Ann Coulter has fallen from grace — and the reason why is terrifying

[TexasTowelie]

Ten years ago, Ann Coulter was featured on the cover of Time magazine with an article entitled “Ms. Right.” At the time she was a very big presence in the political media but the article pushed her into the realm of popular culture; thus, she became more than just a political bomb thrower. She’d always had the looks and the confidence, and now she had the imprimatur of the mainstream media. Coulter became a full-fledged star.

The article caused a tremendous stir. After all, Coulter was among the most flamboyant of the newer, edgier breed of right-wing provocateurs. In 2000, she had won the Media Research Center-presented “Conservative Journalist of the Year” award, and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute gave her its annual conservative leadership award “for her unfailing dedication to truth, freedom and conservative values and for being an exemplar, in word and deed, of what a true leader is.” It seemed as if she and her incendiary polemics were everywhere, from daily personal appearances on television, her weekly newspaper columns and a series of books that were extremely popular among right-wingers.

From 1998 to 2005, when the magazine cover appeared, she had published a series of books — “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,” “Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right,” “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” and a collection of her columns, called “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter” — all of which were very successful. The theme of these books is obvious from the titles. She was famous for her cleverness in hating and baiting liberals. And in those heady days of conservative apotheosis, with sex scandals, stolen elections, terrorist attacks, unnecessary wars and liberalism on the run as never before, Coulter was the most deliciously vicious of all the haters. Among her famous quotes of the era were:

The “backbone of the Democratic Party” is a “typical fat, implacable welfare recipient.”

“My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that’s because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism.”

“If you don’t hate Clinton and the people who labored to keep him in office, you don’t love your country.”

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”

“Congress could pass a law tomorrow requiring that all aliens from Arabic countries leave… We should require passports to fly domestically. Passports can be forged, but they can also be checked with the home country in case of any suspicious-looking swarthy males.”

And one of her most memorable (to me at least) was this one:

“We need to execute people like John Walker {Lindh} in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,”

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2015/06/29/ann_coulter_has_fallen_from_grace_%E2%80%94%C2%A0and_the_reason_why_is_actually_terrifying/

[font color=330099]Newsflash to me, "Coulter had the looks"?[/font]

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

1. Coulter's star faded when Palin came on the scene

And the dirty old man base of the GOP traded her in for a new, younger hate-spewing pin-up fantasy, just as Newt, Rudy and Rush do with wives.

It may sound crude, but that's the reason conservatives like them. Ailes more or less admitted it when he said he hired Palin for FOX because she was "hot."

You can almost pinpoint Coulter's fall to the second McCain trotted out the secessionist quitter.

[SummerSnow]

39. I agree. Palin came on the scene as the GOP's new pin up girl.

[daleanime]

2. She has no soul. Personally I find inanimate objects....

to be more appealing then 'her'.

[spanone]

3. she never, ever came even remotely close to having one scintilla of grace

[ladjf]

4. When was she ever in "grace"? nt

[CTyankee]

5. She's a has been, trying desperately to come back and be relevant again...

too bad, too late. Ann....

[Solly Mack]

6. She's a tick that feeds off hate and then spreads it far and wide.

[HooptieWagon]

7. Looks = blonde. <roll eyes>

I don't thinks she's attractive even before opening her pie-hole and spewing vomit.

[elehhhhna]

12. Also, anorexic plus fake boobs.

A formula that works in America until you pass 40.

[elehhhhna]

13. Also, too (palinism there), does she still wear that black sleeveless

Cocktail dress everywhere all the time? Ick.

[BlueJazz]

14. She's been sick for a few years....been a little hoarse.

[Blue Owl]

8. Fallen from... Wait, wut?

[Cleita]

9. The first time I saw her was on CNN going on about Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

She had all the crazy eyes and everything else going for her then. My husband, who was alive at the time, said what she said was the dumbest thing he had heard in a long time. Yet for years everyone went on about how smart she was. This is before she started showing her real racist stripes. That happened after 9/11 and she started talking about swarthy men who want to kill us. Eventually, she even stopped hiding that she can't stand anyone a shade darker than herself. All the Christian crazy talk is just that. She prefers drinking in bars to going to church it seems as rumor would have it.

She's just a nutty person who managed to find a bunch of rich conservatives to pay her for saying outrageous things.

[grasswire]

27. the first time I saw her on TV she was wearing an eye patch..

.....like a pirate. That was even before your sighting.

Crazy then, crazy now.

[TlalocW]

10. Even if your speakers "go to 11"

If you start there, eventually everyone gets used to it. There was no room for Coulter to up her nuttiness because she started out full-bore nutjob to begin with. It reminds me of two things

1. In the late 90s, there was an online cartoon of Rush Limbaugh facing the same problem so his handlers' solution to his losing national prominence was to get him another TV show where he ate anyone who disagreed with him (it actually worked though, making him more popular than ever, and the world became a dystopia).

2. This story from the Onion.

http://www.theonion.com/article/marilyn-manson-now-going-door-to-door-trying-to-sh-459

TlalocW

[shenmue]

11. "The woman is a stick insect." - Rachel Maddow

[Kalidurga]

15. Yeah, that isn't really terrifying to me.

What would terrify me is if Coulter fell from grace because she isn't quite crazy enough for conservative Republicans.

[udbcrzy2]

16. A skinned squirrel

She looks like a skinned squirrel to me, that's all.

[JHB]

17. "From grace" among conservatives, that is...

I think the better part is at the end:

Lowrey thinks Coulter is pretty much an act that's gone sour in the age of polarization and she may be right. She compares her to Donald Trump (who Coulter extols for his "immigrants are rapists" comments, which she believes he got from her) and there is a certain kind of scary-clown aspect to both of them. But I think it's something else -- she just isn't all that shocking anymore. And the reason is that, after all these years -- through which she and her fellow right-wing bomb throwers have been poisoning the discourse and polluting our politics with the most egregious dehumanization of just about everyone on the planet who doesn't look and sound like them -- nobody is listening anymore.

Today, Ann Coulter is just political white noise. Sure, she'll sell her books to the small group of people who can't get enough of her bilious humor and hatred but her days of being a mainstream pop culture phenomenon are over. Everybody's heard it all before. There's almost a whiff of noxious nostalgia about it now.

The question is whether or not there's anyone left in the Republican Party who can crawl out from under the pile of offal that people like Coulter have buried them under and say something new to America. For the first time in nearly two decades they are ignoring her provocations. Whatever else happens that's very good news.

[YOHABLO]

18. She's just another Right Wing lunatic. Her 15 minutes are up. Retire Ann, retire. She won't.

[REP]

21. Your post is extremely offensive.

You're insulting transgender people and women who do t fit your notion of feminity in an attempt to insult one person. There are better ways to insult her.

[NuclearDem]

24. "I have no problems with transsexuals."

"I knew one growing up and it looked a lot like..."

[cwydro]

26. But I knew one growing up and it looked a lot like coulter gist.

IT???

I can't read your post anymore, but I sure hope this doesn't mean what I think it does.

[Johonny]

20. Let's be honest she went from being edgy to being main stream in that party

Now everyone is doing her act. The moderates and normal humans long ago left that * pile.

[MissMillie]

43. Regretfully, I have to agree

The far has gone so far right that a conservative looks like a moderate, and a middle-of-the-road Democrat looks like a socialist.

It's really quite sad.

[MicaelS]

23. I have often wondered what her and Bill Maher's ....

Pillow talk is like.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. "She'd always had the looks"

Someone needs glasses. She have never had "the looks"

[deutsey]

28. Like Limbaugh, she's done so incredibly well because she spews

the vitriol of those at the top of the right-wing power structure.

[davidpdx]

29. I just finished reading this

Given how she's such a polarizing figure, I hope she continues to have less influence in American politics. What she says is just pure garbage.

[jimlup]

30. Coulter is an interesting case study

I'm not sure she actually believes any of the stuff she says. She's discovered a nich and thrived in it for awhile. It has grown old as she is nothing but a public attention troll.

It is interesting that she was a successful as she was. Says something about how gullible some folks are. I'm sure she has a nice stash from her book deals and appearance fees. So be it, her stuff is so absurd as to have become completely ignorable. I think she's kinda worn out her welcome in the public eye. Even as an attention troll.

[AZ Progressive]

31. Snakes and cockroaches deserve more respect than her

Not to mention rats and flies.

[Arugula Latte]

32. I don't have time to read the whole thing now, but what is the "terrifying" reason?

[Hekate]

33. I can't keep the page loaded, so I'd like to know that too. She's a hateful specimen....

...what about her alleged demise ( please let it be so) is supposed to "terrify" the rest of us?

[TexasTowelie]

37. See post #36.

[TexasTowelie]

36. From later in the article:

She seems to think she’s being ignored because of her strong opposition to immigration. Her latest screed is called “Adios America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole,” and it is predictably horrifying. She appears to have lifted many of her ideas from white nationalists and anti-immigrant extremists and has moved from being a right wing polemicist to openly proselytizing for white supremacy.

-snip-

But I think it’s something else — she just isn’t all that shocking anymore. And the reason is that, after all these years — through which she and her fellow right-wing bomb throwers have been poisoning the discourse and polluting our politics with the most egregious dehumanization of just about everyone on the planet who doesn’t look and sound like them — nobody is listening anymore.

Today, Ann Coulter is just political white noise. Sure, she’ll sell her books to the small group of people who can’t get enough of her bilious humor and hatred but her days of being a mainstream pop culture phenomenon are over. Everybody’s heard it all before. There’s almost a whiff of noxious nostalgia about it now.

[Hekate]

38. Thank you TT. Yes, the poisoning of political discourse is costing this country its soul. The sooner

....she and her ilk disappear the better for us all.

[Cha]

34. That's some ripe bullshit.. right there..

"..the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute gave her its annual conservative leadership award “for her unfailing dedication to truth, freedom and conservative values and for being an exemplar, in word and deed, of what a true leader is.”

And, btw.. coulter's not the only one who "deletes a fact for a cheap insult". The internet is full 'em.

"The question is whether or not there’s anyone left in the Republican Party who can crawl out from under the pile of offal that people like Coulter have buried them under and say something new to America. For the first time in nearly two decades they are ignoring her provocations. Whatever else happens that’s very good news."

Thanks for the good news, TT!

[lovemydog]

35. I agree with the main theme of that article -

that constant vitriol eventually just turns to a buzz of noise, correctly ignored.

[Orsino]

40. To her credit, Coulter never seemed to play up her looks.

Probably why she was discarded as soon as her message was no longer useful.

[hatrack]

41. Which would explain 20 years of miniskirts? She's always played up the blonde bullshit angle.

[Orsino]

42. I think that's as far as she went.

She never acted even minimally sexy, and her delivery was uniformly sneering and emasculating. There were a few on the right who loudly proclaimed her the hottest thing on wheels, possibly because she was young and slender...but all I ever saw was a cold, calculating grifter.

[2banon]

44. I know. Mini skirts and low cut spaghetti strapped mini dresses bearing a gold cross on her chest.

The absolute oddest thing I've ever seen in my life for a tv pundit of any stripe. what ever the inside joke her attire was intended to convey, it fell right smack dab into loony tunes bin as far as i was concerned, and the fact that the media execs/moguls encouraged this - was the SCARY bit.

I really don't get the title of this op, doesn't even come close to explaining itself. Whether Ann Coulter's days are numbered (or not) is of little (if any) consequence to anything at all at this point in time. .

The damage was done years ago and there's no turning back from the destruction the likes of her have caused, particularly because there has been absolutely no sign of any attempt to restore even a modicum of journalistic integrity in corporate media cable etc.

Now THAT's what is scary to me. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, I'm passed "scared" at this juncture. I've been paying attention way too long, and seen way too much (I suppose) to have any concerns with regard to anything that clown twit might have to say about anything under the sun.


But that's just me. I clicked on this op because I assumed there was something I've missed in my overall , general thoughts on people like her. but apparently a bored frustrated writer, couldn't think of anything more important to write/say about "current events" and so s/he shopped this worthless piece. just cuz.

[Xipe Totec]

46. Coulter had the beauty of a well groomed Afghan Hound

And half the brains.