On the 101st day of his Presidency, Barack Obama finally slapped the hedge funds across the face like they deserved.
In his statement about the Chrysler bankruptcy and subsequent restructuring into a "Chrysler-Fiat Alliance," President Obama made it perfectly clear that not all the stakeholders at the table stepped up in good faith for the good of the company or the good of the nation. Some stakeholders were simply in it for themselves.
Framing his statement about Chrysler in terms of "shared sacrifice," President Obama elaborated on "substantial financial contribution" of the Canadian government, the massive debtor-in-possession financing offered by the U.S. taxpayer, and the significant sacrifices made by the UAW to guarantee that Chrysler could emerge from bankruptcy a stronger more viable company in alliance with Italian automaker Fiat.
But there were some parties, according to the President, who deserved mention only for their unwillingness to join the effort (emphasis added):
While many stakeholders made sacrifices and worked constructively in
this process, some did not. In particular, a group of investment firms
and hedge funds failed to accept reasonable offers to settle on their
debt. In order to effectuate this alliance without rewarding those who
refused to sacrifice, the U.S. government will stand behind Chrysler’s
efforts to use our bankruptcy code to clear away remaining obligations
and emerge stronger and more competitive. (link) (video)
Yes, America. What we read in that statement is the first, high profile, no nonsense, slap across the face, ouch that hurts, there's plenty more where that came from, the law and the nation is on our side, Commander in Chief hedge fund smack down.
May it be the first of many, many more to come.
When faced with the refusal of the hedge fund bond holders to accept 'reasonable offers'--most likely of a percentage-on-the-dollar equity swap in exchange for their debt portfolios--the Obama administration turned to the bankruptcy code to 'clear away remaining obligations,' thereby allowing the Chrysler deal to go through. By Jove! I think he's got it.
The beauty of the American bankruptcy courts is that these massive financial decisions will not take place in backrooms, but under the watchful eye of the courts.
Already, though, there is griping.
Free Press reporter Tom Walsh sums up what the reactionary view of President Obama's facilitating the Chrysler deal will be:
By
forcing Chrysler LLC to file for bankruptcy, President Barack Obama fired an unmistakable warning shot today toward General Motors Corp., its bondholders, its dealers, its suppliers, its unions and anyone else who didn’t think Obama had the resolve to impose his will on the domestic automobile industry.
The message was this:
This president is not bluffing about bankruptcy. If he’s willing to use the big stick on Chrysler, there’s no reason to think he’ll balk at forcing GM there too.
He’s serious about sacrifice. Whether you’re a labor unionist who thinks Obama owes you for supporting his election campaign, or a Wall Street sharpie who thinks you can cut a better deal by holding out and maneuvering in court, you’ve got to swallow hard and cough up more than you’d like. (link)
Actually, the President's message was this: when labor, management, and taxpayers of multiple nations have stepped up to bat, the American public will not be held hostage by hedge fund managers stalling for profits.
That is the message. And it is a message Americans have been waiting patiently to hear.
Anyone who reads the public details of the Chrysler restructuring sees a plan that will ultimately benefit those who sacrificed for and believed in the company. While bankruptcy is sobering, and symbolically frightening for such a large corporation, news that the President faced down the hedge funds in favor of working families and communities should help beleaguered states like Michigan feel better about the bumpy road they are facing.
While they reap profits obscene enough to make Nineteenth Century robber barons pound their fists, a remarkable number of Americans still do not know how much financial power has been concentrated into a few hands as a result of the hedge funds.
Of course, the bigger issue is not the potential of large investment firms and hedge fund bond holders to hold up the GM restructuring, but their problematic role in the banking crisis. The Obama administration has structured a bank recovery plan that depends very heavily on hedge funds doing the right thing--on their stepping up to make shared sacrifice. Even though these hedge funds would reap huge, government subsidized profits for doing so in the long run, the bank recovery plan has not yet taken off. Shared sacrifice there has not been.
Will Obama face down these same parties to move other industries forward and, most importantly, to get the bank recovery rolling?
So stand strong, Mr. President! Rest assured that millions of Americans are hoping for a lot more hedge fund smack downs.
As we pass the 100 day milestone of Barack Obama's first term, one question keeps running through my mind even as I sift through all the polls showing soaring approval ratings: When each of us awoke this morning, did we feel better about that nagging fear for our family's financial future than we felt 100 days ago?
"The American Dream," Arthur Miller once remarked,
"is the largely unacknowledged screen in front of which all American
writing plays itself out." The same can be said of American politics.
How each of us feels, lately, as we mull over our progress towards the American dream, is one of the best measures of Obama's job performance that I know, and it is one worth discussing at length instead of resting on the laurels of this or that poll of approval ratings.
President Obama is high in the polls and deservedly so. But at the same time, so many
Americans share that recurrent, manic thought expressed by Willy Loman
at the outset of Death of a Salesman, "I'm tired to the
death." After 100 days of watching, celebrating--enjoying--this
historic and symbolic presidency, the struggle against the economy has, nonetheless,
left a large number of American families "tired to the death."
When the Dow Jones Index dipped below 6,500 in early March, a flood of fear overtook the dreams many Americans assumed would flourish from their healthy retirement accounts. Curiously, while the markets have all but returned to the levels they reached when Barack Obama was inaugurated, rather than feeling relieved, most Americans are now waist deep in the painful work of revising their retirement plans downward. The feeling is not one of recovery, but of accepting loss. It is difficult to see how these deflated dreams have been assuaged by President Obama. Despite his talk of American resilience and rebuilding a future, the a leitmotif from the Obama White House has been the importance of facing the reality of our current situation. For Americans facing retirement, that means facing the soft spots in their savings and living with the consequences of past decisions.
For another large chunk of the American public, their feelings on the American dream are tied up entirely in their lost or diminishing paycheck. For the first time in decades, just about everybody who has a job is worried about keeping it, with very few exceptions. And for the first time, most Americans in search of a new job will be forced to migrate to a new state, or stay jobless in their current home. Enterprising Americans have always picked up house and moved to find work, but the current climate demands it. Amidst this upheaval in the job market, President Obama has invested a tremendous amount of federal funds to make sure that communities hit hardest by unemployment do not fold up and die. Yet, with the exception of the so-called "shovel-ready" public works projects paid for by the Recovery Act, the systemic problem of unemployment has grown steadily worse. For working Americans everywhere, that means putting the American dream on hold to focus on family survival.
For young people just stepping up to thoughts of the American dream, the first 100 days began with an overwhelming hope that has begun to buckle under the combined weight of credit card debt, grim job prospects, and the cost of education that continues to skyrocket out of control. When Obama was first elected, high school seniors had just applied to college. By now, those same students have received their acceptance letters and are now mulling over the prospect of diving into short and long-term debt to fund their education. Many are revising their college plans to take into account the economic hardships of their parents. Motivated students who would had begun to think about summer jobs this time last year, have already discovered that most summer work will be absorbed by cash starved college students returning home for the summer to save money. The Obama administration has made a conscious effort to use the tax code to make college more affordable, expanded service opportunities for young people, and generally inspired college-aged Americans to believe they can make a difference in the future of their country. And yet, as April drags on into May, many of these young Americans are realizing for the first time that their plans for the immediate future might be financially untenable, and they are revising them downward accordingly.
All these differed and deflated American dreams have gathered into a dark cloud of gloom over at least a third of the American public. And as this sizable third feels its dreams slip away, some grow frustrated while others get angry. At best, these Americans are frustrated with the slow pace of the administration's economic policies. At worst, these people are tilting towards a broad scale frustration at what they see as a continuation of a political culture beholden to the financial industry.
What tempers this dark cloud of economic anxiety is another group of Americans who, despite their general financial concerns, look at the smoldering rubble of the collapsed economy and see an opportunity for their family to get ahead. These are the Americans ridiculed by friends and family members for not taking advantage of investment funds that guaranteed astounding rates of return. These are the Americans who chose the professional road less taken and who forsook the big bonus for public service. For a decade they watched others enjoying the quick high of getting and spending. It was never easy. For the past 6 months, they have watched as the dreams built on candy floss and fairy dust have been crushed by the reality of spiraling credit card debt and crises brought on by the double gallows adjustable rate mortgages and home equity lines. As the dust of economic collapse settles, prices drop, and their savings rise by comparison, these Americans have been able to move their American dream years ahead of schedule, sometimes even decades. Plans to purchase a home in five years are suddenly possible. Far off hopes to renovate are suddenly affordable. Means to grow the family in more space has finally landed with them. For these Americans, the tax incentives and emphasis on new regulations of the Obama administration, together with the federal investment package, have created a feeling of long overdue justice and breathing space. Working hard, playing by the rules--in addition to being responsible and realistic--finally has some short term rewards.
Feelings about the American dream and, subsequently, about President Obama's job performance, are balanced between these two groups. While there seem to be far more Americans with differed and deflated dreams these days, that may be a matter of perception. Even people whose finances have survived the downturn in tact will have felt afraid over the past few months, and they will be far less likely to talk about the opportunity they see than those lamenting the pain they feel. Such is human nature. But the balance of feeling is out there, and despite President Obama's 65 to 70 percent approval ratings, these numbers probably mask a fair number of people who are glad he is president, but very anxious or excited about their own lives.
The final third to the country are those die hard Republicans who would sooner swallow a live snake than see something positive in a Democratic President. They are that vocal third who stuck with George W. Bush to the end, who saw him as a brilliant leader was wronged by the media, and who cheered the loudest when Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of cavorting with terrorists. They, too, have been hit by the economy, but they look at the Obama presidency and can see nothing but profligate spending, even when federal investments directly help their states, their communities, and their families avoid immediate disaster. Their feelings about the American dream are inversely proportional to what they were when the a Republican lived in the White House.
When we stack up all these collective feelings into a collective feeling in the country, the outcome is much different than the high approval ratings the President is enjoying.
More likely than not, about two thirds of the country will pass by Obama's 100 day milestone with considerable anxiety about their futures, even if they feel the country is generally headed in the right of the direction.
While nobody can blame the Obama White House if they step back for a moment and remind the public of some of their achievements since taking office, the President and his staff would be wise to take seriously the collective impact of an America that has felt its dreams slip away since he took office--not because he took office, but, nonetheless, since he took office.
What will happen if the President does not take these feelings of anxiety into account? Hard to say at this point.
If the Obama administration can find a way to light a fire under Tim Geithner and finally tackle the problem of the banks, that would free their hands to spend more time addressing the human problems people face in their everyday lives. That need need not mean more federal spending, but more time focusing people on ways to pick up the pieces of their shattered financial lives and rebuild their American dream.
If the President can do that, the outpouring of positive feeling from the nation he gets when he reaches the end of his first year in office will rival those felt by so many Americans back in January after his first hour on the job.
Whenever Dick Cheney grants one of his throaty interviews to FOX News, my mind jumps instantly to Frank Capra's iconic film "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946). While some vice presidents fade into obscurity and others become presidents, Cheney has chosen to revive Lionel Barrymore's legendary performance as Old Man Potter. So far, Cheney has been dead-on convincing.
Cheney's most recent performance was acted out on the Sean Hannity show, where he warned of the grave dangers that would be visited on America as a result of President Obama's diplomatic style abroad and his release of the so-called "torture memos" at home.
Watching that interview is like watching out takes from Frank Capra's vault. The similarity is eerie.
Of course, Henry F. Potter never talked about torture and totalitarianism in "It's A Wonderful Life." Even though the violence of war enters periodically into the narrated cross-fades, Capra's tale of George Bailey is almost entirely about the 20th-Century struggle between two kinds of economics in America. In one corner is George Bailey (James Stewart), owner of the town savings and loan that enables working Americans to pick themselves up by their bootstraps, buy homes, and otherwise escape the financial tar pit of the company town. In the other corner is Potter, who owns everything else and seeks to use his financial power to keep the townsfolk in debt and underfoot.
Despite the clash of economic philosophies in the film, the real power of "It's A Wonderful Life" is in the morality play it stages between bright-eyed, suburban optimism and sulfurous, factory-town pessimism. This exchange between George Baily and his father about Potter early in the film sums up which side Capra wants us all to take in this epic struggle:
GEORGE I'm going to miss you, too, Pop. What's the matter? You look tired.
POP Oh, I had another tussle with Potter today.
GEORGE Oh . . .
POP I thought when we put him on the Board of Directors, he'd ease up on us a little bit.
GEORGE I wonder what's eating that old money-grubbing buzzard anyway?
POP Oh, he's a sick man. Frustrated and sick. Sick in his mind, sick in his soul, if he has one. Hates everybody that has anything that he can't have. Hates us mostly, I guess. (link)
George and his father tell the audience that the struggle is not just between a rich industrialist and a family savings and loan, but between those who love American optimism and those who hate it.
By the end of the film, Potter, of course, loses the battle. Along the way, however, something extraordinary happens: every single character in the film migrates over to George Bailey's optimistic, American individualism, except Old Man Potter. Cops, misers, soldiers, cabdrivers, old, young, married, and single--even God ends up siding with George Bailey's version of the American dream. Everyone rallies to George's side, everyone chooses optimism over pessimism, everyone breaks free of company town greed, invests in a community of home owners, and celebrates civic pride. Everyone bathes in the optimism except one person: Old Man Potter. "Happy New Year--in jail!" Potter grouses at an ecstatic George Baily who finally understands the joy of his own life. "Go on home, they're waiting for you!"
Rather than joining the new age, Potter retreats and retrenches his belief that misery prevails when optimism fails. Hence, preemptive gloom is the true voice of wisdom. While George Baily and his friends toast their friendship and the promise of a hopeful future, Old Man Potter stays at the office, presumably carrying on his dark satanic grumblings despite the explosion of personal triumph that engulfs the yuletide Bedford Falls. There is neither joy nor Christmas for the factory baron who never believed the people were anything but a mob of dreamers to be manipulated by fear and squeezed for profit. At least Dickens' Ebeneezer Scrooge gets some reprieve at the end of his tale. Not so for Potter. He ends "It's a Wonderful Life" more angry and crabby than he began.
The theatrical grumpiness injected into American political debate by Dick Cheney is startlingly similar to the onscreen misery generated by Capra's unrepentant villain.
Like Potter and all his nay saying about small loans, Cheney's doomsday soothsaying has little to do with foreign policy, diplomacy, torture or anything else one might be tempted to describe as "expertise" or "issues." Cheney is simply America's Old Man Potter, grumpiness transposed from the black-and-white backrooms of Bedford Falls to the interview chair of FOX News.
Similar to Potter, Cheney's political crankiness seems fused with his physical demeanor evermore in each public appearance. And like Potter, the more crumpled, blanketed, zimmer-framed and wiry-haired Cheney becomes, the more the public revels in rooting against him.
Therein lies the paradox of Potter's role in the film and Cheney's role as former VP. Nobody wants or thinks for even a second that this new-old antagonist of American optimism will win out in the end--but along the way, there is a certain pleasure in watching the Old Man Potter and Old Man Cheney fail again and again and again.
At first glance, in other words, it may seem that people like Sean Hannity are just promoting the political views of Old Man Cheney to advance their broader interest in conservative politics. In reality, the Sean Hannity's of the world prop Cheney on stage with little more in mind than cashing in on the fight.
Sean Hannity, and by extension the production team at FOX News, does not believe that Americans by the millions will suddenly abandon their optimism and flock to the doom-and-gloom of Dick Cheney. Instead, he believes he can cash in on the morality play of the moment by pushing Cheney back onto the stage, subsequently churning as many viewers and as much ad revenue as he can from all the trouncing Cheney receives.
In the end, then, Sean Hannity's interview with Dick Cheney serves as a kind of Tom Stoppard rendition of "It's a Wonderful Life" that might take place after the lights came up and the audience left the theater. Once the town rallies to George Bailey's side and sets out to build 1950s suburban utopia, a few young entrepreneurs hatch a plan to profit from the grumpy image of Old Man Potter. "It would be easy," the loudest among they might say in an Australian accent (hypothetically). 'All we need to do is roll the old goat on stage, egg him on with a few lines about the dreamers in the new administration, and then make sure the cameras are rolling when he starts carping.'
It's a wonderful life, alright. And Old Man Cheney is here to stay.
If the rash of 'Tea Party' protests planned for Tax Day 2009 is any indication, the Right Wing in American politics may finally abandon all pretense at what Barry Goldwater once called the "conscience of a conservative." Instead of that lofty, albeit tattered ambition, the Right Wing of 2009 is rapidly embracing a wild-eyed, media manipulated, and self-destructive "conspiracy theory conservatism."
If I were a Republican leader, I would be very worried about this change. Should it come to pass that conspiracy theory conservatism wins out once and for good over Goldwater conservatism, the Republican Party will be doomed, broken, kaput.
The shift to conspiracy theory Conservatism is not hard to spot, even if a ready description has only just begun to rise through the din of the 24/7 news chatter.
Conspiracy theories of politics are not new. Writing in 1945, philosopher Karl Popper once described the "conspiracy theory of society" problem this way:
It is the view that an explanation of a social phenomenon consists in the discovery of the men or groups who are interested in the occurrence of this phenomenon (sometimes it is a hidden interest which has first to be revealed), and who have planned and conspired to bring it about (The Open Society and Its Enemies, p. 104)
Popper bends over backwards to acknowledge that conspiracies do in fact exist--such is the nature of power and society. But his point is that the explanation for crises are rarely, if ever, as simple as "this powerful individual or group plotted in secret, fooled everyone, are the sole cause of this disaster." What we may see as conspiracies, are always the product of many and various social forces unfolding despite what individuals plan and plot. Even a plot as seemingly conspiratorial as Bernie Madoff's fraud scheme could not have been carried off were it not for the willful ignorance of those investors who placed 100% of their trust in a single fund that produced impossible returns year after year, contrary to market trends and common sense.
Conspiracy theories of society, in other words, are not unique to the Right, Left or any place in between. Wherever there are simplistic theories of a crisis that blame hidden groups and secret plots, conspiracy theory abounds.
Unfortunately for the Republican Party, conspiracy theories started to grow apace amongst the Right Wing faithful during the 2008 Presidential election. From 2007 to 2008, the Right Wing media pressed the following theories relentlessly:
Barack Obama says he is a Christian, but he is really a Muslim working with a secret group to fool the public and take over the American government.
Barack Obama says he is a capitalist, but he is really a socialist working with a secret group to fool the public and take over the American government.
Barack Obama says he is American, but he is really a foreigner working with a secret group to fool the public and take over the American government.
These accusations--repeated endlessly on cable TV and radio-- gave rise to conspiracy theory conservatism in the election aimed less at rallying voters to support the Republican ticket and more at shining a light on these supposed secret plots by Muslim, socialist, and foreign cabals. Whether or not politicians and media figures exploited Right-Wing conspiracy theory conservatism during the election for votes or profit, when the election was over these theories survived unchecked in the minds of millions of Americans.
Why so many Americans believe theories based on the existence of secret plots and never-before-seen groups is not entirely clear. There have been famous conspiracies in political history (Italy's mind-boggling Propaganda Due scandal comes to mind), but even when these plots come to light, the tales of their power and design are far more fantastical than anything that actually happened.
What makes some people more susceptible to conspiracy theory than others? I am not psychologist, but I am sure there are many causes: fear, ignorance, sudden loss of a sense of power of control.
Ultimately, to believe in a conspiracy theory requires a kind of mindset that views the world that can actually be seen, touched, and described as just an illusion--a veil. Those susceptible to conspiracy theory are willing to believe that the "real" world--the world where real political and economic power is exercised and real consequences are set in motion--is entirely hidden from us on an everyday basis. Once we believe that these all powerful forces exist in secret, the work of bringing them to light becomes an endless pursuit of justice on which the future depends. Conspiracy theorists, in other words, are deadly serious and they believe--they really believe--that unless the hidden conspirators are brought out into the full light of day, the consequences will be dire and far reaching.
When the economy dropped, the conditions for growth in the conspiracy theory adherents became optimal.
Here was a crisis with vast causes that seemed ready made for simplistic explanations. The stock market dropped, unemployment rose, and--conspiracy theory conservatism took off.
Even before the 'Tea Parties' took shape, Right-Wing media had reached back to the conspiracy theory with the broadest support from the 2008 election: the theory that Barack Obama was secretly working in the interest of a well-concealed socialist movement.
For weeks on end, the leadership of the Republican Party, together with key figures in Right-Wing radio and cable TV pushed the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama--and everyone who supported him--was a secret socialist. In other words, every other socialist revolution in history was advanced by actual socialists who called themselves 'socialists' in public, but Barack Obama's socialist revolution was a conspiracy, a plot by socialists who dared not say the word. The only people using the word socialists, where the conspiracy theorist conservatives determined to cast light on the plot and stop it before it was too late.
When the Right Wing failed to bring any credible socialist cabal to light and President Obama passed recovery and reinvestment legislation with substantial public support, conspiracy theory conservatism pushed a new plot: Barack Obama's secret plan to impose totalitarianism.
Again, the idea that Obama worked for hidden forces with a plan to seize control of the government had its origins in the 2008 election, but this time the key media figure pushing the conspiracy theory infused the plot with a new source.
Picking up an old rumor that spread during the Bush administration about a series of 'secret FEMA prisons' to be set up on the pretense of deporting illegal immigrants, Beck began to repeat during live broadcasts on FOX News air that 'he could not disprove' President Obama plan to use the prisons to round up ordinary Americans.
Beck's conspiracy theory fused the conservative antipathy for environmental reforms with prior complaints about George W. Bush's anti-constitutional infractions into a grand theory of Barack Obama's hidden plan to use federal spending and seemingly innocent government programs to bring American democracy to an end.
Following Beck's on air theorizing, House Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)--who, during the 2008 election, had pushed the idea that Barack Obama answered to a secret anti-American cabal that had infiltrated Congress--advanced another theory of totalitarian conspiracy, claiming that a federal program to train inner-city kids to weatherize windows was actually a secret plot to turn American citizens into a totalitarian vanguard, using gulag-style "re-education programs" to eliminate by force all dissent from liberal ideology.
When the 'Tax Party' movement finally broke through the surface of media coverage, the essentially Libertarian idea had already begun to fuse with conspiracy theory conservatism.
Where Libertarians had previously argued against the constitutionality of federal taxes--using dubious, albeit historical, arguments inspired by the campaign former Presidential candidate Ron Paul--Republicans who flocked to the 'tea party' movement arrived with conspiracy theories in tow.
By the time this video was recorded this past week, the 'Tea Party' movement had been taken over by the conspiracy theory conservatives, such that it was no longer just about cutting taxes, but had become a Glenn Beck inspired crusade to bring a series of secret cabals to light before they crushed the Republic:
It may seem pathetic at first to watch a man exhort a room of strangers to stop a secret Liberal cabal before it destroys the country--but the real problem displayed in the video goes far beyond one person and one theory.
Conspiracy theory conservatism has rapidly become the dominant modus operandi of the most vocal and most motivated Republican activists. Five years ago, when Democratic Party activists felt the same sense of crisis after catastrophic loss at the polls, the grassroots rallied to on-line organizing and generated a far-reaching discussion about how to win elections. Now that the Republican Party has suffered a similar defeat, Right Wing activists are gathering in bars and sounding the alarm over secret plots and the threat of covert dual identities amongst our highest-profile national leaders.
The danger for the Republican Party is not that these theories will be disproved or that the flamboyant adherents of conspiracy theory conservatism will garner even more unflattering media attention than they already have. The problem is that conspiracy theory conservatism might be the first new habit strong enough to displace the old 'conscience of a conservative' Goldwater ways.
Goldwater conservatism thrived in a world dominated by larger-than-life Republican leaders--Western senators and governors--and a party structure that could control the movement by controlling the purse-strings and the message. That world is quickly fading. The new world in which conspiracy theory conservatism thrives consists of snap organizing, small donors, on-line activism, and Right-Wing media figures capable of pushing political debate with stunts verging on political burlesque.
If the old Right-Wing icons were Goldwater, Reagan, and Bush, the new icons are Limbaugh, Beck, and Hannity. If the old Right-Wing "conscience" was that human nature is part economic and part spiritual, the new "conscience" is that government is a vast secret plot that Liberals use to defraud the public. If the old Right-Wing message was 'low taxes, small government, strong military,' the new message is 'A storm is gathering! Beware of Socialism! Wake up before it's too late!'
In short, Goldwater conservatism was the stuff of books and campaigns that inspired a generation to see themselves as the leaders of a movement that could change America. And that generation did, for better or worse, change America. Conspiracy theory conservatism, by contrast, is the stuff of YouTube and prime-time blooper segments that could inspire a generation to shake their heads and mutter,"Yikes," then devote themselves to avoiding public life at all costs for fear of ridicule.
Who will pull the party out of this conspiracy theory tailspin? It certainly will not be John McCain, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, or Bobby Jindal. Each heir apparent to the Republican crown have all chosen to dabble in conspiracy theory conservatism rather than actively work against its growth.
More likely, there will be a split in the Republican Party that will begin to take shape this year, and give rise to new leadership--possibly even a new splinter party movement--by the 2010 elections. Everyone who thinks they can leverage the conspiracy theory conservatives to win elections will stay with the old guard. Those who see the conspiracy theory conservatives as a toxic influence will go their separate ways.
The big winners in all this? It will not be the Republican Party--either of them. The winners will be the Becks and Limbaughs of Right-Wing media. The more conspiracy theory conservatism abounds, the more listeners will stay glued to their radios and TVs, eager to stay abreast of the latest clarion calls that the end is neigh and the conspirators, as always, are well concealed.
