John Amato - Over the Cliff: How Obamas Election Drove the American Right Insane

Praise for Over the Cliff

John Amato and David Neiwert have produced a book that should stay on shelves for 50 yearslong enough to remind us that at least some people understood the strange and vile energies consuming the social contract at the beginning of the third millenium. As a record of what is happening to American conservatism in the year 2010, Over the Cliff is unmatched.

Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

If you want to understand the forces behind the extreme demonization of President Obama and the assault on progressive America, look no further than Over the Cliff. With witty analysis and thorough investigative reporting, Amato and Neiwert provide a definitive chronicle of the far-rights rapid movement from paranoia to outright violence.

Max Blumenthal, author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party

Over the Cliff is a genuinely useful cataloguing of the remarkable descent of the American right into vicious name-calling, racist demonizing, and paranoid conspiracy-mongering since the election of Barack Obama. Amato and Neiwert do a first-rate job of chronicling the dangerous, populist rage on the right that pandering politicians and shameless media pundits are aiding and abetting.

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center

PoliPointPress

Over the Cliff:

How Obamas Election Drove the American Right Insane

Copyright 2010 by John Amato and David Neiwert

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduction in whole, in part, or in any form.

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Production management: BookMatters

Book design: BookMatters

Cover design: Nicole Hayward

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9824171-7-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-9362273-8-9

Published by:

PoliPointPress, LLC

80 Liberty Ship Way, Suite 22

Sausalito, CA 94965

(415) 339-4100

www.p3books.com

Source notes for Over the Cliff can be accessed online at: http://overthecliff.crooksandliars.com

When the liberal blogosphere formed in the early years of the Bush administration, it was a small community of dedicated political observers, reaching out to one another and the odd reader or two, trying desperately to make sense of what was going on around them. Of particular interest were the right-wing media, or what we called at the time The Mighty Wurlitzer, and their amazing capacity to shape the political discourse. Author and journalist David Neiwerts blog Orcinus quickly rose to the top of our blogrolls; his series Rush, Newspeak and Fascism was a seminal insight into how right-wing extremist ideas made their way into the mainstream and helped us understand how the conservative movement had come to so dominate our political culture. A couple of years later, John Amato changed the way blogs themselves were constructed by offering commentary and videos online (well before YouTube) on his blog Crooks and Liars to expose the medias absorption of the right-wing agenda. It was only natural that they would team up to write together, as they do at Crooks and Liars every day, and now in this book. There are few people in the country who follow this subject more closely.

The last few years have been dramatic ones for the conservative movement. Just eight short years ago, drunk on vengeful bloodlust and convinced they had just ushered in a thousand-year reign, the right wing in America was united with their government as never before. Its members culturally enforced their peculiar form of chauvinistic patriotism and insisted that Americans unquestionably submit themselves to the power of the state. They said to trust the president, a man they deified as a warrior god, and condemned anyone who questioned his decisions as a traitor.

Today, they are hunkered down in a paranoid crouch, convinced that their country has been stolen from them by a usurpera man so illegitimate that they believe he isnt even an American citizen, much less a qualified leader. But they arent depressedfar from it. They are energized and excited, organizing around the extremist ideologies that have been bubbling for decades under the surface of conservative-movement thought. The election of a youthful black man from Chicago by way of Hawaii, a Harvard-educated lawyer, community organizer, and putative liberal, has unleashed the right-wing beast. And the groundwork they laid in the media over the past few decades, along with the organizing ability of the Internet, has given mainstream voice and support to what was once considered fringe ideology.

In one short year, beginning with the original Ron Paul Tea Party events during his ill-fated run for the Republican nomination, the Tea Party movement has become a political force to be reckoned with. Though its adherents once believed that every American should follow the governments lead unquestioningly, the election of Barack Obama has turned these right-wingers back into anti-government zealots. Inspired by Rush Limbaughs ideological thuggishness, Glenn Becks lugubrious, incoherent demagoguery, and the faux populism of financial elites like Rick Santelli, they see themselves as glamorous revolutionaries fighting to take their country back from people who have stolen it from them. Their militia is made up of former members of the Patriot movement, white supremacists, John Birchers, Birthers, Oathers, and various other permutations of the radical fringe, including lone wolves who are increasingly turning to violence. And its financed by a secretive, sophisticated, corporate-sponsored astroturf operation that seeks to use them to destabilize the Obama administration and help pave the way for a Republican resurgence. The problem is that the tail may very well be wagging the dog, and the conservative political establishment may have unleashed a force thats beyond its control. When polls show that Glenn Beck is Americans fourth-most-admired man in the world, it may be time to start taking them seriously.

Nobody knows where this is going. The Tea Partiers and their allies are tapping into the fear and anger that are washing over a country with over 10 percent unemployment and ongoing economic insecurity. And they are using the tried-and-true bogeymen and shibboleths of the paranoid strain in American politics to explain to their audiences who are and what is the cause of their angst: liberals, minorities, and big government (not incidentally led by the first African American president). In the absence of a strong counter-narrative, this deception may gain strength. However, if liberals remain alert to how the Tea Partiers fringe ideas are main-streamed, stay focused on solving problems, and tell people the real reasons for their economic anxiety, these radical wingnuts may finally be exposed and discredited. If not, this movement of crazies, cranks, and hucksters could end up taking over one of the two American political partiesand that outcome is not comforting.

There is no question that the American Right is running at full speed and hurtling itself over the cliff. It remains to be seen if they will take the rest of America with them.

Digby, Santa Monica, January 2010

O n the day Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, much of the nationparticularly those who supported and voted for himcelebrated the election of the first African American to the countrys highest office. For those who voted for his opponent, John McCain, there was naturally the usual bitterness and disappointment.