It’s not surprising that Matt Taibbi doesn’t care for Michele Bachmann’s politics, but I found it a little surprising (scary) that he takes her so seriously. In the new Rolling Stone, Taibbi discusses “Michele Bachmann’s Holy War”
… Bachmann’s entire political career has followed this exact same pattern of God-speaks-directly-to-me fundamentalism mixed with pathological, relentless, conscienceless lying. She’s not a liar in the traditional way of politicians, who tend to lie dully, usefully and (they hope) believably, often with the aim of courting competing demographics at the same time. That’s not what Bachmann’s thing is. Bachmann lies because she can’t help it, because it’s a built-in component of both her genetics and her ideology. She is at once the most entertaining and the most dangerous kind of liar, a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic, for whom lying to the infidel is a kind of holy duty…
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Images of Michele Bachmann squatting behind a bush or hiding from lesbians in a bathroom would seem to be punch lines of funny stories, but they are not. The real punch line is that rather than destroying her politically, these incidents helped propel her into Congress. In her first two races, in 2006 and 2008, she defeated experienced, credible opponents who failed to realize what they were dealing with until it was too late. Her 2006 win was an especially extraordinary testament to her electoral viability. In a terrible year for conservatives, with the death-spiraling Bush administration taking Republican seats down with them all over the country, Bachmann won a fairly independent district by an eight-point margin. In her runs for Congress, Bachmann discovered — or perhaps it is more accurate to say we all discovered — that a total absence of legislative accomplishment and a complete inability to tell the truth or even to identify objective reality are no longer hindrances to higher office…
__
Snickering readers in New York or Los Angeles might be tempted by all of this to conclude that Bachmann is uniquely crazy. But in fact, such tales by Bachmann work precisely because there are a great many people in America just like Bachmann, people who believe that God tells them what condiments to put on their hamburgers, who can’t tell the difference between Soviet Communism and a Stafford loan, but can certainly tell the difference between being mocked and being taken seriously. When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don’t learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you’re a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they’re even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies…
__
Here’s the difference between Bachmann and Palin: While Palin is clearly bored by the dreary, laborious aspects of campaigning and seems far more interested in gobbling up the ancillary benefits of reality-show celebrity, Bachmann is ruthlessly goal-oriented, a relentless worker who has the attention span to stay on message at all times. With a little imagination, you can even see a clear path for her to the nomination. Though she outraged Des Moines Republicans by blowing off a party dinner in late May, she had already visited the state four times this year and scored key endorsements there. Obamacare progenitor Mitt Romney has already half-conceded Iowa by dropping out of the straw poll there, leaving fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty as Bachmann’s main competition for the first big prize of the race…
__
Even other Republicans, it seems, are making the mistake of laughing at Bachmann. But consider this possibility: She wins Iowa, then swallows the Tea Party and Christian vote whole for the next 30 or 40 primaries while Romney and Pawlenty battle fiercely over who is the more “viable” boring-white-guy candidate. Then Wall Street blows up again — and it’s Barack Obama and a soaring unemployment rate versus a white, God-fearing mother of 28 from the heartland.
__
It could happen. Michele Bachmann has found the flaw in the American Death Star. She is a television camera’s dream, a threat to do or say something insane at any time, the ultimate reality-show protagonist. She has brilliantly piloted a media system that is incapable of averting its eyes from a story, riding that attention to an easy conquest of an overeducated cultural elite from both parties that is far too full of itself to understand the price of its contemptuous laughter. All of those people out there aren’t voting for Michele Bachmann. They’re voting against us. And to them, it turns out, we suck enough to make anyone a contender.
Click over and read the whole article, you won’t regret it. Speaking of “a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic”, I had not known that Bachmann’s ancestors were Norwegian (like Karl Rove’s). As my mostly Celtic ancestors could attest, it’s never a good idea to turn your back on the kind of people who would need a word for ‘berserker‘.
dr. bloor
There was a poll up at Great Orange Satan last night that had her at exactly 27% versus Obama in Tennessee. She’s hitting the Crazification Factor right on the nose.
Davis X. Machina
40% of the electorate will vote for whatever emerges from the GOP nominating process, even if it’s a bale of peat moss. The crazification factor is a floor, not a ceiling.
Such is team spirit.
JGabriel
Anne Laurie wins the thread before the first comment is posted.
.
driftglass
Taibbi discovers America — http://bit.ly/kzHTuc
Kirbster
I see her alma mater, Oral Roberts U, as the Christian Dominionist equivalent of a fundamentalist Islamic madrassa. I just hope that Matt Taibbi is wrong about Bachmann’s viability as a presidential candidate.
drkrick
Davis – Generally cosign, but the first President Bush managed to push that down to 35% in his run for reelection when the presence of Ross Perot gave those who wouldn’t vote Dem an alternative. A reminder of just how inept that campaign was – the economic conditions of 1991-92 would look like a miracle if we could get them now.
amk
Over the top taibi, who himself is no saint when it comes to trashing rednecks.
JonF
I wouldn’t take her seriously. She pushed for a pardon for a campaign contributor who was a drug smuggler.
JGabriel
amk:
Taibbi doesn’t excuse himself (from the section quoted at top):
.
alwhite
I am afraid Matt may be right. Batshit Bachmann is not stupid. She has tapped into that anger & persecution complex of the teabaggers and understands how to manipulate it quite well.
Living in MN I have seen her for years & seen too many people badly underestimate her because she is f’ing crazy. She really believes God has chosen her, yes REALLY believes that. But she is smart enough to understand that part of His plan (in her, what we shall call for lack of a better term, mind) is that she has to lie to the nonbelievers so as to trick them into doing His work. You see this behavior in those types all the time.
But make no mistake, she is as serious as a heart attack, 1000x smarter than Sarah Falin, ambitious as Caesar and a real threat to this country.
amk
@ JGabriel – And he continues to do the same with this piece. Never cared for his hyperbole. That crazy cat lady is never gonna be the prez.
TreeBeard
@amk
A lot of people said that about Dubya.
A lot of people voted for Palin to be one missed pulse away from presidency.
I wouldn’t flat out say “never”.
TFinSF
It would be nice if Taibbi could write about Bachmann’s perpetual lying without shoveling piles of his own bullshit about it being a “component of her genetics”.
Chris
He’s no saint when it comes to trashing conservative voters. I don’t hold that against him. He’s saying what’s patently obvious, but the mainstream media won’t say for fear of hurting their widdle fee-fees. I wouldn’t put him in charge of PR or outreach, but somebody needs to say it.
MattMinus
@TFinSF – Not familiar with the concept of a metaphor, are we?
bjacques
More female Greg Stillson. But nobody can get away with campaigning entierly within the Fox bubble. Under even the ordinary pressure of a campaign blessed by Very Serious People, she’ll freak out publicly one time too many. With the other sharks in the GOP tank, especially a Rove-enhanced Romney, that’s a near certainty.
They need someone who can bring in the “independents” on top of the hardcore crazies and Serial Mom Bachmann isn’t it.
Seanly
If Michele becomes the Republican candidate, I don’t think she could win. It is very hard to walk back crazy.
Vor
I agree with Alwhite, Bachmann is very serious and very committed. She will do all the hard work of campaigning which Sarah Palin will not. The Fundamentalists will vote for her because she is one of them, truly, deeply, authentically. The pitch to the big money boys is that she is a tax expert who wants to reform the nation’s finances. She will present as just a suburban mom, one of you, to low-information suburban voters. She will have her talking points down in debates, she will be prepared, and the low information voter will see her and wonder why the libs keep saying she is crazy.
Ed Rollins, who derided her as a joke in January, is now running her campaign. He will need to keep her in front of friendly, screened audiences and avoid surprise questions. George W. Bush proved you could run for President under those constraints.
The VP job is a possibility for a Romney type. It would appease the Tea Party, appease the Fundamentalists, and Bachmann could do the attack dog role in her sleep. And then, maybe God calls President Romney home early and in 2014 we have President Michele Bachmann.
stuckinred
Do folks think they will change the format of presidential debates to keep the kind of shit Palin pulled from happening again?
bryanD
I’m wondering what kind of occult reasoning keeps Obama from delivering a speech from behind his desk in the Oval Office instead of standing in a foyer like an elevator boy. Just curious. Does Barry not realize the power of relics or objets d’art displayed on shelves and desk? A model rocket ship to Mars, maybe?
It was also funny in the AfPak speech how Obama pronounced Pakistan “Pok-ee-stahn” like Apu, but pronounced Afghanistan “Aaf-gaaan-istaaan, man!” like David Crosby.
As for who could beat Obama on a half-way decent day in November? Everyone except Ghouliani, Santorum, Mister Newt, Emperor Cain, Trump, and Palin. Bachmann is especially dangerous as she will cut a bitch.
Mark B
A combination of the fervent support of her base combined with the voter suppression efforts enacted by a lot of state legislatures and the general disenchantment with Obama makes her more formidable than she has a right to be in the general election. She well-positioned for primary wins and I wouldn’t completely count her out in the general. I’m old enough to remember when Reagan was lightly regarded.
danno
Minor quibble with Tabi’s reporting: the 6th district is anything but independent. It’s far-and-away the most conservative district in Minnesota. It’s also considered one of the most Gerrymandered district in the country. It’s a long, narrow district that covers about 100 miles east to west and about 30 miles north to south. It somehow manages to cover a wealthy, urban/suburban population in the east and a rural, traditional Catholic and protestant Evangelical population in the northwest.
amk
@ bryanD – you left out kenyan muslin, you stupid.
jwb
It’s a great piece, but it’s curiously sucked into the Bachmann vortex. He analyzes her paranoia as the source of her batshit craziness but can’t help deploying paranoia to motor his own argument. Paranoia to counter paranoia—that can’t end well.
Chris
@ Mark B –
This.
The last time a Republican general election candidate was properly rewarded for being a right-wing nutjob was Goldwater in 1964 (even then, LBJ did better than he perhaps “had a right to.”) Since then, we’ve had Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. The law of steadily declining trends suggests Bachmann may have a perfectly good shot.
Lawnguylander
Paranoia to counter paranoia—that can’t end well.
Ha! I was thinking that certain kinds of people know how to push each other’s buttons and they’d like us all to freak out along with them. But no amount of professional or amateur punditry is going to make me take the bait. Bachmann is no threat to win the presidency. None at all. 2008 is not that long ago. Does anyone remember the phrase “these rats aren’t going to fuck themselves” and the demands for “bitch slap” campaign tactics from Obama? It’s going to be like that all through 2012, ramping up through the summer but whatever pair of tomato cans the Republicans nominate are going down hard.
El Cid
Whatever the electoral potential of a particular politician or figure, it’s not a good idea to have people of such crazy right wing batshit nature stirred up, including being stirred up more than others are already doing. Even if it would seem to guarantee an Obama victory. (You never know.)
TFinSF
@MattMinus
Yeah, I get the metaphor. I just don’t see any evidence for the premise that Bachmann’s lying is innate, rather than a conscious decision. It never ceases to amaze me how some people will reflexively lap up conspiracy theories if the CT appeals to them in some way that the real world does not. But what is the appeal to this one? Bachmann should not be held responsible for her lies because she can’t help but tell them? I’ll pass.
Tom
You watch the propaganda and whether it’s Bachmann or some other conservative pick of the moment, the outcome is the same. Distortion, lies, amnesia, endless repetition, what ever it takes to delude the masses the media uses. CNBC was selling reparation of corporate earnings back to the US as a panacea for all our problems. No one mentioned 2004, when the Republicans used this play and it basically gave the money away, marginal tax of 5% and no new jobs-other than building houses which turned out to be a scam.
Ben Cisco
No Moon To Keep Her Armour Bright
Perspecticus
“…but I found it a little surprising (scary) that he takes her so seriously.”
Taibbi is right to take her seriously and Romney marginalizes her at his own peril. My early money is definitely on Bachmann to win the nomination for exactly the type of thing Taibbi observes here:
“When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don’t learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you’re a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they’re even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies…”
I do not take her seriously enough to believe she can win the general election. However, when one weighs the fervency of her own supporters, the fervency of the Palin supporters who will easily transfer once it is clear Sister Sarah is not running, her fundraising abilities, her relative coherency and the fact that many people, including many among the pundocracy, believe she actually knows what she is talking about, she can possibly be quite formidable throughout the nominating process.
People who are anticipating a victory for Bachmann in Iowa and then a fall off of support may be quite suprised as to how this plays out.
Constance
I live in Nevada and recall reading the headlines one morning in November 1982 and asking, “Who the hell is Chic Hecht?” who had just beat Howard Cannon for U.S. Senate. I’m never confident that unknowns and crazies won’t win elections. For gawd’s sake, Sharron Angle took on Harry Reid and cost him a lot of money in the campaign. These are scary times.
kay
I’m tired of this particular lecture. I think it’s a stereotype of liberals, and I’ve been reading it (or a version of it) for 20 years. Arrogant coastal elites.Yawn.
I didn’t laugh at Michele Bachman when I read a transcript of her appearance on CNN a couple of months ago. I was appalled. She lies constantly and easily. She lied about a “slush fund” in the health care bill funding something like 9 times in 6 minutes. It was a very specific lie, and she was spouting it for a very specific and politically sophisticated reason.Nothing at all like “communist read cheese”, or whatever.
The potted plant who was interviewing her had no idea what she was talking about, so let her slide.
Maybe Taibbi should wag his finger at CNN, or MSNBC, or the rest of the media professionals, who think her constant, incessant, corrosive and carefully planned and executed lying is adorable and quirky and good tv, or are too lazy and uninformed to do ten minutes of research before she appears, and sit there smiling while she runs goddamned circles around them.
vtr
Accurately and honestly reporting on a phenomenon (Reagan, Tea Party, C. O’Donnell, Palin, Bachmann) is difficult to do. Especially while keeping it’s sway in perspective. People like Bachmann have enthusiastic supporters, and that makes me worry in the middle of the night. On the other hand, there are hockey fans in Honduras.
Observer
I don’t know if anyone really noticed but Taibbi just called most Democrats dicks. That should be the key takeaway from this article.
If you love Taibbi for being “honest” when he writes about stuff, well “dicks” is what an “honest” writer thinks of you folks collectively.
Mind you, it’s just a more direct way of saying the things Repubs always accuse Dems of being (out of touch elites, not mainstream american blah, blah, blah).
Perspecticus
“I don’t know if anyone really noticed but Taibbi just called most Democrats dicks. That should be the key takeaway from this article.”
No, no he didn’t. He said, when a person mocks an inaccuracy or lie as told by Ms. Bachmann, her supporters do not observe that she told an inaccuracy or a lie; they lash out at the individual pointing out the inaccuracy or lie and rally behind Ms. Bachmann.
Or, as Taibbi clearly, with what I thought was plain language that no one could misconstrue, said:
“What [Bachmann’s supporters] learn is that you’re a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they’re even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies”
Although, I’m thinking he might think you are a dick.
gnomedad
@kay:
I’m not sure the message here is that liberals need to tone it down; I suspect at least some of the crazy is designed to provoke solidarity and feed feelings of persecution and they will claim liberals are mocking them whether or not it’s true. What’s one more lie?
Ghanima Atreides
this:
And emergent scientific findings in red/blue genetics is going to make this all very much worse.
RWA (Rightwing Authoritarianism) and SDO (Social Dominance Order) are the reason the GOP is 99.9 percent white conservative christian.
This is not going to be pretty.
kay
People like Bachmann have enthusiastic supporters,
azlib
It is the economy stupid. If it improves going into 2012, Obama wins. If it tanks, the election is a crap shoot, regardless of how crazy the Republican nominee is.
kay
I’m not sure the message here is that liberals need to tone it down
Ghanima Atreides
@kay
you are not gettin’ it. Taibbi is dead-spot-on. There is a biological basis for conservatism, and that basis correlates with lower cognitive ability and higher religiosity. And the more we learn about this the more pissed off conservatives are going to get.
The conservative mantra is all men are created equal– all white men that is.
But men are not created equal under the genes…..or the memes. They believe it is conservatives’ RIGHT to believe in bad, stupid, crazy, illiberal memes– and to to impose those memes on out-group citizens, either as an evolving experiment or as risk management. That is the essence of both american libertarianism and conservativism.
Mattminus
@TFinSF- I don’t think taibbi is really looking for a causal explanation, or excusing her from responsibility. My read is that he’s just saying that the lying is something essential to her character.
He really strikes me as more a poet than an analyst, and as such shouldn’t be read to literally. He’s feeling the news at you.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
I keep warning people about Bachmann. When I consider taking a job with a candidate, I tally up how many achievements they have– stuff that indicates they are competent and hard-working. Bachman has tons more than people think.
1. A masters in Law from William and Mary. That’s a top-30 law school– it cancels out all the jokes about her J.D. from Anal Roberts Drive-Thru Legal School.
2. Five years with the IRS, including one promotion.
3. When she quit to become a full-time mom (during her fourth pregnancy), she opened a foster home that was licensed by the state as a treatment facility. In addition to her own kids, she was licensed to have as many as three foster kids.
4. They only took girls and only girls with eating disorders. She had more than 20 kids pass through before she stopped accepting kids, because she was going into politics.
5. In her first State Senate race, BAchmann beat an incumbent for the nomination and then won a three-way battle for the seat.
6. Two years later, when redistricting eliminated her seat, she beat another incumbent to stay in.
7. In her first congressional race (2006, for an open seat), Bachmann beat a woman who had run for the seat in 2004 and gotten 46%. This time, her opponent got 42%.
8. She’s won re-election twice, in two strongly-contested races.
Michele Bachmann is not Sarah Palin. In fact, she’s done considerably more than Geraldine Ferraro ever did. She has lost only one race (her very first campaign, for a local school board), and non of her races have been gimmes. She’s worked very hard in campaigns and she is very good at mudslinging.
She’s also done it without family money, unlike Mitt Romney or Jun Huntsman. At one point, she was being raised by a single mom.
Bachmann doesn’t have a criminal record, which isn’t something Mitch Daniels can say. And she is a considerably better public speaker than Tim Pawlenty (and, actually, all of the others).
Is she ignorant and crazy? Yes, but so are a lot of people who will be voting for the Republican nomination. Believing in ‘intelligent design’ won’t be a problem for her.
She also has a number of little things that could help, like working on a kibbutz in Israel (who else has actually lived there?) and supporting abortion for victims of rape, incest or life of the mother. There aren’t any messy divorces or sex scandals– no drug rumors or any illegal activity.
The correct response to Bachmann shouldn’t be scorn– it should be concern. She can win the nomination, and if Obama spends the next 18 months as “St. Barry the Bipartisan”, rolling back spending, cutting benefits and triangulating his heart out so he can keep his base discouraged, she can beat him.
As both Mark and Chris have said, I remember when the notion of Ronald Reagan winning the presidency was a joke– he was so extreme that none of the Very Serious People could imagine that he could win. But all it took was a stagnant economy and diplomatic and military setbacks in the Middle East (Afghanistan and Iran) to enable it.
Mark S.
Oh please. Michele Bachmann isn’t going to win the nomination, let alone the presidency. The only reason she isn’t a national laughingstock like Palin is that most people aren’t political junkies and don’t know who she is. If she actually started making a move, that would change very quickly.
And now I’ll return to fretting about Governor Goodhair.
kay
Oh, for God’s sake. I forgot this was your Big Theory.
I don’t agree with you. I don’t think she’s stupid. At all. I think media think she’s stupid, which is why they coddle and patronize her, and let her repeat lies over and over again. She arrives prepared with these lies. There’s a subtext to these lies.
The subtext to her health care lies (like the subtext to nearly all conservative health care lies) is Pelosi and Obama are taking money from YOU and giving it to THEM.
She’s using that to her advantage. She’s running circles around them.
daveNYC
At the rate the economy is going, the Republicans could nominate a can of SPAM and it’d have a chance of winning the presidency. I’d really prefer to not have to worry that it might be Bachman getting lucky with that.
And given the way the Iowa and New Hampshire Republican parties have been going, I don’t see any reason why she couldn’t win those two states and get some momentum going. Especially if Palin decides that getting paid to give speaches for Bachman is easier than scrounging for cash for a run herself.
Ghanima Atreides
@kay
This is true. But it is also true that the Bush Doctrine DEPENDS on muslim states buying into missionary democracy with freedom of speech.
As I have repeatedly explained, freedom of speech is incompatible with shariah law and therefore incompatible with Islam. As proof, 8/10 years ago Iraq/A-stan were respectively 97%/99% muslim. Today Iraq/A-stan are 97%/99% muslim.
No change.
Bush’s evangelical christianity shaped the Bush Doctrine, and Rove and Cheney exploited the Bush Doctrine. Cheney for a wartime economy, and Rove for wartime electorate.
The major problem in american politics today is that the GOP is now a religious party.
someguy
Yep.
We shouldn’t be arguing about how to beat them in elections. We should talking about sterilization. 10 generations of cretins is enough.
someofparts
“They’re voting against us. And to them, it turns out, we suck enough to make anyone a contender.”
Greg Palast said that Al Gore made an epic blunder when he treated Ross Perot with contempt in their debate. I’ve asked the red state folks around me about it and they do remember that, and they still resent it.
At the same time, as a working class person with local roots myself, I can understand their outrage.
timb
Exactly, the message isn’t to liberals; it’s about conservatives. Conservatives don’t like politicians for their policies, they like them because we disdain them.
Haven’t any of you ever read the most common praise of a conservative is/was “I don’t know if I supported ____, but he/she drove liberals insane.” Being a conservative is being on a team; who cares what the guy/gal thinks as long he/she drives the liberals crazy.
Bonus points if you can attach yourself to the second favorite past-time of conservative (like Bachman does): playing the victim. They are ALWAYS under attack, you know.
Here’s how they read Taibi’s article (well, read the excerpt)
OR
Those are reader comments from “Weasel Zippers,” which is one of the dumbest sites on the internet. Still, that’s what the 40% of Team Red thinks and that’s how they will vote. If Bush’s AWOL, drunk, God-spoke-to-me-but-I-still-killed-Carla-Faye-Tucker ass didn’t bother them, why would Bachman’s crouching in the shrubs outside a rally affect them. The Plutocrats get their money and the rest of us get bread-and-circuses! It’s been a recipe for election success in a Republic for 2000 years
Ghanima Atreides
@Kay
I dont think shes stupid either. I believe the religious conservative base has lower cognitive ability ON AVERAGE.
Red/blue genetics is science. Sowwy it hurts your left-bioluddite fee-fees,
but we are not the same.
And in the run-up to 2012 that is going to become more and more gobsmackingly obvious.
The Wingularity is near.
Norwonk
Oh yes, my country got rid of most of our religious nuts by shipping them over to the US. That’s why we have universal healthcare today.
You’re welcome, by the way.
kay
I think Palin is stupid, genuinely a dumb(er) person on really any scale, but not Bachman.
The Republic of Stupidity
Key paragraph from the Tabbai piece, Annie…
Yeee gawds… talk about Terminators and time travel…
After yer Nixonland reading, Michelle sounds like a female version of Dick…
Ghanima Atreides
@someguy
nah, social media and Holy Evolution will solve the problem.
kay
It doesn’t. I actually don’t have any problem with you believing this. I just don’t believe it.
I did forget that it was your Big Theory That Ties It All Together, is all.
Hold on to it. By all means.
Matt
Am I the only one that thinks Ms. Bachmann would have been a great leader of the Junior Anti-Sex League (from “1984”)?
Culture of Truth
These articles are written all the time. Not a terribly great insight, in my opinion.
someguy
I’m guessing you’re not familiar with the “full quiver” folks.
Ghanima Atreides
@kay
I don’t. I think she is cunning now, and she was naive in 2008. I was scared when I thought she might be Sick Grampaws VP, but she cannot win the general at this point.
She refused to play galatea to the GOP’s pygmalion–that was the time of greatest danger for our side.
Now she can just mess with them, Rove, Dr. Krauthammer, all the wide-boiz.
sic semper conservamus
Ghanima Atreides
lol @kay
My BEEG THEORY is science.
Ghanima Atreides
@someguy
sure I am. But the problem for them is that they are breeding reps for our side.
the reps over the IQ gradient convert to liberalism in college.
kay
I never thought she could win. Her poll numbers were terrible for months, yet media kept promoting her as popular. She hasn’t been “popular” for a very long time. She has a lucrative grifter niche, but even that won’t last. It didn’t for Glenn Beck, another person media promoted way past public interest.
Exurban Mom
I visited her home district recently, and this was my takeaway: It is very conservative, not independent as Taibbi seemed to indicate (maybe he based that on the history of the representation of the district, which seems to alternate between DFL and REP over the past 50 years or so). It is populated in part with people relocated to Minnesota from other states, to work for Target or 3M or other big employers in Minneapolis. Those relocated folks? They don’t know who she is, don’t know she’s batshit crazy…they just vote straight ticket Republican.
Bachman seems to run pretty decent constituent services, too. I heard a woman praising her for her assistance with an international adoption issue of a friend. The woman didn’t know another thing about Bachman besides the fact that she helped a friend.
Taibbi’s definitely on point here, IMHO. Playing the “Christian martyr” card will be very successful with a lot of people who feel that the liberal intelligensia are “persecuting” Christians for their beliefs about gays and abortion.
Chris
@ kay @ 39 –
I think religious fundamentalism was a label, much like constitutional originalism, classical economics, or whatever else they choose to embrace as their guiding “values.” Calling them Angry White Men, while stereotypical, gets more to the point. It’s that section among white, male, Christians that’s angry that their demographic is no longer considered the defining authority in America. I doubt if they actually give a shit about religion, economics, the Constitution or anything else. It’s just status and power.
Jesse
One study is not “science”.
A nut is a nut is a nut, though.
Circle-squarers, Time Cube idiots, Bachmann, and biology-is-destiny “we’re smarter!” morons, for example.
...now I try to be amused
In a sane world Michele Bachmann would be a homeowner’s association board member from hell, or at worst a perennial school board candidate from hell. What a country.
The lies she tells are bullshit, as Harry Frankfurt defines it in his book On Bullshit — indifference to the truth. Basically, a bullshitter tells what she would prefer the truth to be.
Yep. They only need to scare up 10%+1 of independents to win. Gotta say this for the wingnuts, they are making democracy work for them.
Chris
Fuck you, Walter. Everything’s a fucking travesty with you, man! And what was all that shit about Vietnam? What does ANYTHING have to do with Vietnam!
D. Mason
Well, there’s another angle that Matt didn’t mention. Our lady of perpetual second amendment solutions might just get some of her ilk riled up enough to do something about that Kenyan Usurper(tm) occupying the white house. Then all hell breaks loose and 6 months later murka will be born again as the ultra hard right fundamentalist nation Afghanistan aspired to be.
Deb T
I think he’s spooked by the batshit crazy candidates out there, and so am I. The thought that any of them are taken seriously chills the blood. Even MIttens, the Stepford Republican, is like some creepy automaton.
It’s bad enough that millions take the wingnuts at Fox and on the radio seriously. Nevermind that they take their talking points and payola directly from the Koch Bros. and the Heritage Foundation. People believe them.
Dennis SGMM
nước mắm
Carl Nyberg
I checked In Trade yesterday and Bachmann was the #2 most likely of the declared candidates (Perry was #2), although she edged T-Paw and Huntsman by the slimmest of margins.
I have thought for months Bachmann is the favorite for the Iowa Caucus. If T-Paw doesn’t win in Iowa, I think it’s unlikely he wins in the Granite State. And South Carolina might be friendly to Cain, but I think Bachmann’s momentum will be tough for Cain to weather if she wins Iowa.
Prediction:
Iowa
#1 Bachmann
#2 T-Paw
#3 Romney
#4 Cain
#5 Paul
NH
#1 Romney
#2 Bachmann
#3 Cain
#4 Huntsman/Paul
SC
very close between Cain, Romney and Bachmann
Cain and Paul may keep Bachmann from consolidating the anti-establishment vote. And T-Paw and Huntsman will likely not prevent Romney from consolidating the establishment money.
The beautiful thing about the GOP nominating Romney is that the hardcore wingers will resent it and be more committed to getting their guy the nomination in 2016.
The beautiful thing about the GOP nominating Bachmann is that it creates the opportunity for Obama to win so big that it will make it hard for the GOP to recover in 2016.
2012 is a big deal. If Dems win, I can see a scenario where the next two presidential elections tilt toward Dems based on what happens in 2012.
Chris
@ timb –
I’ll switch out “because we disdain them” for “because they hate the people who vote Democrat, and will vote for anyone who wants to stick it to ‘those people.'”
That’s also why bipartisanship is impossible in this day and age, and why no matter how far we reach across the aisle, all it does is make them angrier. They. Hate. Us. Simple as that.
kay
It’s interesting, locally, and I’m an outsider in a majority GOP area, so this is based on what people deign to tell me, but I was talking about religious GOP women, (which I didn’t say).
Here, women did all the grunt work for Bush. They had a very traditional delegation of duties, where the men you’re talking about did public events (so, talking, right?) and the women did all the calling and GOTV and house parties and such.
In a weird way (and this is just my gut, and I’m listening to the men, remember) I feel as if the economic Republicans feel the Party got too female.
Like the religious (more feminine?) portion ran the show for a while, but now it’s time for the hard-nosed Bidness Boys to take over and impose discipline.
I just think the whole thing is funny, because they ALL loved Bush. It’s just that business people now deny it, and blame religious people for that whole mess :)
Ghanima Atreides
look kay.
this is war.
we are not the same, and IQ is a factor, as badly as you want to deny it.
NWBTCW.
peace out.
Hawes
Winning the 2012 GOP nomination is certainly within Bachmann’s grasp. Winning the general election is hard to imagine.
I know what Taibbi says about us laughing at her and how that pisses off the Realmurikens, but those Realmurikens are the 27%. She’s already got those votes locked up. If she wins the nomination, it will be because those folks are out there in their three cornered hats waving their Gadsden flags for her.
Bachmann has a trail of damaging video tape that stretches from Iowa to New Hampshire. She routinely commits EXACTLY the sort of gaffes that groups like Politifact seize on.
Those idiotic “Swing voters” will know only that Bachmann is a liar and kind of divorced from reality by the time the fall of 2012 rolls around.
So, yes, she could win the nomination. But absent Obama sacrificing Malia in a Satanic ritual in the Oval Office, I don’t see her winning the presidency.
Carl Nyberg
alwhite has it right.
Sarah Palin was the prototype. Michele Bachmann has learned from Palin’s mistakes.
And I suspect Bachmann is smarter and more disciplined than Palin.
Palin was at her core a grifter who could be bought off.
Bachmann may be a true religious fanatic.
And in the modern world, technology scares people and the economy isn’t working for people. Religion seems to be an anchor that connects people to the past.
Chris
@ kay –
I see what you mean.
Bush ran in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative.” Never mind that it was bullshit, just a sop to the moderates, and that his actual record was a non-compassionate as we’d had in a long time – the point is that the label stuck to him. After 2008, people pointed to it and said the problem with Bush was that he was too soft, too compassionate – too feminine, if you will – which is just another way of saying that he was too liberal. And now, it’s time for the hard-nosed people to take control of the party again.
kay
Okay. I’m more interested in why you keep telling me that, than in the theory or science behind it.
You could be quietly much smarter than others, rather than evangelical about IQ. That would be one way to go :)
Dennis SGMM
aHawes
Just exactly how many of those “idiotic swing voters” you just derided even know about Politifact? What they do know, right down in their guts, is that unemployment is still high, most of them are still worried, and that the economy isn’t getting any better. Just as presidents take the credit during good economic times so they get the blame during bad ones. In view of that, a Someone + Bachman ticket may just be able to pick up that extra ten percent necessary to win the election.
kay
Right. I think that’s true. The problem was we didn’t deregulate enough :)
They’re not talking to me right now, because they only talk to me when they feel like they’re “winning” and I think Kasich is a big disappointment, too.
They were real chatty after Democrats got their asses kicked in November, but that’s a constant. They vacillate between horrible gloating and silent, bitter regret w/me, because I’m a “public Democrat”, so the opposition when things are going poorly for them.
We’re in the bitter reget cycle, where they won’t talk to me. I hope they come around, because I’m betting on Romney, and I’d like to hear what they think of him.
Chris
LOL. Lucky you. I hear about it no matter what the situation is.
I had one conservative friend that I took an evening class with for the entire 2009-2010 school year. Her ability to piss and moan was SPECTACULAR and is most of the reason why I no longer talk to her. (Granted, she’s my age: Obama’s election was the first time in her politically aware life that non-conservatives were running the government, which is an enormously unpleasant situation when you’ve been taught to believe that the government belongs to your people as a matter of birthright).
And now I’m here pissing and moaning about her. Sorry. :)
Ghanima Atreides
@kay
im not evangelical about IQ–im RUDE about IQ.
you cant fucking preach someone into a higher IQ bracket.
there is a biological basis for human behavior.
And things like this are going to piss the fuckers off.
Stick your head back in the sand, Kay.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay #41:
I’m really surprised by your very facile dismissal of Taibbi in this comment kay, especially as IMHO your comments on other threads are usually fact-based to a degree which is notably better than the norm around here.
Have you not read or even heard of Taibbi’s book The Great Derangement? His comments aren’t based on some Brooksian musing about what people say at the Applebee’s salad bar. He went undercover and lived in Jesusland for a prolonged period of time, and not just as a detached reporter either; he lived it. If any political pundit on the left knows what he is talking about when it comes to Bachmann’s potential supporters, not from a distance but from up-close and personal experience, it is Taibbi. I take what he says on this subject very seriously, especially after the ground we covered in reading Nixonland.
Aspasia
In defense of Matt Taibbi (as if he needs any assistance). He spent far more than “a week” in flyover country. In his next to last book he describes his immersion in hardcore Christian culture. On assignment, he joined John Hagee’s church and even endured a “renewal” weekend. During his time with the church he learned exactly how it is that sane people can become converted to this nonsense. And how difficult resistance can be–even by someone as jaded as Taibbi has become.
NobodySpecial
She may win the GOP nomination.
No way in hell she wins the general.
We’ve had four years of the GOP base dying off and four years of increases in Latino populations.
You don’t have a TX governor who speaks Spanish and has a Mexican sister-in-law running if Bachmann wins, which makes her swaying of the Hispanic vote ala W in 2000/2004 unlikely.
She is going to have to swing 6 million more votes than John McCain to win. Nah. Guh. Happen.
ThresherK
@Aspasia #86: Indeed. Unlike most every other coastal elite who fancies himself (almost always a him, innit?) overeducated and therefore needing to prove something about their link with RealAmerica, but from a distance, Taibbi did more than imagine a conversation with a cabbie on the way to Applebee’s salad bar, in the wilds of 30 miles outside of Philadelphia.
The problem isn’t the few Taibbis out there who’ll actually walk the talk, but how many Bobos are out there, shaping or reflecting. This is a direct link to the reason “compassionate conservatism” was invented, so white suburban moms might give Shrub a chance in 2000.
kay
I guess I don’t see Bachmann as a big mystery that has to be solved. I don’t underestimate her either, in terms of being ambitious and rising in the GOP.
I think she’s a hard-core conservative who knows exactly what she’s saying, and knows it isn’t true. She wants conservatives to win, and the way to do that is to make Pelosi and Obama stereotypical liberals, handing out stipends to disfavored groups.
I guess I don’t see this as new or different, just as I didn’t see the Tea Party as new or different. I feel as if there’s almost a cottage industry in “defining conservatism”. I just seem to see a LOT of it, and it’s always played against a very limited, black and white view of liberals. I don’t understand why conservatives are portrayed as endlessly nuanced and deeply mysterious and inexplicable (to liberals), and liberals are grouped into 2 giant bunches that conservatives (and all pundits) “understand”. I don’t think that’s true.
vanya
If Bachmann wins the Presidency then it’s just a question of whether the Northeast will be allowed to secede peacefully from the United States or whether we will need to take up arms. Interesting, I just overheard a conversation yesterday in BWI where a middle aged woman was telling her friends how she had had so much trouble relating to Midwestern transplants when she had lived in Phoenix, and the only real friends she made were fellow East Coasters. It is time to recognize that this country no longer works as a coherent unit. Time to divide and go our separate ways.
Midnight Marauder
No. It is not.
kay
And, no, I didn’t know what you told me, so I was probably too dismissive.
I can’t read a lot of opinion anymore. It makes me unbearably cranky. I was irritable by the end of the first paragraph. I’m just “off” all of it, for now, left, right or indifferent. I’m sure I’ll pick it up again.
Ghanima Atreides
@MM
yes it is.
@kay
im interested in the mechanism. you are interested in the remedy.
no reason for us to be antagonists– i think you are doing a great job.
im a theorist, and you are pragmatist if you like.
Midnight Marauder
Ghanima Atreides @93
Oh my goodness, a website with “science” in the title!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay #89:
I understand your beef about how the media potrays strawmen-liberals and how that influences our discussions. But it seems to me that your concern is tangential at best to the central point in Taibbi’s article, which is that the craziness which our side sees in Bachmann is on her side a tactical strength rather than a weakness, and the more we point out how loony she is, the stronger her base of support becomes. And this means that her chances of winning the GOP nomination need to be taken quite seriously indeed.
The 64,000 dollar question is, can we get low-info independents to see the craziness during the general election campaign, or not? Taibbi doesn’t do a very good job of addressing this question. He just sort of waves at the question of the general election with a “watch out, bad things could happen at the last minute”. Which isn’t a particularly deep or serious analysis, but unfortunately it is also true.
ETA:
Understood and agreed. I get that way too. Sometimes you just have to take a vacation from the insanity of it all. Unfortunately it is still waiting for us when we come back from that vacation, and the In-box of insanity is just piled higher and deeper. I think this is a fundamental strength of political extremism in general and of our present day right wing in particular. They make everyday politics so crazy and toxic that it hurts to pay attention and most people react by just tuning it out. That is a weakness of small-d democracy, a way to game the system, and they are very good at it.
raptusregaliter
Hoping Politispin will help out any progressive candidate is a pipe dream. Just ask Rachel Maddow. Or John Stewart. Or those of us in the reality-based world who know that Ryancare IS a voucher program that will end Medicare.
I have seen Politispin parse words and play semantics over and over again in service of Republican lunacy, so there’s little hope that they will ever really hold a conservative’s feet to the fire on a regular basis. Just recently, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution did a Politispin piece on Herman Cain’s assertion that two states have already tried to introduce sharia law into our justice system. In the article, both cases were examined and determined to be untrue. Nevertheless, Politispin gave Cain a “Barely True” rating. How is that even possible!?
Politispin is a joke.
Steeplejack
@Observer:
You might want to tighten up your reading comprehension. Here’s what Taibbi actually wrote:
Unless you don’t understand
rhetoricjunior-high English at all, it’s clear that Taibbi is saying that Bachmann’s supporters think “you folks” are dicks.So what was your point, anyway? Just that you don’t like Taibbi?
ETA: What Perspecticus said at 36. D’oh!
torpid bunny
Taibbi’s argument is persuasive but Bachman did not create the possibility of a Johnny Gentle style full-on kitsch presidency. Really we’ve been there for some time. Bachmann’s just a skua flying across that particular glacier. Plus I just don’t think her game is that good or even that unique.
Moonbatman
Butthurt from a wingnut pretending to be a progressive.
I am sure the womyn here will agree that Taibbi is not a sexist from wanting to see sexual repressed Rethuglican woman in porn .
Peace Out. The Power is Yours. Free Crystal Mangum
chmatl
OT but I just have to say this: thank God for cleek’s pie filter. I think you all can guess which commenter doesn’t want to live in a world without pie.
Amiee Bundy
It seems to me, GOP purposely vetoed policies that could help with speeding up economic recovery..which has made any efforts by Obama admin fail. I just hope people will see it for what it is and not blame all on Obama..he can’t change laws is they won’t let him..which might (on purpose)give rise to these nut job GOP’s
Elizabelle
Bachmann?
Meh.
To combat her and fellow Christianists: don’t forget the Terry Schiavo case.
My brother-in-law, who is — sadly — a Confederate with a college degree, but a good guy otherwise — was appalled that Bill Frist and others wanted to step in and make life and death decisions for his family. Appalled.
Remind voters of that, over and over.
Bachmann has some admirable personal attributes that make her effective, but her message and what she would do as an executive are poisonous.
...now I try to be amused
One pundit remarked that Bill Frist and Co. sided with the in-laws from hell, and against a law enforcement officer to boot. There are few positions less popular than that one.
Catsy
@Ghanima Atreides:
I’m pretty sure this sounded better in the original German.
Elizabelle
Yes, and make them own it.
IrishGirl
The point Taibbi is making isn’t that he thinks we should take her seriously because she is serious, but that we should take her serious because enough idiots in America will take her serious to give her some political power. And that is really, really dangerous, and he’s right.
Barry
Kay @39: “The plan is to marginalize them, and “take back conservatism”, ie: focus exclusively on policy and practice that benefits the top 1%.
I myself don’t think they can do this. Religious fundamentalists changed the Republican Party, and that’s a measure of any group’s influence in an organization.”
This is true, but I can’t recall too many times where the religious right has gotten in the way of Big Money. They have a very nice cohabitation.
Ghanima Atreides
@Catsy ooooo now you are calling me a Nazi? or a eugenicist?
sowwy it hurts your left-bioluddite fee-fees too.
Science is science.
Cognitive ability, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation: A five-year longitudinal study amongst adolescents
Peter
Oh boy, we get to see matoko regurgitate her bullshit about IQ all over yet another thread it is completely irrelevant to.
Robert Waldmann
Matt Taibbi sure writes well, doesn’t he ?
Ghanima Atreides
It is neither bulshytt or irrelevant.
Conservatism is selection for RWA and SDO. Humans with genetic tendency for RWA and SDO naturally gravitate towards conservatism.
It is empirically obvious that the conservative base is less intelligent ON AVERAGE– why else would they consistantly vote against their own economic self-interest?
In red/blue genetics both liberal and conservative genes are being identified. Heres the MCB.
“A Genome-Wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes,”
you’re welcome.
;)
Mandramas
@Ghanima Atreides: Hi Sister; sorry, but that study is meaningless. To start, a liberal from the USA is a conservative elsewhere. That means that american are genetically conservatives? But I don’t know a more mixed genepool that the american one.
slightly-peeved
I didn’t think it mattered whether americans in general took Michelle Bachmann seriously. It matters whether Obama does. He dealt with Palin without personally appearing to mock her, as far as I can remember. I don’t see why he or his staff would treat any republican candidate frivolously.
I also think Michele’s position on couponcare will matter.
slightly-peeved
Attempting to correlate sociopolitical attitudes with the genome is some of the shonkiest pseudoscientific bullshit i’ve ever heard of. Why don’t they just look for the ‘evil’ gene while they are at it? They should get this paper torn up by illiterate people to protect the rest of us. Though that would explain why matoko’s got it.
kuvasz
Bachmann? An Amway sales rep. She has their method of pattering bull shit down tight.
THE
@Ghanima.
In that longtitudinal study, they show that RWA and SDO in Grade 12 is most-strongly influenced by low verbal skills in Grade 7.
But they don’t demonstrate that the causation is genetic.
There could be other things causing the low verbal skills.
Maybe the kids are left watching TV for hours every day. Instead of talking to people and developing verbal skills.
I mean couldn’t parenting style be a factor?