Jonah Goldberg fears ‘completely unhinged’ Democrats

January 5, 2008

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg is worried.

[A]fter reading this regrettable excess from Ezra Klein as well as all of the more reasonable but nonetheless hopeful, proud, idealistic and sincere sentiments of pride and well-wishing for Obama as the first serious mainstream black contender for the White House (some, but by no means all, of these sentiments shared by yours truly) , I think it’s worth imagining a certain scenario. Imagine the Democrats do rally around Obama. Imagine the media invests as heavily in him as I think we all know they will if he’s the nominee — and then imagine he loses.

I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary’s inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he’s denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid.

First, as Glenn Greenwald noted, “I wonder: in Jonah Goldberg’s ‘imagination,’ which (ahem) ‘certain segments’ of the American population exactly will ‘become completely unhinged’ if Obama loses and thereby spawn ‘social unraveling’? And who are the people who are going so deeply to fear this “social unraveling” that they vote for Obama just in order to keep those ‘certain segments’ in line and well-behaved?”

And second, the only modern example of “certain segments of American political life” growing “completely unhinged” came during a little something known as the “bourgeois riot” in which Brooks-Brothers Republicans helped stop a manual vote recount in Miami in 2000.

Imagine how unhinged the republicans will become if they win — if their smash & slaughter way of treating the country and the world still lets them retain power in a few months.

  • I’m still waiting for Republicans to become hinged. While losing will clearly turn them into raging beasts, they’re never really satisfied with victory either. And because they’re their own worst enemies and see their weaknesses at every turn, they’re actually happier with defeat, because it really lets them let loose. Besides, presidenting is hard and they really don’t know what to do with power besides getting more power.

  • So is Johah projecting the unhinging that would come from his side of the politcal spectrum if Barak wins?

  • He just feels insecure because people keep bashing his book, so he wants to be a big hero and make us go for (what he knows is) the third best choice for us, Edwards, after it looks like we’re already getting Obama.

    Then again, it probably wouldn’t be impossible to get some very conservative blacks to play at being pro-Obama rioters after an Obama loss. If we got a really fascist Republican president, it would be the excuse to really crack-down on a lot of people and start locking a lot of mainstream liberals up. This is still a step farther than all the fascism we’ve seen from the Republicans so far, but I’m just “war-gaming” “how they’d do it.” Hitler had a plan to have a bunch of storm troopers go to countries in Europe he wanted to invade ahead of the invasions as (ostensibly) business travelers or vacationers, who would then perform sabotage and kidnapping as a prelude to the invasions. So this type of thing is not without precedent, including in the kind of literature conservative Americans would find fun to read. Starting a myth, of course, that blacks might riot if Obama lost would be a logical first step to doing something like that, because it would make it more believeable when the Republicans did the hoax. As for the idea that conservative blacks would realize what they were doing was wrong and therefore refuse to help, that is idealistic fantasy. It would be more of a question of working out some way to get them to participate in it in enough numbers so the riot would look like it plausibly justified (at least to many Americans) suspension of some civil liberties.

  • Goldberg is right, if any Republican wins in November my fellow database designers and I are going to riot. We will change datatypes without warning. We’ll denormalize every database we can get access to. I’ll become the Robespierre of corporate knowledgebases. It’ll be a data mining disaster that will make Bush’s Stickler’s Utah Mine Disaster tame.

    Or maybe I’ll leave the country and move to France to live in Johnny Depp’s spare room.

  • It was something of a question as to which of the “race cards” (from their very large deck) that deranged right-wingers would play first. I thought there would something more oblique (like cultural discomfort — and the Muslim thingy — again). We should start tabulating the different kinds of smears just to satisfy the needs of political masochism — and shake our heads in awe of the intellects on the right.

  • Let’s put the cards on the table, shall we? Jonah Goldberg is a crypto-racist. Not so crypto, actually.

    Those “certain segments” he is alluding to are African-Americans, and when he talks about “teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid,” he is alluding to 1960’s-style urban riots.

    So Republicans: be afraid of the nomination of Barak Obama. Be very afraid. Because “certain segments” of the population will make us pay a price if Obama is rejected.

    Just when it seems that America is turning into a better place, a place where a person of African descent can win an election in a nearly all-white state, a pig like Goldberg comes along and says what far too many Americans are thinking. Or whispering.

    Speaking of “prices paid,” Jonah Goldberg is one of the prices that we pay for a free press.

  • I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged. I can imagine the fear of this social unraveling actually aiding Obama enormously in 2008. Forget Hillary’s inevitability. Obama has a rendezvous with destiny, or so we will be told. And if he’s denied it, teeth shall be gnashed, clothes rent and prices paid.

    Jeebus. Did someone just hook their dog whistle up to an amplifier? Even I heard that one.

  • Because “certain segments” rioted in New York City when Dinkins lost to Giuliani…

    What a tool.

  • As CD noted, the principle instance of post-election rioting in the US in this century was a carefully orchestrated riot by the republicans. However, should a third election be stolen by republican machinations, democratic rioting would not be an unreasonable response. In fact I could imagine “certain segments” being joined by quite a large variety of additional p.-o.’ed segments.

  • This “what if” crap has got to stop. These pundits coming up with off the wall scenarios that have no actual base in reality.

    1) No republican will win the WH in ’08 no matter which dem gets the nomination. After the horrors of the Bush/Cheney administration and the current GOP candidates being such jokes, voters are motivated by anger, outrage and NECESSITY to ensure that no republican will be elected to continue this fiasco.

    2)It’s christmas time for the media, when they make all their money by keeping speculation going so the fear of close matches and “what ifs” is used to keep the campaign money flowing. Notice how many on this site actually buy into this “what if scenario” and play it out in one way or another as if it had anything what so ever to do with reality. It’s political soap-opera…ing. It distracts from talking about the issue by concentrating the focus on the race.

    I suggest we make it satirical as in: If Obama suddenly fell off the platform and broke his back but continued to campaign in a body brace while McCain actually bit part of his tongue off tripping over Lieberman’s foot…democrats would become unhinged if he were beaten by McCain in the election simply because it is well known you can only understand half of what either candidate says but at least Obama can be turned to speak in one direction so the people right in front of him could understand him, but a whaole group would react because they know what he ‘means’ whereas with McCain it has to be interpreted. So it would be obvious he won simply because he was…white…er, I mean translated.(Hey it’s no stupider than Goldberg’s suggestion).

    But you all have fun with that ‘what if’ match up shit if you want but many of us are trying to decide ‘which’ dem we want for president since we know ‘electability’ is not even an issue in this campaign. Whomever wins the democratic nomination will be the next president…we’ll see to it.

  • Maybe Goldberg should spend less time imagining the non-existant, and more time wondering how fast he can get out of the country once Obama wins the WH. I somehow imagine that there will be some new “truth-in-content standards” placed on the media.

    Hey—I hear Vladymir Putin is looking for some good lackeys….

  • I seriously think certain segments of American political life will become completely unhinged.

    Surely he must be talking about his pals. Their reaction to cHuckabee’s win has been less than level-headed.

    Ha, ha, of course he’s not. But you do realize that if Hilary had come out on top he’d have run the exact same piece with the scary but un-named boogey being rampaging lesbians/feminists (same thing to JoButt) armed with garden shears?

    It’s almost sad watching this dipshit flail around for some bit of relevancy.

  • The only social unraveling I foresee is that the lunatics who shouted ‘treason!’ when anyone questioned King George will once again be shouting for the overthrow of democratically elected Democratic president.

  • The right wing has been unhinged for a long time, led by the likes of Goldberg and his ilk. Isn’t it ironic that the wingnuts always fear in others the worst behavior they have already demonstrated themselves.

    If Obama is the candidate we can expect an endless stream of coded racist hatred and innuendo from the right. Goldberg is just leading the parade, and handing out invitations (permission?) to his fellow racists to do likewise. Reagan knew how to do it in 1980; Bush did it with Willy Horton in 1988. The Rethugs will figure out how to do it anew in 2008. Expect a lot of illegal immigrant vitriol mixed in with it. All those 527 groups will do it for them.

    The world may another ugly side of the ‘land of the free’ etc., at work since the last eight years have made it permissible to wear your prejudices, bigotry, and hates on your sleeve, and be proud of it. It’s going to be quite a spectacle.

  • Goldberg seems to think that Obama will win on the basis of Dem white guilt and Rep white fear. Race war is so pre-9/11.

    Just speculating but I wonder if the reaction in 2000 to George stealing the election would have been different if it had been Obama instead of Gore. The subtext would have been a little different. Maybe by “loses” Goldberg means “having it stolen.”

  • So many brown people to be fearful of for Jonah Goldberg and his posse. The guy must crap his pants whenever he sees a person of color. You’d think someone with the name of Goldberg would look askance at perceptions of “master races” and such, but then Jonah’s not exactly known for his political and historical acumen.

    And if a Republican, through hook or crook, managed a victory in November, the term would not be “unhinged” but instead “revolution” … and race would play no part it.

  • AN OBAMA LOSS IS A LOSS WE DARE NOT THINK ABOUT.
    HE WILL THEN BECOME THE STANDARD BEARER (DE FACT0) OF EVERY BLACK GRIEVANCE FROM THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS TO…ROSA PARKS TO MLK…TO X….OJ…TO ELIJAH MUHAMMAD….TO GENA 6……AND NO AMOUNT OF WHITE PUNDITRY WILL CONVINCE THAT THIS IS NOT A BODY BLOW TO EVERY BLACK AMERICAN DREAM.
    DON’T THINK SO? JUST LOOK INTO THE BRIGHTENING EYES OF EVEN THE MOST POWERFUL AND SOPHISTICATED AMERICAN BLACKS WHEN THEY SAY ‘OBAMA’. WE MUST PRAY THAT HE MAKES IT.

  • Let’s speculate about what will happen if Jesus comes back to life and decides to run for office, much to Huck’s chagrin. Do these guys sit around dreaming up scenarios? I thought that’s what screen writers, not journalists, did. Apparently most screen writers do more research than journalists…..

  • This kind of fear-mongering smacks of slave revolt hysteria in the antebellum south.

  • Well, I guess it’s really unlikely that we’re going to see anything like I described in my comment above, although it certainly is the type of thing a lot of them would like to see. It’s not that it’s not the type of thing a lot of them- and a lot of powerful, or well-positioned of them- would want, but I just don’t want anybody to think I’m saying I think we’re moving straight in that direction. A lot of them probably fear African American riots so much, they wouldn’t want to risk provoking broader, uncontrolled riots (I think it’s unlikely blacks would riot if Obama lost, but that doesn’t mean the far-right Republicans think the same thing). I think there may be righties who are so far right that they would risk provoking riots or something like 9/11 to consolidate a far-right government, but they would have to take care to keep those kinds of views secret, because even among the most right-wing people, there would be few who are really that far-gone (not that few, though).

    That said, I bet Jonah Goldberg dreams that African Americans would riot after an Obama loss, and that white liberals would applaud the riot, and then a Republican president would start rounding people up. It’s ironic that all the gentile right-wingers who feel the same as him probably have Christian Identity belief, and would like to roast Jonah Goldberg in an oven, and laugh their asses off at him while he’s in there roasting.

  • Jonah Goldberg – Republican “Kapo.” But you have to thank him for so conclusively demonstrating the inaccuracy of the ancient anti-Semitic slur that all Jews are highly intelligent.

  • “And second, the only modern example of “certain segments of American political life” growing “completely unhinged” came during a little something known as the “bourgeois riot” in which Brooks-Brothers Republicans helped stop a manual vote recount in Miami in 2000.”

    I think we are witnessing already “certain segments of American political life” growing “completely unhinged” . Just check out the GOP and the Betway pundits’s mental breakdown at Huckabee’s popularity. A great example is a particularly nasty article by our old buddy George Will in today’s WaPo. Good ole George is apoplectic.

  • Jonah Goldberg is such a tool. Why does anyone bother to read this chubby twerp? As Steve points out, it is the Republican Party that has demostrated that they do not respect the will of the people and will act violently to maintain or expand their political influence. That is almost the raw definition of fascism.

  • um, isn’t what goldberg said pretty much the rationale that bob barr gave down in florida when he got busted soliciting gay sex in a public men’s room? i could dig up the quote, but anyone who’s gotten this far down the thread already knows it.

    sounds like somebody’s getting a blow job.

    is that better or worse than getting a vote?

  • Ah, taoless has brought up a story that didn’t get nearly enough play in the media so I’ll use it as an excuse to play it again:

    On the audiotape, [Bob] Allen said, “Listen. A public park. I got my name on the damn building. I’m not gonna do that. You know, maybe I said it in the wrong order, but this was a pretty stocky black guy, and there were a lot of other black guys around in the park, and, you know…”

    Goldburp is playing on the same fears: “I see black people! Of course we should be TERRIFIED.” May he be as successful as Mr. Allen in pulling that crap.

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