Newt Gingrich and the Far-Right Mind

Personally, I find serial adulterer Newt Gingrich to be despicable. The man is a total whore in so many ways. Yet, it's almost natural that the so-called "family values" crowd of the Christian Right would embrace him if for no other reason than because no other religious group has a higher divorce rate than evangelical Christians. Through his infidelities and three marriages - at least to date - he perfectly embodies his utterly hypocritical and bigoted admirers in the GOP base. He's one of them! A piece in Ordinary Gentlemen looks further at why Gingrich is a perfect fit for the most disingenuous and bigoted of the Republican far right. While most in the GOP refuse to admit that the GOP has become a racist party- not to mention a sectarian party - Gingrich doesn't hesitate to play to racism, ignorance, intolerance and bigotry. The three pillars of today's Republican Party. Here are some highlights:

I still think Romney’s going to win the nomination, but it’s going to be damn fun watching Gingrich make him work for it. Newt’s major advantage, of course — perhaps his only advantage — is that he intimately understands the workings of the GOP base’s collective mind. Romney, on the other hand, can only speak to the base in one language and on one topic: antipathy for Barack Obama.

And, really, he [Gingrich] is today’s GOP: white, male, wealthy, Southern, pension-aged, devout, and, perhaps most importantly, unapologetically combative.


Besides referencing WWII — the time of the Greatest Generation, when America was pure and righteous, the savior and redeemer of the world — Gingrich’s plan also taps into the belief among many on the right that they are the victims of unfair accusations of being racist.

Paper-thin as this logic would seem to many liberals, Gingrich’s plan allows its proponents to insist that they’re not racist: they don’t want all undocumented immigrants to go, just the bad ones! (Note that Gingrich has also claimed that the “vast majority” of those brought before these citizenship tribunals would be deported…)

Culturally chauvinist? Yes. Inherently dehumanizing and degrading for those called before the councils? Yes! Rife with potential small-scale and easily ignored abuses of power? Absolutely! But racist? Plausibly not!

And that’s the sweet-spot for the contemporary far-right in America. It’s a befuddling and perhaps intimidating place for those without prior experience; it’s clearly not a realm Mitt Romney finds entirely to his liking. But for Newt Gingrich, it’s very nice indeed.

One can only hope that come 2012 moderates and independents will have come to recognize the toxicity of both Gingrich and today's GOP.