Dobson's World

David Neiwert is one today's best writers and reporters on far-right extremism. He also as a great eye for how radical-right notions and attitudes are mainstreamed into "respectable" conservatism and the Republican Party. In Keeping Our Cools Orcinus blog 11/22/05, he writes:

The absorption of so many extremist elements into the conservative "mainstream" has wrought nothing less than a reconfigured "conservative movement" that only vaguely resembles genuine conservatism. Fiscal restraint? Bah! International restraint? Fooey! Civility and interpersonal restraint? Fuggedaboutit! The "conservative movement" of 2005 is nothing less than the ascendancy of the old right-wing John Birch Society mentality: the paranoia, the demonization, the wild-eyed ... unhingedness.

That mainstream conservatism is being swamped by its extremist elements is a problem for everyone: genuine conservatives, moderates, liberals. Because the way it's happened involves a course that will lead the nation into truly dark times.

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