The Backlash Quotes

“Ironically, this *was* a kind of apocalypse—not the one that Tea Parties and their allies like Paul Broun had been warning about, but a different kind, a complete breakdown of Washington's ability to get anything done, even staring in the face of serious problems that required complex solutions, and some eventual compromise.”
― Will Bunch, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama

“These hard-core conservative and their very own 'days of rage' should not have been that surprising. For a year now, the likes of Glenn Beck had been telling them that the backlash had the power to prevail over the dark forces of socialism (or worse), that 'we surround them'—but that the consequences of failure could be catastrophic, possibly signaling the death of the Republic itself. The reality that—as Obama himself mocked—no such thing was happening was not a source of reassurance but a trigger for even greater anger. A movement that was built atop a pyramid of so much misinformation was not well equipped to deal with the contradictions of its core beliefs, even—or especially—when they became apparent to the rest of the world.”
― Will Bunch, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama

“The seeming power of a unified minority in Washington with just enough votes to thwart Obama was also a source of strength and, arguably, arrogance and self-importance. Even after Brown's election, the Democrats held 59 percent of the U.S. Senate, 59 percent of the House of Representatives, and 100 percent of the White House. But the GOP's forty-one Senate votes—representing, it must be noted, no more than 37 percent of the American public (thanks to Republican popularity in smaller states)—seemed paramount, because it offered just enough votes to kill any piece of legislation through the delaying tactic known as the filibuster. These representatives of 37 percent of the country wielded unprecedented powers because of something the likes of which this nation had never seen before: their ability to stick together on every single issue with the sole purpose of obstructing Barack Obama and his Democratic allies. It was an 'I Hope He Fails' strategy hatched in the ratings-driven studios of talk radio, but now rigid legislative fealty to the on-air musings of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck had ground Washington to a total halt.”
― Will Bunch, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama

“Nobody knew anymore where this thing was headed—toward a second American Revolution of just the next school board election in Sussex County.”
― Will Bunch, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama