How the crazies became the GOP mainstream. (The Bulwark) [View all]

[Nevilledog]

https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/ready-for-prime-time

We always knew they were there: eyes always a bit too bright, pupils a tad too dilated, and they had done their own research.

They were the ones sitting in the front row, wearing lots of buttons, who waited in the parking lot after events, clutching pamphlets and folders stuffed with mimeographed (and heavily annotated) documentation of outrages and conspiracies that YOU ABSOLUTELY HAD TO READ RIGHT NOW.

Birchers, Birthers, Paulites, paranoiacs of various stripes, who spoke in tongues, and read yellowing tracts explaining how Muslims were trying to destroy Christendom, and that the Bilderbergers and Illuminati were secretly running the government.

They weren’t necessarily bad people, just the usual eccentrics and nuts that you’d try to avoid, or, failing that, to politely keep the conversation as brief as possible before taking the stuff which you promised to read, but binned at the first opportunity. Because crazy.

It seemed easy to ignore them. Until they took over everything.

Okay, that is a slight (very slight) exaggeration, but the story of the last few years is how the bug-eyed crazy fringe became the mainstream in the GOP. And now, we are all living in their world.

*snip*