Frank Rich:The Rage Won’t End on Election Day

[cal04]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/opinion/17rich.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

CARL Paladino began his New York gubernatorial campaign by bragging he’d “clean out Albany with a baseball bat.” When an ally likened his main Albany target, the (Jewish) leader of the State Assembly, to “an antichrist or Hitler,” he enthusiastically endorsed the slur. We also learned of Paladino’s repertory of gag e-mails — among them a pornographic picture of a woman having sex with a horse and a photo of an African tribal ritual captioned “Obama Inauguration Rehearsal.” How blind we were not to recognize that his victory in a Republican primary under the proud Tea Party banner was inevitable.

A week ago New Yorkers were presented with a vivid reminder of how a bat can be used as a weapon. A pack of young thugs was charged with torturing three men in the Bronx for being gay, one of whom, The Times reported, was sodomized with “a small baseball bat.”

(snip)
Paladino’s fanning of Islamophobia was common among his national political brethren this summer. Equally common was the violence against Muslims and mosques that ensued, whether in Tennessee, Texas or California. Paladino’s antediluvian brand of homophobia is also making a comeback, from O’Donnell, who has called homosexuality an “identity disorder,” to Carly Fiorina, the Senate candidate in California whose campaign is allied with the National Organization for Marriage, notorious for its fear-mongering horror-movie ads portraying same-sex marriage as the apocalypse. Two weeks ago, Jim DeMint, the South Carolina senator who serves as the G.O.P.’s Tea Party kingmaker, reiterated his desire to ban openly gay schoolteachers. Michele Bachmann, Tea Party doyenne of the House, refused to condemn Paladino’s homophobia when asked about it last week on the “Today” show. As Stephen Colbert observed last week, after the G.O.P. repudiated a Congressional candidate in Ohio for wearing an SS uniform, the only line you can’t cross as a Republican is dressing as a Nazi. (Though, as Colbert added, “dressing the president as a Nazi” is O.K.)

(snip)
Don’t expect the extremism and violence in our politics to subside magically after Election Day — no matter what the results. If Tea Party candidates triumph, they’ll be emboldened. If they lose, the anger and bitterness will grow. The only development that can change this equation is a decisive rescue from our prolonged economic crisis. Not for the first time in history — and not just American history — fear itself is at the root of a rabid outbreak of populist rage against government, minorities and conspiratorial “elites.”

[G_j]

1. K&R