With the Democrats losing so badly in the polls, the bloggers of the Daily Kos are coming more unglued than usual. The diarist going by the name "Troubadour" predicted on Monday "This Could Get Ugly." In other words, the GOP are going to start killing liberals:
The difficult thing about dealing with a frenzied totalitarian movement like today's Republican Party is not only do they not take "No" for an answer, they don't even really take "Yes." Whether they're sent packing by the electorate or accepted with open arms, their one and only response to all possible events is to further crystallize their beliefs, purify their ranks of dissent, and break all of their own records for violence, depravity, and madness. So we find ourselves confronting a bitter realization: Win or lose this election season, Republicans appear to be headed on a one-way path to organized political violence.
This would seem to take a page directly from liberal historian Richard Hofstadter's essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It might seem counterintuitive to get violent after winning, but this Kosmonaut imagines (wildly) that the right-wing hate-radio subculture will grow more vicious with every election-night victory...into moderate-Republican assassinations:
If you recall, Timothy McVeigh only had the encouragement of his own bitter little militia subculture when he decided that blowing up a federal building would launch a "revolution." So how emboldened will people like that become when the leadership of an elected government body, the media, and one of the two major political parties in this country all seem to be telling them in unison that (a)America is on their side, and (b)the nation is being invaded or oppressed by (insert demonic fantasy) with the aid of liberals and the Democratic Party?
Tell me that any of this is not a realistic scenario under such conditions: Democratic leaders physically afraid to associate with values that have prevailed in this country since its foundation; right-wing talk radio hosts cracking jokes about political murders and terrorist attacks, making excuses for their perpetrators, and ultimately all but volunteering their airtime for the groups responsible; attempted or successful assassinations of Republicans who speak against their party's radicalization; coordinated, staged riots in major American cities using bused-in wingnut thugs in response to prosecutions of Republicans; and so on.
As if this writing wasn't wildly inflammatory enough, Troubadour actually bolds a paragraph so everyone knows what the totalitarian-GOP thesis is:
They can't argue persuasively for their views, because their views are at best irrational, and more often than not shamelessly counter-factual. Even manipulating the public with propaganda has proven to have diminishing returns, as people become increasingly immune to their tactics - a fact they can't innovate their lies fast enough to overcome. In fact, the only tool they have not yet used to exhaustion is bald-faced terrorism, and I see nothing in their makeup as a party, as a cultural institution, or as a group of individual personalities that would cause them to shrink from crossing that final Rubicon.
Let's face up to the problem as it is: One of the two major political parties in this country has become openly and militantly totalitarian, and does not even try to cloak its fascism in something more palatable anymore: Its candidates openly endorse torture; openly call for the unprovoked invasion of other countries; openly demonize racial, religious, ethnic, and other minorities; lie without restraint on all matters at all times; and just barely stop short of openly calling for political murders of Americans - a scruple that seems increasingly frayed around the edges. [Emphasis in the original.]
In response, the Kosmonaut insists liberals shouldn't laugh off the assassins, but insist on courageous, nonviolent, profane resistance:
F--k your fantasies and pretensions at liberal principles - you will know who you are when being who you claim to be becomes dangerous. When some wingnut has just massacred a bunch of people for the crime of being too intelligent, caring about their country, upholding human dignity, or voting contrary to the dictates of talk-radio Goebbles [sic] homunculi, and you overhear a pack of Glenn Beck disciples laughing, cracking jokes about killing libruls, and cheering on the carnage...you do not let it slide.
You do not give them your best peeved-librarian scowl and say nothing. You do not say "Excuse me" and then politely discuss why the things they're saying are inappropriate and irresponsible. You get off your ass, walk up to them, stare in their faces with your eyes set like a lion gazing at his prey and your voice calm - no matter how many of them there are - and you say "Hey, fuckos. You think that's funny? You want to kill liberals? Start with me. My father/uncle/grandfather/whatever died protecting the freedom of this country, and if you want to end that, start ending it right here, right now."
People's lives are already at stake once things get that far - because the violence has reached saturation and become politically tolerated - so you are on the spot, and it's your duty as a citizen to get your ass kicked if that's what it takes. Of course, never throw the first punch, don't get close enough for them to reasonably feel or plausibly claim that you were threatening them, and always keep in mind that there are uninvolved people around who might not appreciate a brawl, but don't try to defuse things either: Social harmony is not the point. The things they are saying are implicitly threatening your life and your freedom - they are contributing to a dangerous state of affairs, and you are confronting them on it - so give them every opportunity to either display the courage of their convictions and attack you or re-characterize their views in a civilized, socially acceptable manner.
There's really nothing civilized in this kind of fever-swamp writing.
[Hat tip: Whitehouse Transmogrified]
