Wake Up

David Neiwert has a truly frightening piece up about the increasingly scary talk that’s starting to push it’s way through (after being encouraged by Rove and company).

Having made two post-election jaunts to the red state hinterlands of Idaho and Montana, I’m back to report that, well, things are getting ugly out there. In some cases, really ugly.

I’ve been talking for some time about the course that eliminationist rhetoric on the right would eventually take by the force of its own nature: pretty soon we’d go from talking about liberals as traitors to overtly wishing for violence to be visited upon them and discussing locking them up, followed in due course by such violence and incarceration becoming a reality.

Well, it is now becoming a commonly spoken sentiment on the right to wish for violence against liberals and to simultaneously suggest they and all “traitors” (including Muslim Americans) should be locked away. We’re firmly into Phase II now.

Now, you won’t hear this talk on the upper levels of the conservative movement. People like William Bennett will call for a “national renewal” aimed at enforcing a new moral code, while Ann Coulter will explain to her readership, a la the title of her most recent “bestseller”, that the “preferable” way to address a liberal is with “a baseball bat.” [Ha ha. Whatsa matter, you don’t think that’s funny? Someone should beat you up.]

And if you talk to supposedly “reasonable” conservatives, who will claim that talk like this remains relegated to the fringes and is just so much “hot talk.” I’ve been hearing this for a long time, but I keep hearing more and more of the eliminationist talk.

It’s a really dark path we’re heading down, as those who thought they could stoke the fires of hatred for their own political ends have managed to unleash a beast they probably won’t be able to control. Of course, some of them won’t want to, as to them democracy and freedom are obstacles, not goals, no matter how much lip service they pay to them.

While you’re over at Ornicus, be sure to read Niewert’s excellent seven-part “The Rise of Pseudo Fascism” essay too.

[via Bryant at Population One]