Charlie Sykes, long-time conservative talk-radio host in Wisconsin, documents the slide of the Republican Party into a haven for conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, QAnon nuts, and lovers of “Alternative Facts.” Sure FOX News had a lot to do with fueling the Republican transformation into Crazytown. So did Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart News, and Social Media.
On the eve of the Election, How the Right Lost Its Mind reminds us how Democracy can be damaged by cult figures, Fake News, and corruption. Hopefully, we can change this tomorrow. GRADE: A
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION — xii
I. HOW THE RIGHT LOST ITS MIND — 1
1. Did We Create this Monster? — 3
2. Confessions of a Recovering Liberal — 19
3. The Attack on the Conservative Mind — 25
4. The Conservative Idea — 33
5. Storm Warnings — 51
6. The Perpetual Outrage Machine — 65
II. THE POST-TRUTH POLITICS OF THE RIGHT — 79
7. The Alt Reality Media — 81
8. The Post-Truth Politics of the Right — 89
9. Drudge and the Politics of Paranoia — 107
III. THE TRUMPIAN TAKEOVER — 125
10. The Fox News Primary — 127
11. Limbaugh’s Flop — 133
12. The Bigots Among Us — 151
13. The Rise of the Alt Right — 159
14. The Binary Choice — 179
15. What Happened to the Christians? — 191
IV. RESTORING THE CONSERVATIVE MIND — 205
16. Trolls and Flying Monkeys: The Right’s New Culture of Intimidation — 207
17. The Contrarian Conservative — 221
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 233
NOTES — 235
Index — 257
Watching all this from far away in Europe I can only wish you luck!
The stories I read about Trump and his honchos …
Steve Bannon eg tried political activities in Europe after he left or was thrown out by Trump – but wasn’t really successful …
We feel really strange that a person like him could influence Trump.
A bit OT:
One point I don’t get is why so many “old” politicians are clinging to their jobs in the USA. A counterexample:
German chancellor Mrs Merkel, surely one of the most powerful people here, has already declared that she’ll step down next year – she’ll be 67 then.
Can’t the US parties find younger people for these jobs?
I’m as old as Biden but I wouldn’t want to do his job – enjoy retirement too much … 🙂 🙂
Wolf, I think you can blame “Potomac Fever”–the addiction to political power–for older politicians to hang on to their positions. And, America doesn’t have enough “term limit” political jobs.
The thing that bothers me about conservative “Never Trumpers” and other right-wing “thinkers” (soi-disant), like Bill Kristol, and even the people behind the Lincoln Project, who keep expressing shock and disdain for what Trump has wrought, is that they never seem to understand that Trump is absolutely, utterly, and exactly the end-point of their belief system. At what point in the past 50 years of their dog-whistle racist & otherizing belief system, easily co-opted by right-wing billionaires, media honchos, and white-patriarchy-preserving evangelicals, would they have cried, “Hold! Enough!” And the answer is…never. This is the system they envisioned (albeit, with a figurehead more “acceptable” to them than Trump), so until they acknowledge how damaging their beliefs have been, I’m not interested in their hand-wringing or concern.
/Dismounting soapbox now!
Deb, I agree. The Republican Party made Faustian bargains with the Religious Right and white supremacists to hold on to the Red States. Then they accepted more wacko groups. Now, they’re stuck with dysfunction and demographic disadvantages. They’re going down!
I think it started with Reagan, but was really spread by the tea party movement.
Trump is just the worst (yet) of what the GOP has become (Gross Old POOPS/PERVERTS)
Maggie, there are already rumors that if Trump loses the 2020 Election, he’ll run for President in 2024!
Wolf, politicians here are seduced by money and power; they seldom give up what power they have and move heaven and earth to keep it. When I was a child we were told that anyone could be president. George W. Bush and Donald Trump both proved that true!
Jerry, yes – here in Europe many politicians continue as private citizens or influencers too like our former SPD chancellor Gerhard Schröder who is one year younger than I, became a friend of Putin after retiring in 2005 – and married (his fifth marriage) Kim So-Yeon from Korea who is 25 younger than him …
But most are happy to enjoy their life as pensioners.
Jerry, even though anyone in America could be president, not everyone should!
I read this around the time of the 2018 midterm election, and things have only gotten worse since then. Assuming Trump loses tomorrow, and I’m not totally convinced he will, it’ll be interesting to see how the GOP reacts. My bet is that only a total Republican bloodbath will make any significant difference.
Michael, I don’t trust the polls after the debacle of the 2016 Election, but 2020 will be different. If the Democrats can win the Senate, that will change everything! And who would believe that Georgia is in play!
What Deb said–she is very good at articulating what I think–but I could see it coming when I attended a Christian high school in the sixties. Speakers would come in and voice these crazy town ideas–people from the John Birch Society, for instance, and get real interest from these Evangelicals even then. They hated the UN for example. So it is not new but indeed worse. They have seduced uneducated white men into thinking they are on their side. And I think this group of Anyone but Trumpers will try to rebuild the Republican Party as it was in the sixties, not really changing much from the Bill Buckley era.
Right – “Impeach Earl Warren!”
Bill Kristol, George Will, so many of the Lincoln Project people, Joe Scarborough, all call themselves “conservatives” but frankly, only when Democrats are in power. Blowing up the deficit has not been mentioned once in the last four years, but I guarantee you that next year, assuming (fingers crossed) the Democrats are in power, you will see Jim Jordan and Louie Gohmert and the rest of the phonies screaming about balancing the budget.
As usual, Deb nailed it.
Jeff, Trump inflated the National Debt by 36%–and he’s not done yet! Patrick and Katie will have hefty tax bills to play in the decades ahead.
Patti, former Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt (now with The Lincoln Project) told Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC that if Trump loses, the Republican Party will go all-in on conspiracies, hate groups, and religious fanatics. No rebuilding, only more extremism.
One hopes. I’m not sanguine about the election, the GOP could still pull it off, as in 2016, or just keep the Senate and just stonewall everything Biden tries to do.
Rick, we do know for sure that Trump will declare himself the winner. And, it will take days before we find out about some of those Senate races.
George, I’m seeing how the right is losing its mind almost every day in media and social media, and not just in America. I hope, for the sake of humanity, Biden wins comfortably.
Prashant, I learned long ago that technology can be used for Good…and Evil purposes. We’re seeing that Evil effect with this Election. Social Media is swamped by Fake News, rumors, and conspiracy theories. Propaganda is alive and well on-line. And, there are no borders for mischief and “alternative facts.”
George, I hope you’re correct about a Trump defeat that sucks the GOP down with it, but I’m as pessimistic as my other friends here on the board. Here in Texas, the old white guys on the Republican ticket are portraying themselves as saviors of Medicare, Social Security, and “covering pre-existing conditions,” despite years of evidence to the contrary. Trump’s sociopathic, flat-out lying has become a GOP campaign tactic.
Steve Scalise is running ads in Louisiana saying he has “fought” for coverage for pre-existing conditions. The pre-existing conditions he fought for? ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Covid. Wtf?? Like a person with Alzheimer’s is suddenly going to, what?, change jobs and get new insurance coverage? At no point does Scalise mention the MAJOR pre-existing conditions: diabetes, cardiac conditions, high blood pressure, and cancer. Repeat the lie enough and it becomes the truth!
Deb, New York State Republicans are getting bashed in TV ads for their abandonment of “Pre-Existing Conditions.” This is an issue that could be Kryptonite to Republicans and Trump despite their lies about supporting it.
Fred, Texas seems to be turning into a Purple state. The Democrats are surging in the urban areas. The Republicans have to count on the declining Rural population to sustain them.
Rather OT re Texas:
I might have written about this already. After my first wife became a victim of cancer I just wanted to GAFIA so when I read that my favourite Rocker Steve Winwood was planning a concert tour through Texas I decided to follow him. So I took a flight to Houston and besides going to the concerts visited the Space Center and Galveston, from Austin I visited the “German Corner” and from Dallas I went to Ft Worth and its museums.
Those two weeks were really nice – especially “liberal” Austin where I met quite a few fantastic people, open and happy to talk to a foreigner.
In other parts I felt strange somehow, really conservative (and christian … ) environments.
Wish you all the very best!
Wolf, America is divided by income, education, religion, race, gender, and culture. We’ll see how this all plays out on Election Day.
I’m sure you all saw the film of the Biden Bus being attacked by trucks waving the flags of the POS. They’ve also done it in the northeast per facebook posts.
The voter supression and intimidation is a right wing tactic, which should result in arrests.
Maggie, I’m hoping a lot of these suppression and voter intimidation tactics backfire on Trump and the Republicans.