Abnormal Is The New Normal?

After pointing out the irresponsible rhetoric that comes from talk radio and Faux News, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been relentlessly attacked by the members of talk radio and their followers for pointing out this fact.

"Loughner was a liberal," some would claim, while others would just call him mentally ill. Apparently, defending their hate is easier than honest introspection.

OK, let's say we give them Loughner. There is always Jim David Adkisson who shot up the Unitarian Church in Tennessee after getting repeated doses of the vitriol and hate speech served up by Michael Savage and Bill O'Reilly.

If they think that is just one example, Blogging Blue posted, last summer, that Adkisson was just one in a string of crazies who lap at talk radio's and Faux News' hate juice.

Digby thinks that this denial of reality by the right and the populace in general is the new normal:

I've been following this story of the radical right very closely since Oklahoma City. But as I mentioned the other day, I didn't realize what a huge role it has come to play in their popular imagination. They believe they were wronged, and it's fed their militant paranoia ever since then.

It is worse. But perversely, because it is worse, people are less alarmed by it. It's fairly obvious to me that this has been normalized. And it's been normalized to the point where what people now find alarming is someonepointing it out

American voters say 52 - 41 percent that "heated political rhetoric drives unstable people to commit violence," the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. Liberals rather than conservatives are more responsible for such rhetoric, voters say 36 - 32 percent.

No, that's not a joke. But I'm not surprised. I often get accused of being divisive when I write about right wing lunacy. It makes people feel uncomfortable.

I hope like hell it's not the new normal, especially after seeing this list linked to by Digby.