Over the Cliff

Compiling example after example, the editors of Crooks and Liars, a popular blog, examine the torrent of right-wing kookery-the eager willingness of conservatives to fervently believe things that are provably false-and its ramifications both for our national discourse and our national well-being. The authors show how this outlandish, overheated rhetoric-generated by mainstream-media figures like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Lou Dobbs-is accompanied by a wave of lethal right-wing violence and threatening behavior. The book explores the main drivers of this descent into madness: the extremist Radical Right and the longtime Republican willingness-dating back to Nixon, but refined in more recent years by Lee Atwater and his acolytes-to engage in a divisive politics of resentment, both racial and cultural. The authors also examine ways ordinary Americans can stop the madness.