The Impending Violence Of The Failing Right Wing

The Impending Violence Of The Failing Right Wing
May 29, 2012
By Justin Rosario

I’ve written about this several times and it is absolutely vital to remember: time is not on the side of the right. The base of the conservative movement is old, white, Christian and extremely bigoted. As they die off (while draining every penny from Medicare, the kind of government program they claim to despise), they will not be replaced and the right knows it. The homeschooling movement among Evangelicals will not pump out enough brainwashed, science hating, religious fanatics to replenish the ranks (even if they turn their women into debased breeders, see Quiverfull) of the self centered and easily-swayed-by-greed Baby Boomer generation that is not going gently into that good night.

What will be left will be an ethnically and religiously diverse country that is not interested in the kind of hate that is the sole motivating force underlying conservative politics. This is the reason for the massive overreach of the 2010 GOP: they need to get their policies into place and try and cement them in the public’s mind before they permanently lose power. In the end, however, we’ll reject the wedge politics and move the country forward. The real question is how much damage the right will do in the meantime. Sara Robinson at Alternet brings up a troubling point about this eventuality:

In the meantime, the danger of political violence may actually get worse. Right-wing domestic terrorists are at their most virulent when they’re furthest back on their heels politically. Over the course of the next decade — as the very different priorities of that younger, more urban and diverse voter cohort come to dominate the nation’s political agenda – we can expect to see an uptick in violent retribution as the most militant members of the far right make a desperate last stand for their vision of the country’s future.

As usual, the biggest trouble will likely come in the states where the friction between far-right conservatives and this new emergent electorate has already heated up to the flash point — Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and similar states where the old guard had been counting on fascist solutions to keep a new generation it fears under control. Alternatively, the violence will start in these states, but be directed against coastal big-city targets seen as representing the decadent society the far right refuses to accept. Either way, the more ground they lose, the wiser we’d be to expect them to try to take their frustration out on the rest of us.

There’s a cheery thought; the crazed hardcore militia types already think America has been overrun by Nazi immigrant Commie fags. What happens when what they actually fear, a loss of the unearned status and privilege that comes with being a White heterosexual Christian male, comes to pass? The paranoia that is the hallmark of the right will explode. Quite probably literally. There’s a dark and ugly chapter of American history coming and the last decade has just been a prologue. The upshot is that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the GOP will be left in the dustbin of history.

It’s up to us to make sure that happens by voting in November and in every election we can. Voting is our weapon and you can be sure the right is terrified of it.