THE BAFFLER ON THE LONG CON

If “every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket,” then the conservative movement is well onto the third phase of that life cycle.

One of my favorite magazines (journals? digests?) of all time was The Baffler Quarterly, which was published by Thomas Frank, current editor of Harper's (which has gone downhill since Lewis Lapham left to do his own quarterly, but is still worth reading).

Anyhoo, The Baffler was recently revived, and they have this amazing article about just exactly how the Conservative Media Elites really feel about the people who listen, watch and read them...

Here is a fine, elucidating example of the kind of brazen hucksterism that is being inflicted upon readers of NewsMax, The Blaze, Alex Jones’ websites, WorldNetDaily, etc, on a daily basis...

Dear Reader, I’m going to tell you something, but you must promise to keep it quiet. You have to understand that the “elite” would not be at all happy with me if they knew what I was about to tell you. That’s why we have to tread carefully. You see, while most people are paying attention to the stock market, the banks, brokerages and big institutions have their money somewhere else . . . [in] what I call the hidden money mountain . . . All you have to know is the insider’s code (which I’ll tell you) and you could make an extra $6,000 every single month.

If I were a cruel, heartless bastard, then maybe I could claim to be tickled pink over the fact that this particularly noxious socio-political demographic is getting fleeced, snookered, and bled bone dry by the very people they trust to cut through all the so-called "liberal media bias" and give them the real scoop about the world we live in... a world which they seem to believe is constantly on the brink of some sort of Apocalyptic collapse over President Blackenstein's historically unprecedented reign Socialist Islamic Terror...

Actually, scratch that. I am sort of tickled by it!

Anyway, you can read more, oh so delicious hilarity at The Baffler.

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Recommended supplemental reading:

• Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch
• Jesus Plus Nothing
• How the Hobby Lobby's Billions support a Right-Wing Political Agenda.
• Pretty much the entire Religion Section of the Rotten Library.

And here's a great book for y'all to check out:

Thunder on the Right, by Alan Crawford. This is one of the best books of its kind that I've found. So many juicy details on the "dignified" forefathers of the conservative movement.The origins of ALEC and Heritage are especially tawdry and funny.