Two Americas (What Digby Said)

Ken AshfordRepublicans1 Comment

I was going to blog about this, but Digby beat me to it, so I'll just pilfer her post:

If you get a chance to see the HBO Alexandra Pelosi documentary about the McCain campaign called Right America: Feeling Wronged, do it. If you ever doubted that this is actually two countries, and that there is a very real divide that is unbreachable by any single politician, you won't doubt it after you see these people. I have been hearing various versions of this crap my whole life. They never change. And their most distinguishing characteristic is that they never, ever back down.

These folks were already convinced that the election of Obama ushered in the end of western civilization and all that follows will be seen as a result of that. The inept George W. Bush never existed. (Except he saved us from the boogeyman.) I'm sure these people aren't representative of all conservatives and the film doesn't claim they are. But they sure as hell are representative of the dittoheads who pull the strings of what's left of the Republican party.

I found the documentary rather depressing.  These people patted themselves on being "real" Americans, the kind of salt-of-the-earth bread-and-butter workers who live between the East Coast and West Coast, and who keep America going.  Which is fine.  But then when they utter Hannity-like talking points — like Obama being a Muslim, etc. — I began to despair for this country.

Digby is correct that the people featured in the documentary are not representative of all conservatives.  But it did cause me to think — what if there are people even more rabidly wingnutty?  People who actually take their despair about the "liberal" movement, and turn that despair into action?  Oh, wait:

It was a simple plan, he wrote, borne out of hopelessness but rooted in patriotism.

“The future looks bleak,” the ex-soldier lamented. “I’m absolutely fed up! So I thought I’d do something good for this country — kill Democrats ‘til (sic) the cops kill me.”

With what he believed to be his last pen strokes, Jim David Adkisson urged other suicidal soldiers against the “liberalism that’s destroying America” to leave their own trail of carnage behind.

“I’d like to encourage other like-minded people to do what I’ve done,” Adkisson wrote. “If life ain’t worth living anymore, don’t just kill yourself. Do something for your country before you go. Go kill liberals.”

These people scare me.