The Language of a Cult
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One of the more satisfying elements of the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s role in the GOP and conservative movement has been that David Frum, of all people, has been taken to the woodshed by his fellows for criticizing Limbaugh. Now, I see via Robert Stacy McCain, that Frum has taken to the pages of Newsweek to plead his case. I give him some credit for figuring out what movement conservatism is becoming:
There’s the perfect culmination of the outlook Rush Limbaugh has taught his fans and followers: we want to transform the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into a party of unanimous dittoheads—and we don’t care how much the party has to shrink to do it. That’s not the language of politics. It’s the language of a cult. (emphasis added)
Movement conservatism has become a cult—and it’s a problem more pervasive than this recent tussle over Limbaugh—that has nothing of value say to anyone outside of the bubble.
UPDATE: Rod Dreher has an email encounter with a cultist:
Howdy – you Obama lovin jackass!! Only a good liberal journalism prick like you could write that piece of [delteted] & think you are advancing the good old USA. I had to sit next to the “bearded elitists” in journalism school at the University of Minn. Corduroy jackets – pipes of course – and an “I’m smarter than you” chip on their shoulder that made you want to kick their [deleted] [deleted]!!!!! I can see from your photo you have a face full of hair. Grow it yourself? Saw a PHD with a beard 20 years ago & fell in love? Hey, look mommy – I grew a beard!! Where’s your 20 million listeners? How come you don’t run for office if you’re so smart? Oh, I see. . . .
And it goes on like that.
Filed under: Conservatism
Look, we on the paleo/alt right have a lot of problems with movement conservatism as represented by Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads, but in the grand scheme of things we have a lot more problem with Frum and the moderates than we do with Limbaugh. There is almost no inclusion that Frum would like that would make the GOP better. Frum is certainly not arguing to include non-interventionists, Fed bashers, gold bugs and constitutionalists.
Criticisms of Rush and the conservative movement from the right are warranted and necessary, but need to be approached carefully.
Frum is attacking Limbaugh at least in part because he is not a member of the Neo-con movement. For operators like Frum, purging voices not aligned with his wing of the movement will always takes precedence over the larger fight. The neo’s were willing to share the party with all sorts of fellow travelers and dupes while they were in power. Now that they are out of power, they feel the need to control the whole anti-Obama franchise.
Also, Limbaugh, with his blunt all-encompassing partisanship, make it difficult for the Neo’s to make their approaches to the new power masters. To the Neocons, Limbaugh must seem like the boisterous McCain supporters who called out crude anti-Obama epithets at rallies. Unguided enthusiasm gets in the way of deal making.
I have as much use for Limbaugh as I do for Frum, but that doesn’t make the latter any less correct that the former shouldn’t become the face of the opposition and that the right is beginning to resemble a cult.
Beginning to look like a cult? It’s been that way for years. When you can’t criticize the leader without being called a liberal and tossed out your in a cult. When a writer on this site mentions he was brought up to fight against liberals you are in a cult.
This is really cool. From somewhere behind my single eyebrow, a very dim bulb begins to glow. I recognize the simularity between this post and the scene in the first Terminator movie, where the terminator looked human, and as they got better, they fooled a larger number of people, but they just never did smell right.
This post will fool, what? Maybe 5 or 10% of those nasty Limbaugh listeners? See, we are not sheep like you are, and the fallacy that Rush gets to the ideas before we do, is the basis of your reasoning. As you try to rend the different arms of the neocon party, you send out these terminators.
LOL. When you call the Rush-show, you have the “good old boy” accent, and you state that you’ve been a Republican for about 150 years, and voted a single-party ticket in all that time. But lately you have realized that all Obama wants is what is good for us, and we should all just give him a chance.
We laugh, and guess among ourselves, how many words into your speech did we get before we realized that you don’t pass the smell-test? We label you seminar callers.
The person who made this post either does not understand the rudiments of what Rush espouses, or is making a calculated effort to be “non-inclusive”, either for his own elitist needs, or as part of a wider effort to get us to argue amongst ourselves.
The caricature of the “Rush listener” that you presented certainly would offend Rush, and I would guess represents a tiny portion of his demographic, perhaps a single-digit percentage.
We waited for Rush to understand that Bush was stabbing us in the back over veto-pen issues, the border, TARP 1, etc. We waited for him to understand the financial mess, and the enormity of the congressional crookedness by both parties. We are out in front of him, waiting for him to see Bobby Jindal for the “Why can’t we get back to business as usual, next time we get a chance to grab our share of pork, I want to be the leader” kind of person he is.
The successful talking heads understand that the intellectual center of gravity is out in the center of their audience. This is why the elitists from the opposition have such a tough time “smelling right”. When they caricature what they don’t understand, then secondarily caricature the audience of that person, they make fun of something that we also would make fun of.
We see the dry-rot that infects all FIVE branches of government. Acorn and the Democrats have pushed the lowest common denominator of voters to below the “sound bite thinker” level. Government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” becomes a tyranny of the majority who wants to vote themselves a raise.
The 4th estate has abdicated, by currying favor to protect it’s access to power and news, and by failing to police itself. Entertainment, public media, teaching, goverment service, and authorship ALL tend to be natural breeding grounds for liberal-think. “I gain power, I venture opinions, we will correct any unintended consequences later, I will wield my power to force my will upon others, either for personal gain, or an idealistic desire to bring about my vision for utopia”.
A phenomenon that runs counter to this trend is “talk radio”. Why are so many of these right-wing outlets owned and run by big-liberal money? Because this medium provides the immediate but measured feedback that the 4th estate lacks. When you understand this model, you understand that talk radio does not lead it’s audience. Quite the contrary.
The other 3 branches of government (Judicial, Congressional, Executive), wither into corruption of course, when these first two fail.
The liberal opposition will attempt to destroy us with a form of “local-content doctrine”, and we will ride this tool into cleaning up our party, and then push the self-correcting national pendulum back to a saner government.
In spite of the type of people who made this post.
I disagree with Thomas (post #2). The neocons have never had a pure problem with Limbaugh and his ilk. They are the whips of the conservative movement getting the troops in line behind Iraq and other interventionism which the neocons supported. Talking up “America greatness” etc.
Now Frum has a problem with them because Frum is an elitist, urban, moderate “conservative” (along with his partners in crime Brooks, Parker, and others), and he now thinks folks like Limbaugh hurt the brand among his fellow elitist urban moderates. Because per Frum Limbaugh and his followers are a bunch of yahoos who embarrass the oh so thoughtful types like Frum.
Now there is probably some truth to the idea that Frum thinks Limbaugh and company are now hurting the neocons ability to curry favor with the current regime, but the neocons in general appreciated their services when they were drum beating us to war.
Red, What did I write that differs from what you just wrote?