The Struggle for the Soul of the Republican Party: Michele Bachmann, the Extreme Right and the Politics of Fear

August 27, 2012


This weekend, The Huffington Post published Haris Tarin, MPAC's Washington, DC, Office Director, op-ed on "The Struggle for the Soul of the Republican Party: Michele Bachmann, the Extreme Right and the Politics of Fear." Tarin explores how the party of President Abraham Lincoln has let bigots and fear control its discourse on some of the most pressing issues facing our nation. 

SEE: "The Struggle for the Soul of the Republican Party: Michele Bachmann, the Extreme Right and the Politics of Fear." (The Huffington Post)

The op-ed reads in part: 

During this year's Republican primaries, candidates were tripping over each other to call for a ban on Shariah and question the appointment of Muslims to senior positions. Death panels, class warfare, socialism, Muslim infiltration, terror babies and now the legitimate rape comment by Iowa Republican Todd Akin are but some of the bizarre terms used by Republican politicians to induce fear and paranoia. These topics that took center stage on the campaign trail sadly originating from bigots and paranoid commentators from the extreme.

Bachmann's source for her allegations is Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, who the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) labeled a paranoid propagandist. Yet this did not stop Bachmann from hurling allegations based on "evidence" produced by Gaffney against individuals such as Secretary Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin, who has served her since she was the First Lady.

 

 


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