Eve of Destruction

Are you still puzzled by the extremist rhetoric of Republican pols in this era of domination by the Tea Party Movement (a.k.a., the GOP's radicalized conservative base)? A new 13-state survey from the University of Washington's Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race and Sexuality finds some especially illuminating characteristics of self-identified Tea Party folk that helps explain the unusual heat of their political utterances. Asked if they subscribed to the proposition that "Barack Obama is destroying the country," 71% of Tea Party Conservatives said "yes" while only 6% of other conservatives agreed. The 6% represent the kind of conservatives who were until recently typical in the Republican Party--perhaps deeply convinced their opponents were terribly wrong about all sorts of things, but not really believing the whole country was going to hell in a handbasket. This essentially reflects the difference between people who view themselves as part of a democratic conversation over the future direction of America, and people who have adopted a separatist and proto-revolutionary posture. Never underestimate what the latter group is capable of doing.