross's restate-the-thesis (or in this case, restate-the-attack-ad) "if you're just joining us" reintroductions.
Glenn Beck has described himself as restoring history, but my guest, historian Sean Wilentz, says that Beck and the Tea Party movement are reviving ideas that circulated on the extremist right half a century ago, especially in the John Birch Society....
Wilentz has an article in the current edition of the New Yorker titled "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." He asks why current Republican Party leaders have done virtually nothing to challenge extremist ideas in their party and a great deal to abet them...
If you're just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University, and he has a piece in the current edition of the New Yorker called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." And he says in this piece that both Glenn Beck and the Tea Party's beliefs are rooted in extremist groups and thinking from the Cold War period....
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Im Terry Gross back with historian Sean Wilentz. We're talking about his article in the current edition of The New Yorker, in which he writes that Glenn Beck and the Tea Party Movement are reviving ideas that circulated in the extremist right half a century ago, especially in the John Birch Society. Wilentz is a professor of American history at Princeton University. His books include "The Rise of American Democracy" and "The Age of Reagan." His new book is called "Bob Dylan in America." Wilentz is the historian in residence of Dylan's official website. Wilentz's article in The New Yorker is titled "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots."
So a question that youre asking in your article is how is it that the Republican Party managed to hold this kind of extremism at bay for decades.
WILENTZ: Right.
GROSS: And now that extremism is getting expressed in voting-booth politics.
WILENTZ: Mm-hmm.
GROSS: We hear candidates expressing these views. What's changed in the party that has opened the door to this kind of extremism?...
GROSS: So flash forward to today and to the midterm election of 2010.
WILENTZ: Yeah.
GROSS: What role do you see extremists playing now in the Republican Party, and do you see an equivalent of a Buckley character saying this extremism is going to be bad for the party?...
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University. In the current edition of The New Yorker, he has an article called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." And he writes about how the Tea Party and Glenn Beck's version of history are rooted in what he describes as extremist ideology that came out of the Cold War in the 1950s. One of the things I find really fascinating about Glenn Beck is that he has a kind of anti-intellectual stance.
WILENTZ: Yeah.
GROSS: At the same time he's always standing professorially in front of a blackboard. (Soundbite of laughter)
WILENTZ: Right.
GROSS: And he's telling you that, you know, the historians have lied to you but he's appointed himself, you know, America's truthful historian who is going to teach you the real story, so the whole thing seems to be rooted in such paradox, like intellectualism is bad but I'm here to be the professor.
WILENTZ: Exactly.
GROSS: Historians don't know what they're talking about but I'm here to be a historian....
GROSS: If youre just joining us, my guest is Sean Wilentz. He's a professor of history at Princeton University. In the current edition of The New Yorker, he has an article called "Confounding Fathers: The Tea Party's Cold War Roots." He's also the author of a new book called "Bob Dylan in America." And now I will ask you to make the connection between your piece... (Laughter) in The New Yorker and your Bob Dylan book, and that connection is a song by Bob Dylan that satirizes the John Birch Society...
WILENTZ: Right. Right.
GROSS: ...a group on the extreme of the right, which weve been talking about.
- Tim Graham's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
Fresh Air???
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 8:33am.
How about stale, recycled air?
When was the last time this bunch had a new idea or approach to anything?
We used to be #1, and that's a bad thing
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 8:40am.
Well they keep saying Beck, Republicans, and others have extremist views and ideas, but never mention exactly what those views and ideas are, just giving negative labels to those views. Here is a list I think the liberal left will attack as extremist goals for America to achieve again, as in the past, in other words, let's 'go back' to those days when:
America was:
#1 in education
#1 in medicine
#1 in manufacturing
#1 in science
#1 in transportation
#1 in warfare
#1 in food production
I'm sure you can come up with more areas where America used to be #1 and where the left wants America to fail.
#1 in Liberty.
Submitted by GregE on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:17pm.
#1 in Liberty.
#1 in Freedom.
#1 in Innovation.
Gross and Wilentz - Aptly named.
Submitted by acaiguana on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:04am.
Gross is, well, just Gross.
Wilentz is a Liberal of the nth degree.
So, no extremism going on here, right?
My question would be:
What are we doing devoting time to a person who has obviously devoted his entire life around Bob Dylan? I mean, Bob Dylan wrote a few good songs, but as far as I can tell - he still can't really sing them.
And my point would be?
Wilentz can neither write songs nor can he sing them.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
New definition of extermism...
Submitted by notinstl on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:09am.
....anything not liberal or left wing.....got it....
As for me
Submitted by Chris Of Rights on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:20am.
I can't think of another time in American history when there have been as many people in Congress who seem to be on the extreme.
I have no idea what these folks expect?
Submitted by Boudin on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:28am.
They put all of their eggs in the Federal basket, even after it has left the cliff. And then have the gall to call others extremist?
Hey you morons, the Fed is going to implode under it's own weight. It cannot be sustained, they cannot pay the 110trillion in unfunded mandates you putz.
The default will be coming, unfortunately. So, the sooner the better!
I would like to see our new
Submitted by rimsky on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 9:31am.
I would like to see our new majority in congress put before the voters a referendum to de-fund PBS, NPR and the like. Stop the tax payer shake down that sustains crap like this.
I concur
Submitted by Galvanic on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 1:15pm.
And add the National Endowment for the Arts to that list.
Agreed, and why not?
Submitted by Model850 on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 2:51pm.
Yesterday my local "public" radio stations began the Fall pledge drive. It got me thinking: Why is this necessary?
If public broadcasting is soooo great and sooo listened to/watched, advertisers would fall over themselves to fund the programs. Besides, these "non-commercial" stations already have defacto commercials, every time they mention on the air that a program is "supported" by <insert your local business name here>.
Cut the cord and let them make it or fail in the free market. There may have been a time when public broadcasting was needed, but no more. Not in the days of hundreds of cable channels.
NPR
Submitted by StarAZ on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 11:35am.
Conservatives do listen to both sides more than progressives--or else NPR would not even be an issue. The other day they had Newsweek-editor-wannabee Tina Brown talk about the Glenn Beck article in the NYT...yeah, good choice...nothing new in what she said, you guys could write it...blah, blah... I never get why a publicly funded operation is allowed to be so biased--but then the president supposedly represents all of us and still bashes and sues some of us. The way it is, I guess. Now, anyway.
I have an idea
Submitted by GregE on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:36pm.
Extremists?
Let's get back to the Constitution............the foundation on which the house sits. The foundation is moving all over the place, slabs of its concrete have been, and are being, purposefully shifted. The house has lots of cracks because of it. The doors don't all close properly. The windows that can be opened are hard to open and close. The rest of the windows are stuck due to the pressure since the walls have shifted and the window frames aren't square. Water trickles into the basement due to the fractures in the cinder blocks.
Let's shore up the foundation, solidify it completely, fix the house's structural problems that the shifting foundation caused, and get everything back in order. In our schools, let's put massive emphasis on the Constitution and the perils of trying to go around it without using the documented method, written within it, of doing so. Let's teach the dangers of those trying to subvert it and why those people should have a spotlight on them, criticized, shamed, for all Americans to see.
THEN, let's all Americans look at the house, the foundation, see how solid it is, and hold up, for everyone to chastise, anyone who is calling for creating new cracks, bad windows and doors, and leaks, by purposefully wanting to again shift slabs of the foundation that were just painstakenly fixed.
Let's have children grow up understanding how utterly important that the Constitution is, and that it's not a toy, not for sale, and cannont be compromised, and why. Let's have Constitutional teachings all over the nation, directly on the Constitution, no matter what anyone thinks it "should" say, let's have it taught what it DOES say and what it means and why.
Then we'll be able to have a much clearer view of the extremists in our midst and be able put every idea up to a Constitutional litmus test and more easily deal with those extremists who will be easily exposed.
LIsten up folks
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 12:45pm.
This is just more dumocrat desperation. Don't waste your time on this lame misdirection of our attentions. It's the pick pocket's trickery.
Keep the focus on the prize. Get these thieves out of our lives and government.
When they cannot win on issues, out comes the mud slinging. The rats are sqeaking and the pigs squealing.
They want you to focus on the irrelevant so they can pick your pockets.
Much more important, don't let them steal another election. I'm sure SEIU and ACORN ar stuffing trunks full of write in ballets from dead people, illegal aliens and Disney characters. That is where our attention needs to be.
To the 'intellectual' elites, angry citizens are . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 1:22pm.
. . . extremists.
Abolitionists were considered extremists by the political elite of their time.
Extremism?!
Submitted by Phryj1 on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 1:20pm.
Constitutionally limited government power? People being allowed to keep and use more of the money they earn as they see fit? A fiscally responsible congress? Being patriotic and believing the USA is the best country in the history of the planet, thanks to being founded on principles of liberty and limited gov't authority? That's extremism?!? Only in the twisted mind of a progressive.
You want to talk about extremism? How about radical leftist socialist authoritarians AKA PROGRESSIVES? They worship at the altar of gov't authority, support continued expansion of bloated, codependent welfare programs, believe prosperity should be punished, and want the gov't to be able to control all aspects of our lives in order to force us to serve society and prevent us from doing anything for our own benefit. That's what progressivism is. Leftist extremism. It's dominating the Democrat party and has a death grip on Congress and the White House. Naturally, left-wing propagandists aren't going to point this fact out.
I'm tired of taxpayer money being used to fund leftist propaganda. Using public funds in a manner that advances a particular political agenda is in effect suppressing the free speech of the taxpayers. It's a sickening display of abuse of power by the left, and it has no place in a free society.
Progressives seem to be completely averse to facts and logic. Apparently, reality has a conservative bias.
NPR--your tax dollars at
Submitted by liberalsarefunny on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 1:39pm.
NPR--your tax dollars at work....
This show brought to you by
Submitted by billerubin on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 3:04pm.
They never give credit to the taxpayers when thanking sponsors.
I will never donate as long as I am being taxed.
Actually I'm thinking of semi retiring so less money goes to the government.
enough already with misrepesenting us
Submitted by michiganruth on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 3:33pm.
I wish the libs would get off this "Beck/the Tea Party/ are anti-intellectual" thing. it's not intellect we have a problem with, it's the elitist attitudes of the coastal lefties who think that if you have conservative values you can't be smart.
Beck WANTS people to read and learn. he talks about that all the time. and he doesn't say schools lie to us as much as that they don't tell us the whole story. funny that NPR wouldn't agree with THAT don't you think?
in a perfect world, NPR would not get any money from the government, and these losers would have to go find real jobs.
WHY? HOW?
Submitted by Anniee451 on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 2:23am.
Why, oh why, and how oh how did this *truly* grassroots movement - the tea party - which started with dozens and then hundreds and then thousands of individual bloggers and commenters sending their congressmen teabags in protest...no, it started with impassioned *posts and ideas* pertaining to the founding fathers and the original tea party, and THEN came the tea bags - become "Glenn Beck's Tea Party" in the minds of the left??? The first rally in DC garnered no coverage, even from Fox, though they blame Fox for it even now. The businesses and big Republican candidates didn't figure in when it started and if they were quicker than Dims to catch on to how important the movement really was, that's not our fault. I don't watch Beck (or any tv "news") and I don't know hardly anything about the guy - he wasn't at the large rally I attended in DC and he hasn't been at any of the local rallies, but now it's HIS movement?
The left is so stupid it's utterly blinding. With Beck and Big Business as their boogeymen, they smear the whole tea party in their ignorance. And YES Reagan was considered extreme - he was certainly more conservative than Bush 1 or 2. Nixon was considered extreme right wing even though he expanded the federal government left and right...the fact is nothing short of out-and-out socialism is good enough for these tards. Just keep them out of power and in the freakshows like Code Pink and their ilk where they can't do any more damage than they already have. Sheesh!
Well Duh
Submitted by lkotur on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 11:14am.
Of course, anyone who is 20 degrees to the right of center looks like an extreemist to those loons!
Only NPR could feature a show
Submitted by HockeyKid on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 1:17pm.
Only NPR could feature a show where two guys sit in a small room while emitting brain farts for an hour--and call it "Fresh Air".
"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me
Consider the Source...
Submitted by changein2012 on Mon, 10/18/2010 - 8:56pm.
Just google the mad professor and you get amazing racial, leftist class warfare. Just like NPR to drag a far leftist out and present him as a centrist, one who has no place calling someone else radical.
Defund NPR along with the EPA!