During the political tumult of springs primary, there was a week where two events stood out as even more absurd to me than the baseline absurdity of this environment.
One, a story where Democratic insurgent Bernie Sanders supporters at a caucus in Nevada drowned out hispanic labor organizing hero Dolores Huerta by chanting “English Only”. Later, this story morphed into Sanders himself leading this chant. https://twitter.com/MattBinder/status/702539828882219008 This is the sort of angry nativism you’d expect at a Trump rally.
The other, a story where Republican establishment pick Marco Rubio walked by two Cruz organizers reading a Bible and said “Good book… but there’s no answers in there.” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/22/cruz-fires-top-campaign-spokesman-over-rubio-bible-video.html This is the sort of atheist dismissiveness you’d expect from a coastal libertarian blogger.
Needless to say, neither of these things actually happened. There was no chanting at the caucus, and as best we can tell Rubio said “all the answers are in there” - both of which make much more sense.
What was absurd was that anyone even believed them. These wouldn’t just be gaffes, where a candidate or their supporters were rude or foolish. These were stories of the candidates being publicly and arrogantly dismissive of the very factions they have committed to ally with and fight for. And supporters of their opponents found these stories so believable that they promoted them far and wide.
Why the hell would anyone believe these stories?
The answer is paranoia. In modern ideological discussion it’s not enough to believe that your opponent has some of the same goals but differs in the details or methods they would use to pursue them. Or even to believe that your opponent has the same goals, but wants to be the person who implements them instead of you, just because they like power. No instead, the most powerful tactic is to believe that your opponent is a SPY, someone rooting for the other side who was sent to infiltrate your movement.
With someone who disagrees with you, or is even power-hungry, you can debate with them and compromise. You have to recognize their fundamental humanity and work with them some way.
But with a spy, well, there is nothing to debate or compromise on. Everything they do is in bad faith, and any engagement you have with them will only help them undermine the cause. This removes the burden of any responsible action from you. You just have to get rid of them.
And what’s useful to believe, people often come around to believing. So people believe their ideological neighbors - arguers who share their broad goals but disagree with them on something today - are really Spies! from the other side, who have been sent to infiltrate your side and weaken your will or purity.
(My examples above may be defensive of Sanders and Rubio, but there is just as much evidence of Clinton and every Republican being a target of this logic. Hence the derisive term “Republican In Name Only”.)
When you believe that your opponent is a bad-faith spy, really the only option is to expose them. If you can get out to the rest of your side “no, this guy is a traitor” then everyone will come to their senses and support you. So we see obsessions for moments like this, that show the “real” Rubio or Sanders or whoever
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