(Crossposted on the Change to Win blog, CtW Connect)
One of the more baffling elements of the health care debate has been the sudden emergence on the right of the idea that President Barack Obama’s reforms would require old people to be put to death as a cost-cutting measure — an idea that, having no bearing in reality, appears to have arrived from some bizarre alternate universe.
It sounds crazy. It is crazy. But you can't understand how crazy until you dig into who else is pushing this meme.
Find out the bizarre company today's GOP leaders are keeping, after the jump...
Let's start with an example of how far the idea that "health care reform = mandatory euthanasia" has spread. Here, for your viewing (dis)pleasure, is GOP Rep. Virginia Foxx spouting this nonsense on the floor of the House of Representatives:
And while Rep. Foxx has a habit of saying loony things, she’s not alone in pushing this particular bit of crazy.
Most outlets have cited a July 16th appearance on Fred Thompson’s radio show by Betsy McCaughey, who has been working since the early 1990s to prevent health care reform from becoming law, as the source of the meme. On Wednesday, Politico reported that the meme had been picked up by such GOP luminaries as House Republican Leader and tanning enthusiast Rep. John Boehner; House Republican Policy Committee chair Rep. Thad McCotter (seen here doing his amazing zombie impersonation); and 2008 Republican Presidential candidate and grumpy old man Fred Thompson. And now that "respectable" Republicans have gone on the record fearing that Obama wants to turn everyone’s grandparents into Soylent Green, a whole host of other Republicans have taken up the cry as well, including conservative radio blowhards Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
The charge has been thoroughly debunked (see here and here), but it’s spread quickly across the right anyway.
If you’ve been listening to all those Republican leaders spouting this nonsense and thinking "man, that sounds crazy", there’s a good reason why. It’s because it is crazy. How can we tell? Because it is disturbingly similar to a line that has been pushed for a couple months now by an actual crazy person — political cult leader and full-on nutbar Lyndon LaRouche.
If you’re not familiar with him, LaRouche has been living on the American political fringe since the 1960s, first as an extreme Marxist, then reinventing himself in the 1980s as an extreme right-winger to capitalize on the popularity of Ronald Reagan.
Over all those years, though, LaRouche has been consistent in advancing some of the most downright crazy ideas ever introduced to American political discourse. Said crazy ideas include, but are not limited to:
And on and on. Even 20 years ago, LaRouche’s weird rantings had gained him enough of a reputation as a nut that Saturday Night Live was making fun of him:
It would almost be comical, if his little cult didn’t have a record of embezzling elderly people and exploiting impressionable young people — with one such young person even ending up dead after attempting to break away.
So why do I bring all this up? Because for months before Betsy McCaughey and the GOP started peddling the Big Lie that health care reform meant euthanasia, LaRouche was peddling the same thing.
Consider this statement from a LaRouche publication dated May 16:
Today, the looters are inside the White House, in the persons of Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, Nancy-Ann DeParle, and others. There, they are dictating how to continue the HMO looting rights, even to the point of death, under the banner of "saving money" by health-care "reform." Citizens are receiving Hitler-era "reasons" for why they must accept drastic medical cutbacks, sickness, and death. For example, you must forego what is called "wasteful, excessive treatment," during your end-of-life months.
President Obama has proclaimed this Nazi medicine/health "reform" his top goal. Congress, so far, is acting in lockstep, under the direction of Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), to whip up comprehensive reform legislation by this June.
Or this one, dated May 15:
"This is mass murder," LaRouche said. "Obama has adopted Hitler’s program. There is no reason to hold one’s tongue. When the President of the United States has adopted Hitler’s program, that’s the time to unleash. This is exactly what I warned about on April 11th in my webcast. Obama has a Nero complex. Obama is the new Nero. This is exactly what is happening. This is Hitler’s policy now being echoed by Obama. Let’s not allow any compromise. You have to attack this directly. He has adopted Hitler’s genocidal health policy."
Or this video, posted to YouTube on May 28, which makes the same wildly off-the-mark arguments.
Now, I’m not saying that McCaughey and the rest of the Republican Party are taking their arguments directly from LaRouche. (Though anything’s possible, I suppose; LaRouchies have circulated in right-wing circles before.) What I am saying, though, is that it’s deeply, deeply weird that the leaders of a major political party — a party that claims to speak for nearly half of the electorate! — are out there making arguments on national television and on the floor of the Congress that are functionally indistinguishable from the rantings of a legendary crank.
Why are so many big-name Republicans are lining up to buy a ticket on the crazy train? Who knows. Perhaps some enterprising reporter out there will ask them.
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