Question: Who is crazier?
(a) Sarah Palin, for
embracing the fanatical, loony conspiracy theory that Pres. Obama is organizing "death panels" to come to kill her infant son, or
(b) Lou Dobbs, for embracing the fanatical, loony conspiracy theory that Pres. Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States of America.
Answer: They are both equally crazy.
Next question: People who believe the Dobbs conspiracy are said to be "birthers." What do we call people who believe Palin's conspiracy theory?
Answer: "Deathers."
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On July 28, Christopher Beam coined the term "deathers" in an article at slate.com.
First came the "birthers." Now, as President Obama makes a final push for health care reform, we have the deathers.
A few days after Beam's article, Rachel Maddow picked up on the term, crediting Beam:
MADDOW: Now, you know about the conspiracy theory that the president secretly isn’t really the president because he’s secretly foreign. Those conspiracists are called birthers, right? Well, Christopher Beam at Slate.com has christened the health care-reform-as-a-secret-plot-to-kill- old-people conspiracists as the "deathers," which is sort of brilliant.
The deathers’ theory is being advanced not only by far-right advocacy groups, like the Family Research Council. It’s also being advanced in Congress by Republicans, like Virginia Foxx of North Carolina.
Beam and Maddow both focused on "deather" fear-mongering targeting seniors, but the term "deathers" applies equally well to Sarah Palin's fear-mongering about her infant son.
Indeed, much of the disinformation about health care reform centers around the idea that reforming the for-profit health insurance system will actually kill people of all ages.
Like the "birther" movement, the "deather" movement depends on a combination of gullibility and willful dishonesty, and as with the "birthers," it will take a sustained counter-offensive to debunk the "deathers."
One of the reasons that "birthers" have effectively debunked (outside the strange world of the Republican Party and southern white conservatives) is that they have a name.
Fortunately, thanks to Christopher Beam and Rachel Maddow, there is a name for those who believe President Obama is developing a health care reform plan designed to kill them: "deathers." It's a very useful term for referencing the complete and utter nonsense and lies being spewed by wingnuts about health care reform, and we ought to start using it whenever possible.