I'm So Tired of These Wingnut, Lunatic Haters!
Over at the Daily Beast, John Avlon provides the public service of rounding up "46 anti-Obama books" that have been published to date. He calls it "the Obama haters book club," describes the tomes as "detailed demonizations of the president," says that the midterm elections are "driven by hate," and winds to this conclusion:
You might not be able to distinguish between the self-published pathology and the semi-professional polemics—they are all fear-mongering for personal and partisan profit. And that's the larger point.
We're all getting caught up in the politics of incitement, becoming desensitized in ways that damage the institutions of our democracy. Because if any Republican thinks that this cycle will stop with the next president, they underestimate the ways that politics follows the lines of physics—every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. This will become the new normal. […]
All this is evidence of an acceleration of the impulse to demonize the duly elected president of the opposite party. We are cannibalizing our body politic. We need to stop this cycle of incitement before it destroys our ability to unite as a nation absent a disaster.
The name of Avlon's new book? Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.
Link via the Twitter feed of Garance Franke-Ruta. Watch Avlon talk to Nick Gillespie about Wingnuts at Reason.tv:
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self-published pathology and the semi-professional polemics?they are all fear-mongering for personal and partisan profit.
Holy alliteration, Batman!
What’s up Shooter McGavin (check out the freeze frame on the video)
I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast!
You eat shit for breakfast?
Kellogg’s All-Bran
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1030…..colon-blow
Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.
I remember going to a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan in 2004 — there was a massive table dominating the front and center of the shop, with literally every single book being a variety of Bush-hatred or Republican-bashing. Dozens and dozens,.
Not to say Bush didn’t deserve (at least some of) it, but it’s a little rich to hear complaints about the comparatively mild Obama-bashing publishing boom.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L…..ge_W._Bush
Did they all have a subtitle that began with “How…”?
If only we didn’t have that pesky 1st amendment.
Oh well, maybe we should just get the courts to evolve the meaning in a way that criminalizes hate of progressive politicians.
Give them time. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Give them time. Change doesn’t happen overnight.
Workin’ on it, Josh. Kinda busy fucking the economy over here.
Thanks for that image.
Interesting how in less than two years the slogan of the Democrats has gone from “Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism” to “Waaaaahhhh!!!!…there’s mean peoples kwitisizing my pwezeedent!!!”
The Democrats making that argument are pathetic, and as Welch shows, completely hypocritical (“Why won’t these racist, idiotic lunatics treat our side with more respect?”). I would guess that most Democrats see themselves as the more anti-authoritarian of the two parties, but once they get power they endlessly appeal to authority, talk about the preciousness of the president’s office, and cry out against partisan elbow throwing from a recently defeated minority party.
I love how these guys figure out that crazy rhetoric is bad after their guy gets in power.
“We’re all getting caught up in the politics of incitement, becoming desensitized in ways that damage the institutions of our democracy. Because if any Republican thinks that this cycle will stop with the next president, they underestimate the ways that politics follows the lines of physics?every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. This will become the new normal. […]”
It is not the “new normal”. It is the normal. And it became the normal starting with Watergate, continuing on through Reagen and Clinton and culminating with “selected not elected” and “Chimpy McBushitler”. Are these people really this unaware?
Because if any Republican thinks that this cycle will stop with the next president,
They know it won’t, and wouldn’t even if they stopped bashing Obama. They’re just getting their licks in now. NTTAWT.
it became the normal starting with Watergate, continuing on through Reagen and Clinton and culminating with “selected not elected” and “Chimpy McBushitler”.
The full article by Whiny McBitchypants Avlon specifically mentions the Jefferson V. Adams publishing wars, so it’s been going on way longer than that. Anybody who thinks politics has descended into the depths of incivility needs to read up on 19th century American politics. We’re way, way nicer than we used to be in this country.
Pretty much. Read what people said about Lincoln sometime. It tracks almost exactly what they said about Bush; warmonger, stupid, ape like, embarrassing for Americans to have to admit to learned Europeans that such a man is our President, crooked, the whole bit.
From the other side, LBJ was not exactly beloved as a suave, worldly, ethical leader who valued consensus over arm twisting.
I have books published in the 60s about what a crooked bastard LBJ was. They’re pretty amusing reading.
I also met a retired secret service agent in Austin who swore LBJ died fucking his mistress and the Secret Service covered it up.
I have read their was actually an advertisement in the Chicago tribune for the assasination of Lincoln, but I can’t find it. Is it true?
How many books were written “anti” Bush? Did he do that “study” too?
Yes, and I neglected to include that in the post — 118.
Can you think of any anti-McCain books? Maybe something exploding the myth of how he’s a “maverick?” 😉
We could start with McCain’s official biography.
Did Matt make some cash in that deal?
it is hard to tell when he talks about it if he is trying to sell his book or is he bragging cuz it sold so well.
both?
The funny thing was, at the time it was published, McCain was dead in the water as a candidate. His phoenix-like revival must have helped sales quite a bit.
At the time it came out, I was hoping it’d be the final nail in the coffin of McCain’s candidacy.
If you assume a consistent linear rate of production of anti-Obama books, he is on track to beat Bush by a lot (184) if he were elected to a second term. However, I think it is likely the rate would decline over time, especially if he recalibrated his actions to get enough support to get re-elected.
This. Didn’t those books take over an entire section of Barnes & Noble?
And it became the normal starting with Watergate Adams vs. Jefferson.
Fixed that for ya.
I remember the pro-Jefferson papers accused Washington of being senile … thus requiring his replacement with Jefferson.
Wow, you’re older than you look!
There was quite a bit about how Washington left splinters after c*nninglingus
The name of Avlon’s new book? Wingnuts: How…
You could read Avlon’s How book now, wait six months for it to show up in the remainders bin, or save $2 by watching the first ten minutes of The ED Show to see real, unadulterated, foaming-at-the-mouth hate, from kindly and sensitive liberal Ed Schultz.
All in all, I’ve probably watched 20 minutes of the Ed Show, and I’m startled by his complete lack of charm. Even the haters have to admit that Maddow can be pleasantly charming and Olbermann can be funny, but Schultz seems incapable of any appealing personality trait.
Yeah. It’s truly a mystery why he’s still on the “air.” Is he the best MSNBC can do at that time slot? That’s disturbing.
Remainder Bin or the Dollar Store?
Time and time again I see the essential wisdom of the phrase, “haters gonna hate”.
I mean, what are haters gonna do?
“Haters gonna hate, lovers gonna love, I don’t even want none of the above, I want to piss on you…”
I’m loving the pop culture references today. They’re actually lowbrow enough that I understand them.
pop culture: easy to hate, hard to ignore.
Just saw him on cspan and he didn’t seem that whacked out.
“Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.”
Booyeah, Muthafukkas.
We are cannibalizing our body politic.
Hurray!
I’ll bring the ketchup.
“Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.”
Yeah, they’ve taken over entire networks like MSNBC, and they scream constantly about how any criticism of the president is racist, and $13 trillion in debt isn’t really that bad, and even if it is, it was all Bush’s fault anyway, and…
Oh, was he talking about other lunatic fringe wingnuts?
Also: gratuitous Canadian music reference.
Wingnuts: How The Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America.
In their time, I am sure that the Anti-slavery movement and the women’s sufferage movement would have been considered ‘lunatic fringe’.
ALL political change – good and bad – begins on the fringe.
…
I am tired of these extremist moderate wingnuts adding to the hateful political discourse by calling their non-centrist breathrens mean names.
they are all fear-mongering for personal and partisan profit.
I for one welcome our establishment hating for profit overlords.
Seriously an industry that makes its money by tearing presidents down….he makes it out like its bad thing.
I suspect he likes the idea of one ruler for all.
“I suspect he likes the idea of one ruler for all.”
If it is his team doing the ruling, then yes he does.
It’s a good idea. I’m all for it.
Not subtle enough. Work on it.
I wrote about Avlon and others in my new book: You America-Hating Partisan Fuckwits Are Destroying Political Discourse In This Country and Should Be Rounded Up and Thrown into Concentration Camps.
Coming soon to a remainder bin near you!
I think you meant to title you book Fuckwits: How America-Hating Partisans Are Destroying Political Discourse In This Country and Should Be Rounded Up and Thrown into Concentration Camps.
Yeah, yeah, only a lunatic would disagree with our Glorious President.
Fuck; can’t these statist wankers come up with a new one? This one was worn out before I was born.
Did you watch the video? That’s not at all what he’s saying.
Speaking of hate, if this site gets any slower it’ll actually start going backward in time, and I for one cannot stomach a repeat of the third season of Dancing With The Stars.
I love how you often have to try 3-5 times to get a comment to stick. We all must be masochists if we’re willing to deal with the H&R commenting system.
They should really fire the squirrels running the comment system and hire new, more qualified squirrels.
Yeah, it’s almost unusable on a mobile.
Haven’t had problems reading the mobile site. But there are no comments, so what’s the point?
there are no comments, so what’s the point?
That’s crazy talk!
Late to the party…
Wow. What an amazing book for a 2 year old to write. I can’t wait until he gets a little older and realizes that other presidents have been the subject of unflattering books too.
I do get it though – this time – with their glorious leader in charge – it is worse. Riiiight!
I think more books should be written against our “leaders” as a proof that their power should be limited – very limited.
Ron Radosh adequately addresses Avlon’s bullshit here:
http://pajamasmedia.com/ronrad…..ley-kurtz/
After considerable thought, I’m thinking of changing my handle to “Yes We Can, But …”
Thoughts?
in ways that damage the institutions of our democracy.
I’m suppose to take seriously the views much less the sage scholarship of someone who can’t free his mind from this lazy, pedestrian and highly inaccurate formulation? The gal that he would expect money for his inferior quality work that shows less discipline and effort than most of the comments you would find on a board devoted to informal discussion on political matters. Nothing less than a scam that he gets paid for it.
Stop the cycle of incitement before….what, exactly? I swear i need to have a posting macro that just submits “Ecclesiastes 1:9.” Apocalyptic generalizations really demand a pithy biblical retort…
Seriously, did anybody watch the interview? The guy seems to be pretty reasonable. You’re judging his book, which I’m sure is several hundred pages long, by a couple of paragraphs. In the video he is not at all what people here seem to think.
Agree.
I liked Kumbaya better when Raffi sang it.
this the shit i kno tha haters hatin