I saw a story this week by a talented young writer with Salon.com. I like that site as a source because they are always able to catch the edges of bigger picture trends in the U.S. – less fluff, more news. Elias Isquith told the story about longtime lunatic Phyllis Schlafly appearing on a radio talk show with a level of lunatic talk that even exceeded the norm for the demented old Phyllis. Phyllis told an audience that was no doubt just as crazy as herself that she was extremely worried that the United States was allowing polygamists Muslims into the United States and that all the wives of those polygamist Muslims were coming here so they could take advantage of our welfare system. The lunatic believed it was imperative that as these hordes of polygamist Muslims crossed the border, they should be required to sign a special pledge assuring all taxpayers that they’re not going to bring in a passel of wives with hordes of Muslim children to squeeze all of us for welfare.
In the old days before Democrats became so politically correct and afraid to say the obvious, we would’ve made phone calls and urged the family of the demented old coot to have Phyllis safely locked away where she was no longer a danger to herself. But I think what’s happen to those of us that listen to the ranting in gibberish and babble of the bughouse Republican crazies these days, we have simply become too quick to accept the fact that all that moon bat talk that flows out of the mouths of the Schlafly’s and the Coulters and the Limbaugh’s and all the water cooler geniuses who love to parrot their insanity: I think we’ve concluded that maybe it’ll just burn itself out and simply come to an end on its own energy. But I’m not convinced of that.
Go online sometime and analyze how the level of almost maniacal lunacy has progressed just in the last decade. It’s remarkable that you’ll find that there is so much material that some sites have it all catalogued. Begin with Ann Coulter, who has regularly delivered reams of some of the best, frothing lunatic talk available. I like to read old Coulter quotes mainly because most of what she says is not only a reflection of her ugly heart in her diseased soul, it also gives us some pretty clear inside about how far the intellect of the GOP type celebrities have fallen in less than 10 years.
Bear with me a minute and imagine that the political pundit you feel a kinship with has just told you that the widows who lost their husbands in the 9/11 attack were just grief paparazzis who were reveling in the deaths of their husbands because they were now millionaires. They were better off, according to Ms. Coulter. Or imagine that that political pundit you tuned in to every day told you that it would be better if we were all Christians because it would be a way to perfect the Jews. Or maybe you listened to your favorite pundit talker tell you that her only regret was that Timothy McVeigh didn’t bomb the New York Times building and kill people in that building the same way he did in Oklahoma. And she regrets that.
When you get the point. How high does that ugly and vulgar crazy meter go? Just take a minute, change the channel, and you’ll hear that GOP darling Ted Nugent tell us that Hillary Clinton was actually a two bit working girl, having sex with Fidel Castro. Or maybe you tuned in when Eric Bolling from Fox news told us that Obama was hosting hoodlums at his house when he was actually meeting with the Gabonese president. That was after, of course, Bolling claimed that Obama had been a drug dealer and that Obama had admitted to buying and selling drugs all during his pre-presidential years.
It would be impossible to end this discussion without mentioning the fact that the Republican darling Michael Savage reached the pinnacle of crazy to the point that his name appeared on England’s “least wanted” list of people to visit their country. That was among a list of Russian skinheads; insane anarchists, Muslim extremists, known criminals, and the former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
So no, the crazy and ugly babble and gibberish that flows from the mouth of the GOP’s biggest celebrity talkers is not going to simply burn itself out. With each new midterm election and presidential election we have seen the teabag Republican Party unleash a few new talkers from the institution. Phyllis Schlafly was simply there to kick off the parade.
Expect to see a brand new bunch of banjo boy lunatic talkers to emerge in the next few years.
Yes, they will have a quality about them that will leave an image of the Billy Bob Thornton character in Sling Blade. I believe that Sling Blade character was named Carl. But it was easy to like Carl – he had a big heart, even though he wasn’t all there.
But these new GOP lunatic talkers that emerge will have all those Sling Blade banjo boy qualities – minus a heart.
