This quote from David Frum is from a blog by Eric Etheridge called The Opinionater in the NYT:
The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is “literally at war with the American people”; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning “death panels” to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he “harbors a deep resentment of America,” that he feels a “deep-seated hatred of white people,” that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties”: All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.
The blog entry cites a number of conservatives decrying the crazies of the Right, including Palin. It might be interesting to watch this movement. This ties in with my blog entry Town Hall. The people there seemed as uninformed as the young woman who was so vociferous in Pennsylvania at Specter’s Town Hall but got on Hard Ball on revealed not only deep ignorance and wispy nostalgia for a non-existent “America”, but gave us clues to the formation of her world view by citing her “Daddy” and her husband “who takes care of us”. God bless this very nice woman who is no doubt a great mom and helpmate (etymologically helpmete) to her man, but her wordl view is decidedly different from that of a small town woman deserted by her man, a ghetto mom struggling against the street, a migrant mom lucky to keep her kids in school at all.
But back to watching this: I wonder if the Republican Party will split into the old-line Republicans, the party of money, business, small government, strong defense versus a populist movement focused on immigration, “family values” (read: sex), wooly nostalgia for Mayberry RFD, and anger, anger, anger.