Little Green Footballs’ Charles Johnson Breaks With the Right

[kpete]

Why I Parted Ways With The Right

Opinion | Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 6:49:45 pm PST

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

And much, much more. The American right wing has gone off the rails, into the bushes, and off the cliff.

I won’t be going over the cliff with them.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right

[KamaAina]

1. Another "David Brock moment"

hopefully many more to come!

[AspenRose]

2. WOW

K&R!

[sufrommich]

3. He's been heading in that direction for quite some time.

Hopefully, he's able to take what is left of the sane republicans with him.

[Greybnk48]

4. Good for him for saying why he's leaving them behind.

He could have just faded away.

[YOY]

5. Why wouldn't he? They're getting everything they want sans the kookiness above from the DLC Dems.

So is he abandoning the right or is he abandoning the crazy right?

Seems like the latter.

[glitch]

10. Sure does. nt

[Posteritatis]

14. The former's become the latter these days, more or less

Getting away from either is healthy, though.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

15. I can live with the Right

but the Crazy Right, not so much........

[librechik]

6. Hey--how come HE gets to avoid going over the cliff with them

but the rest of America is hanging in midair like Yosemite Sam, unaware their is nothing to hold them up? The Pukkkes rule us no matter who is in charge.

[Zomby Woof]

9. Wile E. Coyote perhaps

He was usually the one left hanging in the air before having that "oh shit!" moment. :-)

[Techn0Girl]

7. Wow... just Wow...

LGF is a rather large conservative blog. This , coming from him, is very interesting... and a bit game-changing.

[Prism]

11. Not really

Johnson and the right-wing blogosphere have been going through a protracted divorce for two or three years now. I would hazard that much of it is very much personality-based rather than rooted in ideology. Johnson, if you recall, was one of the most prominent "Muslims are all jihadists!" bloggers post-911. He was responsible for some of the most egregious racist attitudes to come out of that period. He's also a cyber Napolean, deleting opposing arguments from his blog with regularity. In short, he's not a good guy, and his turning is more or less based on how much all these right-wing bloggers all loathe each other.

Which, hey, it's good for us. But no matter what he does to switch teams, I won't forget or forgive Johnson's post-911 contributions, or his basic scummy personality template. He's still a massive, self-absorbed asshole.

[BR_Parkway]

8. Also good to see the high number of positive comments agreeing

with most, if not all of his statements. They are thinking again

[DarthCheney]

12. what do this and the comcast/msnbc takeover have in common?

both will try and reinvent republicanism. imho

[anigbrowl]

18. Well, heaven knows it needs reinvention

Since I think of myself as a pragmatist, I'd be happy to see a the GOP shed its lunatic fringe and evolve towards being a party of cautious conservatism, that is to say advocating for policies on the basis of belief in a better outcome, rather than on religious or political ideology in which the means justify the ends. If they could get their head back to Eisenhower-type conservatism, it'd be a good thing for the USA.

[struggle4progress]

13. Ain't visited Little Green Foozballs f'years, so was jus gonna cook up a nice hot plate of snark:

What? He's becomin a long-haired hippie faggot commie queer? I'll believe it when I see him sittin downtown in a railway station, one toke over th'line

But I thought I'd peek at LGF first. And y'know, maybe he's come to his senses

[struggle4progress]

16. On further reflection: They're gonna play "We're centrists, like Reagan and Goldwater"

and use the extremists to give themselves centrist props

[anigbrowl]

17. Likely so...

I'm glad he's severed his ties with the lunatics, but that comes after several years of pandering to them and milking them for support. He's looking out for the future of his brand (as any sane business person would) and has apparently concluded that mainstream Republicanism (the kind of politics you can agree to disagree about) has more of a future than the proto-fascist faction.

I don't mean to imply his motives are purely financial; he's distanced himself before from far-right European political groups who are thinly-veiled racists...more that he likes being a successful blogger and having a bit of a voice in the body politic, and has realized that a fan club made up of crazies will only obscure what he himself wants to say. The big surprise to me is how many right-wing shibboleths he's chosen to ditch in the process...everything from fox News rightwards.

At least you can't accuse him of trying to have his cake and eat it. If he can turn LGF back into a platform for sincere political debate from the peanut gallery it had turned into, then more power to him.

[bring_em_home_bush]

19. Verrrry interesting

One of the Little Green Fascists finally gets it. Never ever thought I'd see that day.