There is no boundary on the right wing

At Slacktivist, Fred Clark has frequently made the point that the limits of what conservative evangelicals consider acceptable are only on the left side. If you’re too liberal, you’re controversial. Clark says it’s impossible to be so conservative you’re controversial. And the left-wing boundary keeps contracting — a few years ago being pro-vaccine was perfectly fine and unremarkable, now for many conservative Christians it’s controversial. As Kristin Kobes du Mez says, being a Christian college administrator is a narrow road to walk safely. And even if you kowtow to the right, they may crush you anyway.

Case in point, Newsmax jackass Tom Basile arguing Kamala Harris can’t be Christian because she doesn’t have the right political stance. The definition of “Christian” is not confined to “Christians foolish enough to think Newsmax deals in reality” any more than it’s confined to churches that welcome gays. And the decision “are you a good Christian” will be decided at a much higher paygrade than Basile’s.

Conversely people who were too far to the right are now mainstream. Douglas Wilson, defender of rapists and supporter of marital rape is an extreme patriarchy believer who claims American race relations were never better than under slavery. He’s no longer so controversial. Neither is theocratic forced-birther Matt Trewhella.

Or consider right-wing pundit Meg Basham, a religious conservative who (judging from her twitter feed) thinks it’s much worse for the SBC to allow women to preach than to allow sexual predators in the pulpit. Her recent book claims much of the religious right is the religious left, captured by woke ideology and corrupted by donations from liberal bazillionaires. In it, Basham outs an assault victim and judging by the reviews, it’s unadulterated crap.

The constant ratcheting of American conservatives further right is a bad thing in itself. I don’t think there’s the same pressure in left-wing institutions. The far right will often come home to the Republican Party; the far left seems more committed to wishing a plague on both your houses. We have people who saw themselves (and sometimes were) on the left swinging to alliances with the right-wing.

I think the ratchet also aggravates the tendency to crank magnetism. As Fred Clark points out, believing in liberals as the essence of evil doesn’t help you grasp reality. Tina Peters, a Colorado official who breached voting-machine security to prove her conviction Biden stole 2020 now claims she’s been framed by the deep state. Rick Scott says the CIA may have killed JFK. Seemingly insane talk about the Democratic Party and our lizard-people overlords devolves, like so many crackpot theories to Jews Are Evil. Even people who don’t slide into full-antisemitism can do serious harm, as the Qanon-fueled paranoia about Wayfair shows.