This seems like a stupid question to ask. Of course extremism is a bad thing. Fox News has been making their living off of making the extreme seem palatable. E.J. Dionne wrote about that this week in the Washington Post. You can read the article in its entirety above, but there were a couple of excerpts I found very telling. He is right of course and I could just reprint his article and save a lot of effort, but I don't think he went far enough.
"The mainstream media and the Obama administration must stop cowering before a right wing that has persistently forced its propaganda to be accepted as news by convincing traditional journalists that "fairness" requires treating extremist rants as "one side of the story."
We know this already, so there isn't much news here. The question is how people in the middle and on the left respond. The mainstream media and the folks at MSNBC do a good job in debunking these attacks generally, but then they get the leftist label. This in spite of the fact that there are very few radical ideas that come from those networks. Most of their time is spent defending or debunking. When they occasionally attack as Rachel Maddow did last week they are called extremists.
This is the part of the equation that Dionne did not address. When Fox News and their allies succeed in getting the extreme right wing agenda accepted as a legitimate point of view they also succeeded in shifting the political spectrum where ideas that come from the center become left and those that come from the left become the extreme left. After all, how else could Barack Obama be accused of being a communist with so many people buying it.
"The traditional media are so petrified of being called "liberal" that they are prepared to allow the Breitbarts of the world to become their assignment editors. Mainstream journalists regularly criticize themselves for not jumping fast enough or high enough when the Fox crowd demands coverage of one of their attack lines."
Democrats and Progressives are stuck in the 20th century mode of thinking. Yes, I include myself in this. I have made no bones about the fact that I am likely a moderate in the grand scheme of things. I tend to think towards the Progressives, but I don't think I would pass any purity tests. I am fine with this and I tend towards the 20th century thinking. That thinking involves trying to keep the extremists in your party as quiet as possible. The establishment members of the party think of them as the uncouth members of the family you visit with on your own, but you don't want them when you have real company over.
The Republicans have eschewed this advice. They are not only allowing in the zealots, but giving them primary space on stage. In some ways it would seem to have backfired. They lost in 2008 miserably and they seem to be on pace to lose several winnable seats. A drunken monkey probably could beat Harry Reid in Nevada and I'm sure the Republicans wish they would have nominated one. However, this strategy is succeeding in a more pervasive way. It is making the reasonable seem unreasonable and the unreasonable seem reasonable.
Dionne's response seems to be to make sure the mainstream press avoids considering the right's extreme as a legitimate point of view. I say all points of view are legitimate and we make sure the far left gets their say. Then, people can look at the far right and say, "we don't want that" and they can look at the far left and say, "we don't want that." Maybe at that point people will finally see Obama for what he really is: a centrist politician.
Where has Carguy gone?
The problem with the left even the fringers is that they are not prone to believing in 'crazy' shit...I have a hard core racist rightie relative that has 'broken' recently...Raging paranoia and a definite threat for MORE violence. Even the best of criminal profilers will state without even thinking that a person of interest serial killer or mass murderer will likely be an authoritarian member of the conservative party.
I guess you have become my new Carguy. History always has a way of bringing sanity into any situation. It's why there are historians I suppose. We need time and distance to look at things rationally. I suppose it is always my way to try to do such things. To me, the current conditions are pointing towards two possible outcomes:
1) Allowing the extremes of their own viewpoints to gain recognition will be the conservatives' downfall.
2) Allowing the extremes their stage will be a new strategy that catches on
Only time will tell which one wins, but at this point the collective response from the center and left is to shoot down the collective deranged notions coming from the right. This seems to have been the philosophy governing politics for the past twenty years. Whether it be Vince Foster, Monica Lewinski, Swiftboaters, Al Gore's so-called wild claims about the internet, ACORN, Van Jones, birthers, deathers, or anything I've left out, the only response is to shoot each one down slowly and methodically. Each one has been false and each one has eaten into our credibility somehow.
Maybe its time to launch our own deranged fringe and let them make claims of their own.
I've been on both sides of the aisle. I was a delegate to the GOP Senatorial convention in Houston in 1994 and have been a Democratic delegate numerous times. I tend to run left of center now even for a Democrat.
The extremists have taken over the GOP for the most part. Stephen Hotze finished the job in 1994 and it has been downhill ever since. That's not to say there aren't moderates but their voices are drowned out by the social conservatives and TEA Partiers. Leonard Pitts column in today's Chronicle really deliniates the effects of comingling religion and politics in the GOP.
I've found that I am shying away from extremists in the media because of the shock tactics they employ. I like Olbermann but not every night. Ed Schulz is a liberal version of any number of FOX opinionators - lots of hot air and little substance. Rachel Maddow on the other hand continually seems to be able to walk the fine line between being opinionated and being fanatical.
Give the country 2 years under Republican reign and the pendulum will swing our way again. Most voters don't know the issues in detail or research the candidates. As long as we don't go to either extreme there's hope. Too far to the right and we know what happens. Too far to the left and there'll be violence from TEA Party types. Glad I can't fortell the future; it might be scary.
I suspect it will be a perspective of historical hindsight that makes that determination. Upon his election I viewed him as a harbinger of political sanity, we can only hope that despite the stamp of approval by pundits of the arcane that he hasn't been replaced by a shapeshifter...sheesh!
the problem I see Scott, is the righties are actually anarchists - they are beholden to Grover Norquist's ' drown government in the bath-tub ' ethos, sucking in libertarians, militia people, religionists, and the de-regulatory crowd that is supported by corporations with un-limited resources - but none of them proposes what they would do next.
there is no way for the world's only super-power to contract economically and maintain super-power status, which we must do for the foresee-able future due to the variety of threats around the world.
there is no such thing as a 'strategic bond default' in our future that will not savage this country's economy, cause global weapons upheaval and change forever the prospects of America.
there is no such thing as calling some sort of 'constitutional convention' like many on the right advocate except as some sort of full-time lawyer/lobbyist employment act that would be interminable.
we've learned a lot the last 19 months about what is wrong with the Senate, and it was certainly good for the whole Congress to be 'run around the loop and have the pipes blown out', since there is more work to do in the next 2 years.
this is where it is so strange that people who believe in working with the system, making its institutions function are called lefties, whereas the business establishment and libertarians have become radicals wanting to tear apart institutions/starve them with no alternative plan except whatever lobbyists with the most corporate PAC money can win in some sort of Congressional 'Rollerball'.
when Reaganism started out, this cabal had not come yet come together, but the advent of Faux news changed everything - remember how news used to be covered in Houston before a station arrived that led with helicopter coverage of shootings and/or car chases with the under-lying message ' be afraid ' ? these reports of 'if it bleeds, it leads' were broadcast in place of pieces requiring reporters to research city hall, or state pollution filings, or focus on school board meeting agendas.
the sensationalism did drive up ratings, which drives up revenues, which changes news-rooms and causes cities to become 1 paper towns. the reductionism of the sensational and driving down serious coverage in favor of shout-fests is now what has to be sorted through to determine who is putting the country on a good path.
now faced with voo-doo economics, it is no longer possible to believe what is presented to the country has been vetted as trustworthy/believable by any 'eminence gris', leaving the voters susceptible to personnas and the country vulnerable to what Paul Krugman explains as flimflammery and doubletalk:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/doubletalk-express/
since the country is at an inflection point on budget and deficit issues, we are consequently vulnerable to sensationalism and lies and sound bites demonizing each side, driving issues designed to divide us instead of promoting unity.
in the face of this extremism, the thing to keep in mind is we did o.k. in the '90s with reasonable tax rates and a pay/go mentality (within reason) and that the rest of the country isn't doing as well as Houston, except for growth in DC and the exurbs of Wall Street.
when we get to the point billionaires' jets are idling on the tar-mac leaving for more pleasant environs, it will be occasion to take notice, but there is no indication that is happening, so extremism from the right seems un-warranted; just a continual pressure for getting as much as possible.