Conspiracy theorists have hijacked the GOP: What happens when Trump, Cruz & Carson start following..

[DonViejo]

Conspiracy theorists have hijacked the GOP: What happens when Trump, Cruz & Carson start following Alex Jones’ lead?

The Planned Parenthood hoax is a case study in how horrible information can somehow become conventional wisdon

BOB CESCA

The fact that Donald Trump is leading in the polls by roughly 11 percentage points should be enough evidence that the Republican crazy train has completely derailed. But all the blame can’t be dropped onto Trump’s be-wigged head. The modern GOP, inch-by-inch and day-by-day, continues to embrace the very fringes of the political discourse by sounding eerily similar to paleoconservative conspiracy theorists like radio host and talking throat polyp Alex Jones.

Back in May, Jones held a rally outside an Austin, TX Planned Parenthood based around the coopted theme of “Black Lives Matter.” Of course it had nothing to do with police violence or racism. Jones borrowed the hashtag in order to demonize Planned Parenthood — which, Jones insists, is committing genocide against black babies. Jones believes Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted to exterminate the African-American population, based solely on a quote from a letter Sanger wrote in 1939 in which she said, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”

Shocker: Alex Jones is misinterpreting the quote. Here’s the full context:

“The minister’s work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

Sanger was seeking an African-American doctor to prescribe birth control to African-American patients, chiefly because there was a pervasive suspicion at the time that white people were attempting to prevent black people from breeding. While there might’ve been some fringe racists who believed such a thing, Sanger was not one of them. Indeed, Sanger’s “Negro Project” was a widely endorsed social justice project, and whatever racists beliefs Sanger may or may not have held, Planned Parenthood was definitely not trying to exterminate “the Negro population.” (Here’s the full debunking from FactCheck.org.)

more
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/22/conspiracy_theorists_have_hijacked_the_gop_what_happens_when_trump_cruz_carson_start_following_alex_jones_lead/

[jberryhill]

1. Yep

Conspiracy nutters are annoying enough, but when they get into positions of power, the consequences are severe.

J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon, Hitler, McCarthy... these paranoid people - of all stripes - are able to attract pretty enthusiastic followings.