"Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions "

[sufrommich]

Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government. She kicked off her unofficial presidential campaign in New Hampshire, by mistakenly declaring it the birthplace of the American Revolution. "It's your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world!" she gushed. "You are the state of Lexington and Concord, you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard."

In modern American politics, being the right kind of ignorant and entertainingly crazy is like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance. And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy. Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, but grandiose crazy, late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy — crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies.....

Bachmann's entire political career has followed this exact same pattern of God-speaks-directly-to-me fundamentalism mixed with pathological, relentless, conscienceless lying. She's not a liar in the traditional way of politicians, who tend to lie dully, usefully and (they hope) believably, often with the aim of courting competing demographics at the same time. That's not what Bachmann's thing is. Bachmann lies because she can't help it, because it's a built-in component of both her genetics and her ideology. She is at once the most entertaining and the most dangerous kind of liar, a turbocharged cross between a born bullshit artist and a religious fanatic, for whom lying to the infidel is a kind of holy duty....

Snickering readers in New York or Los Angeles might be tempted by all of this to conclude that Bachmann is uniquely crazy. But in fact, such tales by Bachmann work precisely because there are a great many people in America just like Bachmann, people who believe that God tells them what condiments to put on their hamburgers, who can't tell the difference between Soviet Communism and a Stafford loan, but can certainly tell the difference between being mocked and being taken seriously. When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don't learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you're a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they're even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies.


Matt Taibbi's truly frightening expose of Bachmann will appear in the July issue of Rolling Stone.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/michele-bachmanns-holy-war-20110622?page=1

[Harry J Asslinger]

1. The eyes say it all.

[ProfessorGAC]

2. Her Fans Will Dismiss It Out Of Hand, Just Because. . .

. . .Matt Taibbi wrote it. They already hate him.
GAC

[sufrommich]

9. They would dismiss it regardless of who wrote it.

As Taibbi writes:

"When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don't learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you're a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they're even more determined now to support anyone who promises not to laugh at their own visions and fantasies."

[ProfessorGAC]

10. You're Right

For Taibbi though, it's just amplified. Clearly, they don't want to hear anything except for what they want to hear.
GAC

[nonperson]

3. The fact that our media and our political system give even the slightest suggestion that this person

Is a serious candidate is a total "refudiation" of our corrupt, insane propaganda system masquerading as government.

Sarah Palin is stupid. Michele Bachmann is stupid and completely insane. There are many Americans who would actually vote for either or both of them. What does that tell you?

[tanyev]

4. Oooh. Marking to read later.

[Botany]

5. Thanx .... gotta read this one later

[Canuckistanian]

6. "late-stage Kim Jong-Il crazy"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[4_TN_TITANS]

15. I loved it too....

once upon a time I could write like that....

[Dappleganger]

17. Oh that is awesome...

I am sooo gonna steal that!

[hifiguy]

18. At some cosmic bar, Joe Bageant is chuckling

at that description, for sure. It's worthy of the much-missed ol' master.

[gratuitous]

7. "Frenetically pacing the halls of a vast sand castle"

Anyone else see Leonardo's crazy dead wife from "Inception"?

[Fuzz]

8. I read the subject line and guessed it was written by Matt Taibbi.

I was right! That guy has a very distinctive style.

[hifiguy]

11. This should be a great read

Matt's prose, like that of his spiritual forbear, Hunter Thompson, is never more entertaining than when deployed against the corrupt and insane.

[Bozita]

13. It's a TERRIFIC read!

It's effing brilliant.

I too was gonna read it later.

But like free peanuts in a bar, I couldn't resist.

[emulatorloo]

12. Thanks for the link, Gonna dig into this later

Should be very good.

[Bozita]

14. This thread doesn't belong near the bottom of Page 2 of GD

kick

[fascisthunter]

16. She's a Psychopath or a Sociopath

a very sick human being...

[hifiguy]

20. On a serious note, you are correct

She's either dangerously schizophrenic (admitting you hear voices in your head is a leading indicator of schizoid disorders, acting on what they tell you makes it a lock) or a pure sociopath. Funny, yes, but dangerous as hell. The woman should be locked safely and heavily medicated every two hours with a ketamine/thorazine bomber.

[PeaceNikki]

19. There's a comment that says she should visit a Lutheran church... uh, she *is* Lutheran.

The craziest most conservative flavor of Lutheranism, but Lutheran.

[JoePhilly]

21. These Zealots would LIE to stop abortion of any kind ...

I point this out because only some of them would KILL to stop abortion.

Many of the others would LIE.

They would fabricate votes. See WI.

They would LIE about their own positions and the positions of others.

Religious zealots draw their lines in a very specific manner.

[RandomThoughts]

22. I understand that concept.

Although sanity is subjective to what you know of reality.

On a side note "who are all presumed to be enemies....."

I have ran into two delusions about that, the first one says you are hurting people on your own side, when you are not doing anything to hurt them. First, not me doing it, second, I am due beer and travel money, so how are they on my side? unless they don't know that, then there are filters that then take that fault.

The other delusion is more complicated, anytime you have an idea, someone with the same idea is shown, but they do not correct the beer and travel money, to try and get you to agree with them, while they are not paying the beer and travel money that is due. That is to try and distance you from being due the beer and travel money. Or it is to get you angry at people that do things you agree with to get you to disagree or go against them while they discuss issues on many topics that can help many people that you agree with.

Here is the most fascinating part of it, the people with far more beer and travel money, that do things you disagree with, are rarely shown, only a few that also agree with you are shown, showing it is a manipulation. It would be easy to see all the people that have more beer and travel money then they need, that mostly do things you disagree with, but how would that try to manipulate you. See how the intent is to try to harass someone.