Right Wing Rage
By Beth Quinn
The folks on the political Far Right have been getting madder and madder since President Obama was elected. Mad as in both “angry” and “crazy.”
I learned this in person a few months ago in the Quick Stop downtown, and it took me by surprise. I was by then no longer writing my newspaper column, in which I often criticized the Far Right’s leader, President Moron. I had been under the misapprehension that one of the benefits of being laid off from my job was that the Lunatic Fringe would quit being mad at me.
Alas, I learned I was wrong on a very cold day last February when I ducked into the Quick Stop to warm up during my morning walk. A customer paying for a cup of coffee at the counter looked over at me while I was blowing on my hands and sneered, “Yeah, right. Blow on your hands. You Pinkos and your global warming.”
I had no idea who this guy was, but I felt like I was suddenly in the middle of a scene from an Indiana Jones movie when that guy brandishing a sword jumps in front of Indy. Given that I had no sword of my own to brandish, I tried having a conversation with the sneering man. A fair exchange of ideas, if you will. So I said, “Well you know, global warming is a trend, not a single day. Also, it’s really more accurately called climate change.”
This reasoning did not win him over. “Right, so what was the Ice Age?” he sneered. “Another trend? I suppose that was our fault, too?”
The Quick Stop workers were getting nervous. Fights among customers are bad for business.
I said, “Look, I’m not the expert. But on this hand, we’ve got hundreds of reputable scientists concerned about climate change. On this other hand, I’ve got some guy at the Quick Stop sneering at me. My money is over here with the scientists.”
Then – because I never know when to shut up – I added, “Actually, we Pinkos are inclined to believe in science in general. No dinosaurs and people living here at the same time as far as we’re concerned.”
He started sputtering and turning purple, so I left and went to the liquor store to warm up instead.
This would be funny except it isn’t. This guy was genuinely furious at me because he’d been wound up and primed for attack. That day he was sneering. Maybe next time he’ll throw coffee in someone’s face. Who knows what’s next.
Part of the blame for this kind of fury (over climate change of all things) belongs to newscasters and media stars who have become leaders of the Far Right – people like Rush Limbaugh, along with Bill O’Reilly and the rest of that merry band of hyperbolic fact twisters at Fox News. These folks are deliberating fanning the flames of anger in people who want to believe idiocy like Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen, global warming is a conspiracy, there’s a war on Christmas.
When such people get amped up by their media manipulators, they lash out. They kill people like Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas City abortion provider, who was gunned down in his church three weeks ago. Bill O’Reilly had called him Tiller the Baby Killer and compared him to the Nazis 29 times before someone out in TV Land took a gun in hand and murdered the doctor.
And the Right Wing media is egging on hate-filled bigots like James von Brunn, the white supremacist who killed a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., last week. Von Brunn is one of countless white supremacists in this country who believes blacks and Jews are an affront to his master race. It is Limbaugh and the folks at Fox who whip such bigots up with their talk of “racial turnover” in America.
These would be isolated incidents except they’re not. The Far Right is seething. They’re furious that we have a black president. They have short memories about just who caused this economic mess, and they’re furious because it’s all Obama’s fault. They’re furious at people on welfare and even those on unemployment (like me) for stealing their tax dollars. They’re furious at immigrants, at people who speak a foreign language in OUR country (how dare they!), at the effrontery of a Latina woman to think she could be a good Supreme Court justice.
I am very afraid of such people because, wound up tight enough on hatred and caffeine, they become the terrorists. And they aren’t across the ocean. Sometimes they’re in the church vestibule or the museum lobby – or maybe even right downtown.
Beth can be reached at beth@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Beth Quinn
June 15th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
This guy forgot to tell you that taking a morning walk all by itself is a clear indication that you hate freedom. The only acceptable form of transportation to and from Kwik Stop is via Hummer-limo.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
It is so wonderful having you back in print! When I received the email introducing zestoforange.com, I was smiling & saying I knew it; I just knew Beth would be back!!! YES!!!
June 16th, 2009 at 7:25 am
I received an e-mail from a reader who had this to say:
“Almost twenty years ago I was chewed out (in extreme terms) by a purple-faced fellow customer in the Middletown Sears store. My transgression: shopping for a metric wrench. Apparently that was un-American and indicative of communist leanings. Things haven’t improved since.”
That, too, would be funny if the proud ignorance it displays weren’t scary. Yesterday’s resentment of the metric system is today’s resentment of the Spanish-speaking option on telephone answering scripts. As you might recall, the metric system was defeated by Americans who refused to use it out of stubborn patriotism – and laziness. God forbid we learn something new.
(Except the skiers, of course – they always measured their skis in centemeters. And the gynecologists – dialation during labor is measured in centemeters, too.)
Anyway, good morning Bess and Boopster! Good to be back with you.
Beth
p.s. to Carrie: Please don’t let anything bad happen to Zoe!
June 16th, 2009 at 9:04 am
good to see you back Beth – and yes, as you remember, you had quite a few “fans” back on the THR discussion boards that were always gloating about what they would say to you if they met you in person (I was a regular follower there – “nunya”). I often worried about you after some of the hateful diatribes. Back then though – people hid behind their screen names and that was the end of it – no guts, no glory. But now – as you said, with O’Reilly, Fatass Limbaugh, etc….they claim they aren’t but they ARE encouraging the lunatic fringe. And then they cloak it behind the banner of the first amendment – like somehow that justifies their boorishness. Gawd I want to barf at that type of hypocracy!
June 16th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Frank Rich wrote something similar but scary! Cheney, Rush and Hannity may be supplying the fuses, but some of those who are wired to accept their daily pills of closed minded intolerance as fact, are potential domestic terrorists similar to McVey.
Freedom of speech is one thing, but even this freedom requires restraints such that we don’t harm others by going to extremes or causing others to go to extremes. I guess the laws don’t pertain to talk show hosts (unless you’re one of the Smothers Brothers).
Sad thing about the ‘blogosphere’ is that usernames (beyond real names) don’t allow for accountability and anonymity is always a safe place to shoot from. In this sense Palin was half right (though wrong about everything else; her hypocrisy knows no bounds). But I have to admit, she’s quite fluent in ‘idiot-speak’ and connects with those that get excited by her flirtations and sob at Glen Beck’s teary-eyed messages of overwhelming concern and outrage.
Maybe it’s time talk show hosts and journalists are held accountable for content and must use factcheck.com before spewing misinformation. But alas, that entertainment!
Beth, keep it coming! I’ve always enjoyed your sensible outrage and was relieved that someone understood the disaster that was BUSH in 2001. Cheny still thinks he’s president — well he was wasn’t he!?
FrankM