Wingnut Tops Best Seller List

I was astonished to learn that a book of right-wing rubbish sits atop the New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction. It’s simply incredible that Liberty and Tyranny by talk-show host Mark Levin is so popular. It’s hardly readable.

Judge for yourself. Here’s a paragraph from Chapter 1 which introduces Levin’s view of us progressives, a/k/a The Modern Liberal, a/k/a the Statist:

The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration [of Independence] and the order of the civil society, in whole or part. For the Modern Liberal, the individual’s imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a soft tyranny, which becomes increasingly more oppressive, potentially leading to hard tyranny (some form of totalitarianism). As the word “liberal” is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian, it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a Statist.

Another paragraph about progressives…

And yet, the Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last. He is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors.

Can you imagine anyone reading 250 pages of this jaw-droppingly absurd nonsense?

Not only is Levin’s writing style ponderous and pretentious, but his whole shtick is beneath juvenile. As a brief New York Times review helpfully points out, there is a Mark Levin Fan website that contains a lexicon of “What Mark says” compared to “What Mark means.” Here’s a taste:

The philosophy of the stupid means Liberalism
The Dwarf Senator means Senator Barbara Boxer
“Little Dick” Durbin means Senator Richard Durbin
Dr. Demento Dean means Howard Dean
The Cape Cod Orca means Senator Ted Kennedy
Lard Ass means Representative John Murtha
Stimpy Hoyer means Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
The Spiteful Troll means Senator-elect Al Franken

And of course, there’s BJ Bill Jefferson Clinton and his wife, Her Thighness.

Now here’s my question. Are right wing book readers really this childish and stupid? Or has some conservative moneybags foundation bought up a slew of books in order to manipulate the best seller list?

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future