Can't Find the Words to Capture It

The chart on the right is based on a current survey of Republicans. It was created with commentary here from a more in-depth look at the numbers here. A number like 21 seems pretty small if you don't really think about it, but you have to stop and remember that's a percentage of millions. At the least, it seems, hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens don't just disagree with their elected president, don't just think he makes bad decisions, has the wrong values, and will inadvertently hurt them despite his good intentions; no, they think he is a malicious enemy who will deliberately do everything in his power to destroy them. What do you do with that?

More from the article Obama's Secret Police:

But Noble's appeal for reason isn't likely to quiet the storm. That's because the Obama executive order feeds a thriving narrative on the right about the current administration's nefarious intentions. Ever since Obama took office, certain corners of the Internet have been frothing with speculation that Obama fancies himself a Mobutu-style African dictator who is furtively plotting to use martial law to crush dissent or unrest over his economic policies.

Nutty as this premise sounds, it's proven particularly popular among those who believe that Obama is not an American citizen or who are bitterly opposed to health care reform. The drumbeat has been so loud that a host of state legislators have introduced "state sovereignty" bills declaring their independence from the federal government under the 10th Amendment and threatening to secede in the event that martial law is declared; Sarah Palin even signed one such bill before quitting as governor of Alaska. . . .

The Tea Partiers' conspiracy theories aren't new. Similarly hysterical warnings of government overreach were rife during the Clinton or Carter administrations. "In the militia days in the 1990s it was about a UN invasion. It's exactly the same phenomenon. Some of the same people are involved," he says.

But these extreme conspiracy theories aren't just confined to the radical fringe. They're being adopted by national politicians, as Rep. Rogers proved with his attempt to roll back Obama's Interpol order. Back in the 1990s, says Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino, "The black helicopter stuff was pretty well segregated from the mainstream world. But now you have Sarah Palin entertaining the Obama [born in] Kenya thing or [Gov.] Rick Perry from Texas toying with the secession idea." It's yet another sign of how much the Tea Party and the Republican Party are increasingly one and the same.