The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right

[icymist]

The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right
by David Neiwert
(PoliPoint Press, 2009)

On Thursday, September 17, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was moving through a typical press briefing when she was asked about the escalation of violent rhetoric in public discourse. The California Democrat suddenly became uncharacteristically emotional, requesting that people tone it down, and recalling the 1978 assassination of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk as an outgrowth of the hate-filled discourse of its time. Warning that people might have to “take responsibility for any incitement that may cause,” Pelosi could scarcely have come up with a better example to illustrate a major theme of David Neiwert’s latest book, The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right.

There has been much discussion of the culture of incivility lately, epitomized by the recent indecorous outbursts of Rep. Joe “You Lie” Wilson (R-SC) during President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, tennis star Serena Williams toward a linesman at the US Open, and rapper Kayne West at the Video Music Awards. But the rhetoric and the underlying attitudes that Neiwert is getting at are far more serious—and harder to come to grips with—than mere boorish behavior by public figures.

“What motivates this kind of talk and behavior,” Neiwert writes of the sometimes surprising viciousness from otherwise ordinary people, “is called eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.”
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[emulatorloo]

1. very interesting review and interview. Thanks for finding that n/t

[BOSSHOG]

2. Shuns dialogue and the exchange of ideas

in favor of the elimination of the opposing side. Dictionary definition of right wing radio and conservative values.