Good In The Crazy

There are days when I consider Republicans to be insane.

Rudy Giuliani’s New Hampshire speech was one of those days.

But it’s important to note that Republicans don’t see things that way. In fact the conservative netroots eat that kind of stuff up. From stunts like their Gathering of Eagles to their fascination with the troglodyte Fred Thompson, it’s obvious this kind of stuff is meat-and-drink to them. How else do you explain the continued popularity of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly? These people, and these attitudes, still have millions of fans.

That’s the good news.

As every generational Thesis passes its sell-by date, you have this
kind of batshit craziness going on among the old Thesis’ adherents. I’ve
pointed out before here how Talk Radio is so much like 1960s rock
music. Well, Rudy the other night did his very best Jim Morrison
impression.

This should not be seen in isolation, however, as just another variant
on The 1967 Game. It’s a pattern which has repeated itself,
over-and-over, among adherents of the old order as that order was
fading. Each generation in American political history, we find the same pattern develop.

Franklin Roosevelt was called a Communist for combining
elements of Williams Jenning Bryan’s populism with Wilson’s
Europeanism, even though he dressed it up in clothes designed for the
approval of Wall Street. The battle against "anarchism" (a subtext of
Thomas Pynchon’s wonderful Against the Day) at the turn of the last century was real — it was generally the forces of reaction who were busting heads.

Then there are the Confederates. The beating of abolitionist Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks
is just one example out of thousands. Throughout the run-up to the
Civil War, it was the defenders of the South who engaged in the most
violent rhetoric, and the most violence, in the name of defending their
"way of life." The creation of the Republican Party only accelerated
this, and despite Lincoln’s studied moderation within his own party,
the South unanimously chose war in the face of his election.

That’s exactly what we’re dealing with, in the words of Giuliani, and
his Amen Corner on the right. This kind of apocalyptic rhetoric,
designed specifically to intimidate, is not going to work. Any more
than it worked for the hippies against Nixon, for the Wall Streeters
against the New Deal, for the Plutocrats against Progressivism, or for
the South against the North.

Americans simply don’t knuckle under to terrorism. Never have, never will. Not from outside, and never from inside.

That’s why God blessed America.