The Glorious Grassroots Conservative Comeback

Charles Johnson, who has launched a jihad against anyone not capitulating to his own ideological supremacism, linked the British blog Harry's Place the other day. Note this quote there, from a post entitled, "Out of Power, Going Bonkers":

Demoralised by defeat, the moderates appear to have utterly lost control of their movement, which has become a caricature of its worst aspects: delivering up a cocktail of vicious preoccupations, from an extreme position on abortion, through to support for creationism, and right up to the promotion of racist fears.

The only thing arguably agreeable here is "demoralized." Yeah, it's a bummer losing, but dejection was temporary; and it doesn't follow that this year's grassroots mobilization against the Obamanation is automatically unhinged and racist.

What's interesting to me is that now that the GOP's out of power, folks like Charles Johnson and his newfound allies on the left are excoriating conservatives for the very same grassroots activism that helped bring the Democrats to power in 2006 and 2008. Indeed, Little Green Footballs was the go-to site for the latest inside scoops on radical left-wing extremism. Now, of course, Johnson's been permanently revealed as a "smear merchant who traffics in half-truths, distortions, and outright lies, and whose testimony on any particular point is not to be trusted."

Note, though, that as totally unhinged as Johnson is, his views are echoed by purportedly mainstream conservative commentators. Check out David Frum's essay yesterday, for example, "Scorched Earth Conservatives." The post is a response to David Horowitz at FrontPage Magazine, and Frum argues that "the conservative intellectual movement has become subservient to the political entertainment complex." Frum is particularly incensed by Glenn Beck's ascendancy, but Frum has had Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin in the gunsights all year; and he lumps all those heavy-hitters together to allege that they are " inviting the Ron Paul contingent to take over as the new base and face of conservatism and Republicanism."

This is so patently stupid it obviously strains credibility. Indeed, the big deal last week was the potential feud between Beck and Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin has frankly emerged as the most prominent advocate for the U.S. military on the political right today (see, "Remembering 9/11: We Are Americans"). Ron Paul's hardly a Palin ally.

What we're seeing on the left - and the Charles Johnson/David Frum condominium is fundamentallly a left-wing project - is fear and horror that conservatives are making a comeback. And what's also interesting is that the right's unapologetic partisan pugilism isn't really new at all.

Folks might take a look at Ronald Brownstein's book from last year, The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. Brownstein's introduction compares former House Minority Leader Tom Delay to Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. Under Delay, GOP partisanship was no less sharp and uncompromising that what we're seeing in today's tea party movement and anti-ObamaCare activism:

DeLay operated with a broad vision and a precise attention to detail. he worked relentlessly to tighten the links between the Republican majority and the business community by providing the latter greater access and ability to influence legislation, but he also pressured them to tilt their pollitical contributions more toward the GOP, and to hire more Republicans as lobbyists. Inside the House, his principled priority was to maximize Republican unity and minimize opportunities for Democratic influence. Delay's overriding goal was to advance the most conservative agenda possible in a manner that framed the differences between the parties as sharply as possible. He did not fear passing legislation on razor-thin party-line votes; indeed, it often appeared that he preferred bills the pushed to the right so far that they attracted only the bare minimum of votes required to pass. Anything less meant legislation conceded too much to those resisting the conservatives agenda, not only Democrats but moderate Republicans. He was a meat cutter who prided himself in his ability to slice closer to the bone than anyone else.

DeLay succeeded to a remarkable extent in imposing his vision. Even though House Republicans operated with a narrow margin of majority throughout DeLay's years in the leadership, they moved their agenda through the institution much more smoothly than Democrats had with larger margins in the years before the GOP takeover. DeLay was so central to those efforts, he earned the nickname "the Hammer" for his ability to nail down winning coalitions. [Emphasis added.]

While Brownstein decries the "polarization," it's the case that an aggressive agenda against Democratic-socialism has long been in place on the hardline conservative right. And while the Johnson/Frum types endlessly denounce alleged "extremism" and "racism," the truth is that the grassroots right is winning the debate. As Matt Lewis noted Tuesday, "From ACORN to Van Jones, the Online Rightroots Flexes Its Muscles." Plus, see Lawrence Kudlow, "Hey, Conservatives, We're Recovering." And recall from Peter Ferrara's earlier article, "2010":

Next year's elections are going to produce a political earthquake. That is because we currently suffer the most left-wing government in our nation's history. After just 6 months in office, the flower children that rule Washington in overwhelming numbers are already smashing through all records regarding federal taxes, spending, deficits, and debt. Obama and his ultra-left Democrats adopted a so-called stimulus bill raising spending a trillion dollars that never had a prayer of actually creating jobs and promoting long-term economic growth, because it was based entirely on old-fashioned, brain dead, proven to fail, Keynesian economics. Though we would have to double federal taxes to finance the entitlement promises we have already made, the ruling Washington Democrats completely ignore that and focus instead on adopting yet another entitlement -- national health insurance -- that would be the biggest of all ...

This is the political reality today, and the truth hurts. Charles Johnson's gone literally insane in his universal demonizations against anything outside the microscopic LGF wasteland. And David Frum's simply a quixotic figure and a travesty of any real past prominence he may have enjoyed. These folks - along with so many other confused souls who have joined them - don't have a lot of heavy firepower to defend the big-government juggernaut that's taken over D.C. They're left with crazed screams of "racism" to any and all opposition to Dear Leader Obama. See Mark Steyn for more on that, "Dislike Obama? You Must Be Racist."

Meanwhile, radical left historian Eric Alterman's keeping the race-baiting going at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress, "Think Again: Falling for the Far Right’s ACORN Agenda." Expect lots more of the same all though the remainder of this year and next.

We are in the midst of a glorious grassroots conservative comeback. The "moderate" conservatives have made common cause with the left's communist establishment to excoriate concerned citizens protesting for a return to limited goverment and political effectiveness. The real crazies in America are those at the center-left who've been hoodwinked by "Hope and Change" and are now implicated in the attempted radical takeover of the United States.