Speaking in Tongues
by John Cole
from Balloon Juice
DougJ has been doing a great job describing the post-wingnut phenomenon, in which the right becomes so compartmentalized and separated from the rest of us (and reality) that they just speak in terms and codes that make no sense to the majority of America, but which make a great deal of sense and carry great symbolic meaning to them. The classic examples are the recent flare-ups over arugula and Dijon mustard, in which right-wingers see the dread menace of elitisteuroliberalfascism and react hysterically, while the rest of us are left wondering just what the hell is wrong with mustard and tasty lettuce.
At any rate, I was driving home from Target after replacing yet another household appliance (I’m just buying Kitchen Aid everything from Amazon from now on, because every other brand name is crap that breaks in a year), and I flipped on the AM radio to hear the beginning of the Rush Limbaugh show. I figured what the hell, I haven’t listened to him for a while, I will see what he is up to and what his main concerns are these days. The show was a “best of,” taped during the Chrysler bankruptcy, and it was like a trip to another dimension.
He was repeatedly referring to President Obama as “Barack Peron,” and he wove this elaborate tale about how the Chrysler bankruptcy was actually a cunning scheme for Obama to reward the UAW, and that while the Chrysler bankruptcy was a huge failure for Obama because the bailout funds were supposed to save Chrysler, it was also a huge victory for Obama because it was exactly what he wanted to do. This went on for like fifteen minutes, and putting aside the fact that I’m pretty sure very few in his audience have any idea who Juan Peron is, it just occurred to me that the only people who could have followed what he was talking about are daily listeners who are so far into the kool-aid that they will believe everything he says, the hopelessly uninformed who won’t know what he is saying makes no sense, and the partisan hacks who don’t care, they just hope it helps Republicans. I understand there may be some overlap with those groups.
(More here.)
from Balloon Juice
DougJ has been doing a great job describing the post-wingnut phenomenon, in which the right becomes so compartmentalized and separated from the rest of us (and reality) that they just speak in terms and codes that make no sense to the majority of America, but which make a great deal of sense and carry great symbolic meaning to them. The classic examples are the recent flare-ups over arugula and Dijon mustard, in which right-wingers see the dread menace of elitisteuroliberalfascism and react hysterically, while the rest of us are left wondering just what the hell is wrong with mustard and tasty lettuce.
At any rate, I was driving home from Target after replacing yet another household appliance (I’m just buying Kitchen Aid everything from Amazon from now on, because every other brand name is crap that breaks in a year), and I flipped on the AM radio to hear the beginning of the Rush Limbaugh show. I figured what the hell, I haven’t listened to him for a while, I will see what he is up to and what his main concerns are these days. The show was a “best of,” taped during the Chrysler bankruptcy, and it was like a trip to another dimension.
He was repeatedly referring to President Obama as “Barack Peron,” and he wove this elaborate tale about how the Chrysler bankruptcy was actually a cunning scheme for Obama to reward the UAW, and that while the Chrysler bankruptcy was a huge failure for Obama because the bailout funds were supposed to save Chrysler, it was also a huge victory for Obama because it was exactly what he wanted to do. This went on for like fifteen minutes, and putting aside the fact that I’m pretty sure very few in his audience have any idea who Juan Peron is, it just occurred to me that the only people who could have followed what he was talking about are daily listeners who are so far into the kool-aid that they will believe everything he says, the hopelessly uninformed who won’t know what he is saying makes no sense, and the partisan hacks who don’t care, they just hope it helps Republicans. I understand there may be some overlap with those groups.
(More here.)
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