It Seems Paranoia Makes People Ideological and Stupid

I was busy over the weekend so I missed this little bit of craziness.  Had I found the Allen* West piece sooner, I would have added it to this post about being ideological and stupid.

Sixty years ago, Joe McCarthy claimed to have the numbers of Communists seeking to destroy American from within:

"I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five [people] that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department."

Then there was Michele Bachmann, who found people holding un-American ideas in Congress.  The State Department was being run by members of her party at the time.

She wasn't a purist; however, she didn't offer a number.  Allen* West apparently has done what the media apparently did not.  He has investigated and knows how many members of Congress are un-American Marxists.

I suspect both West and Bachmann have used paraphrased this McCarthy line more often than they have found a true Communist in Congress.

"You are seeing today an all out attempt to marshal the forces of the opposition, using not merely the communists, or their fellow travelers-the deluded liberals, the eggheads, and some of my good friends in both the Democratic and Republican Parties who can become heros over night in the eyes of the left-wing press if they will just join with the jackal pack"

*I was apparently trying too hard to make a connection between McCarthy and West.  The original version of the post identified Allen West as Joe West

Things That Make People Do Stupid Stuff: Ideological Political Partisans Edition

Conor Friedersdorf provides the claim, data, and warrant.  First, the Republicans,

The fact is that ideological voters are easy to manipulate. Think of the last presidential election. Conservatives had been complaining about John McCain for years. What did it take for them to rally around the Arizona senator? A vice-presidential pick and the perception that the media was attacking her unfairly. This makes no logical sense. The media's treatment of Sarah Palin had no bearing on whether or not McCain would be a good president, or sufficiently better than Obama to justify conservatives going out to the polls for him despite their misgivings and the signal it sent about the future -- that the base is always going to rally around the Republican in the end.

He points out that Democrats are not immune from ideological stupidity.

Meanwhile, President Obama will have no problem rallying progressives, despite his atrocious record of broken promises on civil liberties and executive power, because, well, "the war on women!" Candidates hoping to win over progressives won't feel the need to keep promises on those issues in the future either. Why would they? There's always some way to remind them about their hatred of Republicans and all the very scary things that they'll do if they're given power.

He concludes,

It's no wonder that ideologues on the left and right are so routinely betrayed in the end. They're easily distracted from core issues, deeply invested in symbolic fights, and always fall in line.

Friedersdorf's analysis is spot on.  The sad fact is that most voters won't consider themselves either ideologues or easily manipulated, so local, state, and national elections will continue to have silly debates that  rank the ability to screech about one's ability to meet silly litmus tests over one's ability to effectively lead or legislate.