Walking Through the Looking Glass: Right Wing Bloggers Choose their 25 Worst Americans in History

Folks, we have indeed walked through the looking glass.

One of the repeated findings in the literature on American politics is that the American people are for the most part non-ideological and centrist in their political beliefs. Certainly, there are outliers of opinion and different publics reveal an intensity of opinion that is proportional to how much they care about a given issue. But, folks tend to congregate around the middle of the distribution and run away from candidates and issues that are too far to either extreme.

In the campaign preceding Barack Obama's election (and most certainly in the months that have followed) we have been witness to an increasingly polarized electorate. However, with the rise of conservative talk radio, Right wing epistemic closure, and the tin eared blaring by the conservative punditry, there are many elements whom are deeply invested in fueling the exaggerated divides between Red State and Blue State America.

Of course divisions in American politics have always been with us: see people's exhibit number one, the vicious smear campaign against former president Bill Clinton. But the noxious elements of white racial resentment and white victimology have added something else to the hostility faced by Barack Obama. For the Right, the sky certainly is falling...and there is no Chicken Little in waiting.

While hardly scientific, the recent survey by the website Right Wing News which asked 48 conservative bloggers to list the 25 worst Americans in history is quite revealing. Some of the picks are a function of recency (who ever heard of Saul Alinsky until Beck started braying about him?). Others are gimmes (Timothy McVeigh for example). But some are shocking (Jimmy Carter? A man who builds homes for poor people and has dedicated his life to service?).

Quite predictably, who is at the top of the list for worst Americans in history? Barack Obama.

For these conservatives, the President is apparently worse than Timothy McVeigh, Jefferson Davis, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Governor Faubus, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, Charles Manson, or Benedict Arnold? Wow.

While the data may tell us one thing, I am more and more convinced that the divides in our political culture are even more severe than is commonly known. If this survey, the rise of the New Right tea baggers, the Texas history revisionism, and anti-immigrant sentiment are taken in context, there are indeed two Americas in this country...Americas which are increasingly separate, hostile, and unequal.

Here are the results in their entirety.

23) Saul Alinsky (7)
23) Bill Clinton (7)
23) Hillary Clinton (7)
19) Michael Moore (7)
19) George Soros (8)
19) Alger Hiss (8)
19) Al Sharpton (8)
13) Al Gore (9)
13) Noam Chomsky (9)
13) Richard Nixon (9)
13) Jane Fonda (9)
13) Harry Reid (9)
13) Nancy Pelosi (9)
11) John Wilkes Booth (10)
11) Margaret Sanger (10)
9) Aldrich Ames (11)
9) Timothy McVeigh (11)
7) Ted Kennedy (14)
7) Lyndon Johnson (14)
5) Benedict Arnold (17)
5) Woodrow Wilson (17)
4) The Rosenbergs (19)
3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt (21)
2) Barack Obama (23)
1) Jimmy Carter (25)