One of the most frustrating refrains one hears these days is that the Republican Party has "suddenly" gone crazy — as if it was a spontaneous explosion of lunacy that came out of nowhere. The fact is that there has been a strain of crazy on the right for a very long time and the allegedly normal Republicans who are now shocked at what's happened to their party were willfully blind and refused to see how toxic that strain was all along. All they had to do was attend any Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) of the past 20 years and open their eyes to what their party was becoming.
I'm not talking specifically about ideology here, although there was plenty of odious far-right philosophy at this confab going all the way back to its first meeting in 1974. I refer to the smart-ass, frat house attitude that came out of right-wing radio, led by the contemptible Rush Limbaugh and all the spawn that followed him. Sure they pretended to be pious conservative Christians dedicated to bringing morality back to decadent America but down in the basement where people sold their right-wing wares, there was always a plethora of nasty merch. From creepy t-shirts to crude caricatures of Black people (especially the Black First family), they made good money selling racist, sexist insults to their devoted fans.
