June 5, 2014 6:49 AM

Conservatives: Too many rage-addicted, mean-spirited, anti-intellectual moral midgets in their midst

There’s no actual evidence Bergdahl was a deserter, but that isn’t stopping the right wing from asserting it must be true. And somehow that means we shouldn’t have gone to tremendous lengths to free an American citizen from captivity.

From the time Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, I’ve tried to figure why the Far Right has become so…well, mean. We’re talking about a collection of people so addicted to rage and assuming the worst that they can no longer celebrate the good things in life. When your life is consumed by rage and devoid of anything resembling joy, why would you treat others with kindness, respect, and/or dignity?

I could care less about Todd Kincannon, the former head of South Carolina’s Republican party, and a truly miserable excuse for a human being. A few years ago, I had a brief Twitter contretemps with Kincannon, which quickly degenerated into a series of increasingly personal attacks from him before I finally blocked him. I’ve long since forgotten what our encounter was even about, but I remember being stunned at the degree of hateful vitriol directed at me personally, as if disagreeing with him rendered me “less than” and unworthy of the fellowship of “normal” Americans. I was stunned that someone could be so consumed by hatred and self-righteousness anger that they could politics so thoroughly personal.

Kincannon is hardly alone in the irrational, foaming-at-the-mouth, highly personalized, and disgusting calumny he’s directed at Bowe Bergdahl and his father. The Right-wing echo chamber has managed to generate so much hatred that it’s now blowing back on Bergdahl’s hometown. Hailey, Idaho, had scheduled a celebration, but so many people have called to voice their rage and hatred of the Bergdahls that the celebration’s been cancelled. City officials have been deluged with hateful, vitriolic phone calls demanding to know why Hailey would honor a “deserter” and a “traitor.” It’s a smear campaign based on propaganda, half-truths, and misinformation, but it’s been enough to whip up outrage among those prone to getting their marching orders news from Fox News Channel.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday suggested that Bob Bergdahl, the father of the soldier released from the Taliban, was anti-American and said that he looked like a member of the Taliban.

After referencing reports that Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl may have been “collaborating with the enemy” in Afghanistan, Kilmeade turned to Bob Bergdahl.

The “Fox and Friends” host said that Bergdahl made “some anti-American tweets and statements,” referencing a tweet apparently published by Bergdahl saying that he was “working to free all Guantanamo prisoners.”

Kilmeade then criticized Bergdahl’s beard, which he grew in order to mark the time his son was held prisoner.

“Really?” Kilmeade asked. “I mean, he says he was growing his beard because his son was in captivity. Well, your son’s out now. So if you really don’t — no longer look like a member of the Taliban, you don’t have to look like a member of the Taliban. Are you out of razors?”

Wow. Could Kilmeade be ANY more mean-spirited and insulting? Why is facial hair not an issue when it comes to the reliably Conservative faux rednecks on Duck Dynasty but clear evidence of anti-Americanism, Taliban sympathizing, and treason on Bob Bergdahl? Could the hypocrisy be any more clearly defined? The problem, of course, is that for the Far Right, there’s no separation between personal and political. For the angry, rage-addicted, vacant reactionaries and Foxbots, politics IS personal, and watch out if you happen to have the temerity to disagree with them. They may not be able to (and probably can’t) debunk your argument, but they’ll go from zero to distressingly personal and mean-spirited in a nanosecond.

Simple human decency would seem to dictate the Kilmeade owes the Bergdahls an apology, but when you lack that decency, you’ll say whatever it takes to advance the prevailing narrative. I can only hope that karma will someday catch up with Kilmeade, who’s just one of a stable full of miserable excuses for humanity at Fox News Channel.

These aren’t people willing to listen to reason. Truth and fact have no meaning to them. The only thing that matters is what they believe (likely spoon-fed to them by the talking heads at Fox News Channel). They can’t have a reasoned, rational discussion to save their lives, but they can dish out personal insults as if they’re going out of style. The idea of respecting those who think differently is a sign of weakness, and compromise with them and/or acknowledging their humanity is an act of treasib. No, they deserve to be treated as the sub-human anti-American Muslim sympathizers they are.

How can we hope to have a reasoned discussion about the future of our country when one side refuses to be rational? When Conservative rage addicts refuse to deal in normal human dialogue in favor of personal insults, screaming, and irrational accusations, how do we come together? When any dialogue degrades into “screaming at” instead of “discussing with,” what hope do we have of finding middle ground? When reactionaries whose primary source of information is Fox News Channel, how can any reasonable person hope to calmly and rationally compare our visions for America’s future?

The truth is that this is why we can’t have nice things. When one side’s default mode of communication is characterized by rage, screaming, and disinformation, there’s little hope to be found. You can’t compromise with people who equate finding middle ground with treason. There’s no way to reach those determined to personally and utterly destroy those they deem unworthy- anyone who dares to think differently and disagree with their hateful, rage-fueled world view.

Today’s Conservatives are people who seem nothing if not desperately unhappy. Given the amount of rage and opprobrium they’re capable of directing at those whose views offend them, it’s difficult to believe that they’re nothing if not horribly miserable. How could you not be when you spend so much of your time intensely and irrationally angry at those who dare not to buy into the propaganda being served up by Fox News Channel?

We are at war with Oceania. We have ALWAYS been at war with Oceania. Those who refuse to belief that we are at war with Oceania are deserving only of being destroyed utterly. DEATH TO THE INFIDELS!!

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on June 5, 2014 6:49 AM.

Today on "Derp Watch": The Stupidest Man on the Internet tries to have it both ways...and fails miserably was the previous entry in this blog.

Fox News Conservatism: The freedumb to say anything, no matter how mean or unsubstantiated is the next entry in this blog.

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