Every once in a while (every three years or so, I think)--I get break on the Michele Bachmann story I've been covering since 2003.
You see, my take on the Bachmann career is not part of the "news narrative" that you get on cable broadcasting and the print media. My take on the Bachmann career is that MB is the protege of a nationally organized political evangelical movment--a discrete (that means distinct/particular) part of the American "religious right." My view has been that Bachmann has been guided by and promoted by representatives of a discrete political elite that effectively writes the agenda for America's conservative evangelical voters.
My theory (which I refer to as "my theory") is a remarkably unpopular way of interpreting the "meaning" of Michele Bachmann's career. But this week, I got a break. (CONTINUED)
The particular group I am referring to has the John Birch Society as a political and spiritual ancestor. Like the Birch Society, it is "conspiracy haunted"--understanding the world and history via rejection of post Enlightenment standards for knowledge. Like the Birch Society, it proceeds via stealth, often working through "front groups."
Unlike the John Birch Society, this group (the one that mentors Bachmann) has managed co-opt an enormous share of evangelical Christianity in America--and uses that as a "front group" for promoting its extremist and irrational worldview and politics.
BarbinMD, a Kos front pager that I always try to read, did a piece on an article that appears in Newsweek. (BarbinMD's piece was on the front page, it's entitled "A Conservative Spits Out His Tea.")
The Newsweek article ("Black Helicopters over Nashville") is by a self-identified conservative who attended the big Nashville tea party convention, and described what he saw and who he talked to... Here is his conclusion about the tea party movement:
...the 18th-century getups mask something disturbing. After I spent the weekend at the Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tenn., it has become clear to me that the movement is dominated by people whose vision of the government is conspiratorial and dangerously detached from reality. It's more John Birch than John Adams.
The article continues in that vein. Bachmann's name appears nowhere in the piece. So why is this a "big break" for a guy who has been writing about Bachmann and the nature of the movement backing her since 2003?
Well, the toughest job that I have had over the past seven years, is the job of convincing readers (and fellow contributors to blogs such as this one) that "my theory" is correct. Here is that theory again:
My view has been that Bachmann has been guided by and promoted by representatives of a discrete political elite that write the agenda for America's conservative evangelical voters.
The discrete group I am referring to has the John Birch Society as a political and spiritual ancestor. Like the Birch Society, it is "conspiracy haunted"--understanding the world and history via rejection of post Enlightenment standards for knowledge.
There's more to it than that, and I address the theory and the considerable evidence I've found for it in my comic book political biography of Bachmann (called "False Witness.") But we don't have to go into all the details and evidence here, it's in the comic book and in various blog articles and newspaper columns I've published over the past seven years.
People don't want to accept this theory as a fact, because it hasn't appeared as part of the standard narrative on conservatism and the GOP. Everyone knows about the "religious right," and for years you've read articles here critical of "movement conservatism," remarks about the "Rethugs", etc. But there's been almost no focus on a extremist clique that's responsible for so much of bizarre worldview that liberals and progressives consider hateful and irrational.
One of my detractors recently described "my theory" of Michele Bachmann and her political sponsors as "Grand Bachmann Theory," and it's not entirely unfair to describe it that way. I hold that you do not understand the significance of this politician if you simply dismiss her as a fringe nut and hater, unworthy of regular coverage. She is far more than that--she is the current figurehead for a very important, distinct political lobby that operates within the religious right and the Republican Party--a particular and distinct political machine so powerful that it can even make (John McCain) or break (Rudy Giuliani) Republican presidential candidacies.
In districts where evangelical voters form an important part of the electorate, this particular political machine can influence local and state elections. It has its own media, controls its own GOTV organizations. It amounts to a third political party in the USA, with electoral influence rivaling that of the Democratic and Republican parties--yet very few people outside this political machine know its name. (The name, by the way, is the Council for National Policy.)
It is not a "fringe" movement. The power brokers in this political machine have effective control of enormous amounts of money and have a say at the policy table in the GOP. Thus, it has a daily influence on the politics of the United States of America. Its worldview can be described as "fringe," in that it has fused a global and domestic conspiracy theory of history with a school of evangelical theology and Christianity. It rejects post-Enlightenment standards for knowledge where these conflict with its own worldview--science, historical experience, knowledge obtained via academic scholarship, etc. are viewed by this movement as "second-rate" at best and at worst "deceptions fostered by the Devil."
But even if its worldview is dismissed by educated people around the world as "fringe"-- it is not a "fringe movement." It is a heartland movement, reflecting the beliefs of millions of American voters, and it has become a key force in American politics. It is currently so powerful that it is poised to take over (in many districts) in event of an election fail by the Dems: because it exercises such an influence on the current GOP.
I was writing about this organization and its influence years before anyone had ever heard of "the tea party movement." The tea party movement (still portrayed as "populist" by major media) is in part a manifestation of this fusion of evangelical conservative politics and conspiracy paranoia fostered and organized by this movement. (I say "in part" because many of the rank-and-file in teabagging circles are unaware that their own views are influenced and propagated by the discrete particular movment I've been writing about. And I think it's probably true that most rank-and-file evangelical conservative voters are unaware that their own views are influenced by this particular political machine--the political machine that puffs Bachmann in evangelical broadcast media, and has been doing so since about 2000.)
It's only recently that books have begun to appear about this political machine and its history, strategy, and tactics. It's mentioned in passing in Neil Blumenthal's "Republican Armageddon" and Michele Goldberg's "Kingdom Coming," both of which have appeared in the past few years. (It isn't mentioned at all in another good book about the religious right--"The Family." That's unfortunate--it's kind of like writing a book about "organized crime" and leaving out "the Mafia.")
But this is the powerful national political movement--underreported to the point of absurdity--that spawned Michele Bachmann. And the existence of this movement and the underreporting of the story, are a key reason why it's worth doing updates on the career trajectory of this particular demagogue.
The important break here is that the Newsweek article represents an example of corporate media starting to put pieces together, decades later. Bachmann is of course one of the "teabagger queens"--an icon like Palin. She had been scheduled to speak at the very event described in the Newsweek article. Her cancellation led to a number of news articles describing tea partiers' disappointment. The tea partiers, with their John Birch Society-like conspiracy theories--recognize Bachmann as "one of them."
So it is a "break" for me, when Newsweek publishes an article describing a movement that embraces Bachmann as bunch of conspiracy peddling nuts. That's more evidence for my "Grand Bachmann Theory." Newsweek points out that the tea party movement is dominated by conspiracy kooks:
This world view's modern-day prophets include Texas radio host Alex Jones, whose documentary, The Obama Deception, claims Obama's candidacy was a plot by the leaders of the New World Order to "con the Amercican people into accepting global slavery"; Christian evangelist Pat Robertson; and the rightward strain of the aforementioned "9/11 Truth" movement. According to this dark vision, America's 21st-century traumas signal the coming of a great political cataclysm, in which a false prophet such as Barack Obama will upend American sovereignty and render the country into a godless, one-world socialist dictatorship run by the United Nations from its offices in Manhattan.
And Bachmann is acknowledged as an icon of the same irrational movement; for example, this year the aforementioned Pat Robertson ran puff pieces on her on his television program.
Reporters and editors already familiar with Bachmann's extremist smears can "make the leap," and see that this crazy, conspiratorial politics is her politics--an important leap to make, now that the irrational is enthroned in the GOP.
Forty five years after William F. Buckley dismissed the John Birch Society from the conservative movement because it represented "a psychosis of conspiracy," the global and domestic conspiracy theorists are back with a vengeance to dominate the GOP and its program. Instead of being consigned to the irrational margins of American political life by the parties and media: they are organized by an elite as a political force, they turn up, they rally, they receive sweetheart coverage in news media as "grassroots" American political activists. And Michele Bachmann is one of their most prominent figureheads, and exercises an influence on party policy.
The Newsweek article, identifying the tea party movement that worships Bachmann as a bunch of conspiracy nuts--represents the tiny little break that I get, every few years, as a proponent of "the Grand Bachmann Theory."
I'm grateful for any break I can get. The last break I got was some time ago, when Keith Olbermann started running pieces on Bachmann's craziest statements on air. That put Bachmann on the national radar of Americans who think that demagogues doing insane smears of fellow Americans should be identified to the public. Prior to that, we'd been blogging about the fact that Bachmann was a nut, liar and bigot here in Minnesota. Prior to Olbermann and other broadcasters identifying Bachmann as some kind of conspiracy nut, we'd been sending evidence in the form of Bachmann quotes to local newspapers concerning her conspiracy theories--but they spiked it.
I don't know if the author's take on the tea party movement as "wacky conspiracy theorists" will catch on with the voters and other media. If it does, there's the bare possibility that it might make a difference in the next election here in Minnesota. Minnesota editors and reporters who understand it could ask her questions about where (if anywhere) her views differ from those of the one identified in the Newsweek article as "nuts." Just asking those questions would call attention to the fact of Bachmann's crazy worldview. It might stop her from becoming Senator or Governor or appearing on a White House ticket.
On the other hand: nothing may come of the observations in Newsweek. The reporting on the mindset of the teabaggers may have "no legs;" the meme may continue to circulate that the teabaggers are "grassroots," "populist." They're not, but the movement that guides them has an interest in preserving that meme.
The really big break I hope for may never come at all. That is when the most influential media in the country begin to report the degree of influence that the Council for National Policy have on the Republican Party, American policy, and mentoring the careers and prospects of their protege candidates. Bachmann is a "textbook example" illustrating that untold story, demonstrating how it works. If the story is ever told and becomes a part of the American political narrative--voters will realize that an irrational and even supernatural conspiracy worldview is now shaping their fate.
Read the whole Newsweek article ("Black Helicopters Over Nashville," love that headline) here:
http://www.newsweek.com/...