Some content may offend

This post is intended for a mature audience. It contains coarse language and reference to violence. Some content may offend. Reader discretion is advised.

These days, it seems as if political commentary should come with a warning attached. It’s far easier to be offended—outraged, even—than it is to be informed. Become enlightened? Forget about it.

How on earth did we get to this point? How is that the bile spewed by certain people can be talked about as if the opinions expressed, no matter how outrageous, are as valid as, say, opinions on the quality of fashion at the recent Academy Awards?

Naturally, I have a theory: For America, it all began when Bill Clinton became the presidential nominee of the US Democratic Party. The poison spread from there.

For reasons that remain an utter mystery to me, there were some Republicans who hated Clinton with a passion surpassing believability. They loathed him. They fantasised about him being dead. They tried every trick in the book to get him out of office and, having failed at that repeatedly, they became the face of angry resentment.

Those people now run the US Republican Party and most of what passes for political commentary in America. They make up a huge swathe of the blogosphere.

Why? It seems to me that whatever the origin of their bitterness, it was nurtured into hatred by a steady diet of the American right wing media, such as news network Fox News (determined, it seems, to serve up the opposite to their slogan of “fair and balanced” news). Talk back radio hosts and syndicated columnists spewed irrational hate at every opportunity.

And the voices of reason said little other than to defend freedom of speech.

This past weekend, the diva of far right commentators in America, Ann Coulter, spoke to a far right political conference. At the end of her remarks, she said (this is my own transcription, by the way):

Oh, and, um, I was going to have, uh, a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, um, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word “faggot”, so, I’m [sounds of some gasps, groans, laughs, titters, then applause, and finally a whistle] so, I’m kind of at an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards, so I think I’ll just conclude here and take your questions. Thank you. [loud cheers and applause].

Her audience clearly loved it. They’re used to her saying incredibly outrageous things. She’s blithely talked about killing Bill Clinton and suggested some US Supreme Court justices should be allowed to die in a terrorist attack. She’s said Arabs should be tortured, Muslims killed.

She says the kinds of things the far right in America just adores hearing, the things they talk about on talk back radio or in their blogs. Conspiracy theories, slander, distortion of truth and even outright lies are their lingua franca.

However, as much as the right loves her (and agrees with her), the left loathes her. I’m actually shocked at the level of venom I saw spewed in her direction over the past week. People who would never dream of using the word normally, forcefully call her a “cunt”. Others suggested she’s a male-to-female transgendered person.

I think the reaction on the left bothers me as much as what she says. Sure, she’s vile, but using misogynistic epithets hardly makes that any more apparent. And what did transgender folks ever do to deserve being defamed by association with her?

Anyway, the real problem isn’t with her but with what she represents. Open hatred is now celebrated as a virtue on the far right, and she expresses it more entertainingly than most. She also lives for the anger she brings out—if she didn’t she wouldn’t keep saying such outrageous things sure to provoke a reaction.

The world on the far right is fundamentally irreconcilable with the world of the centre left. The right seeks to establish an authoritarian system in which a father figure tells everyone what to do, there are harsh penalties for not doing it, and dissent is impossible.

The centre left, meanwhile, continues promoting the traditional liberal values of tolerance, education, discussion—three things the far right doesn’t care about. It’s impossible to have a rational discussion with someone when they have their fingers in their ears, their eyes shut tight and their mouths loudly going “la la la la la la la la la la la.”

Guess who’s winning? It was the right that coined the phrase “culture war” because that’s how they see it. Our side sees it as an opportunity for dialogue; theirs sees it as a campaign for total take-no-prisoners victory.

Clearly new tactics are required, ones that don’t abandon essential liberal principles, but also ones that recognise that the arena we’re in now demands a bloody fight to the death (yes, that’s speaking figuratively—these days it’s important to be clear about that). The centre-right will need to join the fight, too, taking back their party from the vicious thugs who’ve co-opted it.

This post is an amalgamation of things I’ve been thinking about over the past week—in some cases, even longer. This is a topic that won’t go away. Neither will I, and I’m determined that liberal values won’t, either.