Neocon, the bigger question is not Coulter; she's a Cyberken with curves and a surface personality, the bigger question is what makes some people so DESPERATE to wholeheartedly accept the most patently radical, intellectually challenged and erroneous statements she makes?
If you look back at pre-ww11 Germany, many educated and sophisticated Germans did not take Hitler seriously. He was too shrill, too base, and too far separated from reality to be considered worthy of serious concern by those that might have dereailed him but instead used him to agitate the German population in order to further their own purposes. I'm sure many believed that Hitler knew his statements were over the top and were designed to manipulate the poor, uneducated and disenfranchised among the German people.
Unfortunately, history proved them wrong. Hitler believed in what he said and his message that German's were pure and righteous and that their enemies were filthy, amoral, and anti-German, built such a powerful nationalistic fervor that Germans marched off to war and willingly died in shocking numbers. At the end of the war there was still support for the concept even though the conquest had failed. That's a remarkably powerful message.
I'm not suggesting that Coulter or other radicals on the right are like Nazis in their view of what a world should look like. What I am suggesting is that their message has a "moth to the light" appeal that awakens whatever it is within us that wants or needs to see ourselves as the "protectors of the right," and as having some manifest destiny of remaking the world and conquering evil. It is very difficult to argue logically with this emotional driver. Those that feel it most strongly will think least clearly. It is, however, something to take seriously. |
