This story, from the Hill, is surely the absolute quintessence of right-wing idiocy unbound; of Churchillian riddles in mysteries wrapped in enigmas; of the conservative movement's madness, shrouded in lunacy, inside insanity. For that quintessence has hit a trifecta:
A post on a National Rifle Association website Friday indicated it is opening an ethics investigation into whether prominent conservative activist and NRA board member Grover Norquist holds sympathies for the Muslim Brotherhood after accusations from conservative commentator Glenn Beck.
Think of that line as a pinnacle of far-right psychosis. An institutional crackpot in now investigating a scammer of a lobbying crackpot because of a broadcast crackpot's McCarthyite "accusations." I use the indefinite article — it's a pinnacle, not the pinnacle of far-right psychosis — for the pseudoconservative tradition is a direct and constant genealogical line: from Tail Gunner Joe and the Birchers to the Goldwater revolution to the New Right to the Reagan and Gingrich revolutions to the tea-partying imbecility of today, what with its Becks, Norquists, NRAs, Palins and Cottons.
And now the extremist mad hatters are eating their own, just as their ilk has done since the 1790s. They imagine enemies within, whether out of true ideological zeal (the Birchers and Cottons) or a desperate need for attention (the McCarthys and Becks). Those who profit from both — in this instance, the NRA — need not proceed seriously. But if they're prudent, they'll behave as though they're doing just that. "I don’t believe that for even one second that anybody at the NRA is stupid enough to believe this is a real issue," said a Norquist associate. Still, there is the multitude of Beck's bumpkins to consider. Best put on a show and play the game.
Notwithstanding its immense silliness, the Beck-Norquist-NRA squalor is a minor affair within the frenzied fanaticism of the contemporary far right. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. It's just another of look-at-me Beck's stunts, which erupt with amusing regularity. Yet its relative insignificance comes nonetheless wrapped in the prevailing contagion of Cottonism. We should think of it as a kind of competition, an internal struggle for relevance. Such struggles feed on themselves, and from the bottom up they contribute to, and often intensify, the overall madness. Cottonism would not now be doubling down, if its base were not insanely secure.
What's more, Cottonism's paternal grandfather is, as noted, Bircherism, McCarthyism et al — indeed its ancestry goes all the way back to the anti-Illuminatists. They've always been with us, and they'll always be with us. The question, then, is not one of Cottonism's evanescence, but its eminence. In short, when will the Thermidorian Reaction come? The answer, I suppose, is just as historical. When extremism's captives have finally had enough. Regrettably, all we outsiders can do is hope that the when is soon.
Should not this investigation be conducted by an independent body? Who knows how deep the rot goes? There may be other Muslim sympathizers on the board. I want to see ALL of their e-mails. Now. Tee Hee.
Posted by: Peter G | March 14, 2015 at 10:45 AM