One of the main takeaways from the phony controversy over the DHS' bulletin on right-wing extremism was the self-revealing way that mainstream conservatives attempted to obliterate from public view the very real existence of the ongoing threat to their well-being from right-wing extremists.

Why the frantic effort to obscure this reality? Because they know the ideological and associative distance between far-right extremists and mainstream conservatives has shrunk dramatically over the past 10 years. They dread the consequences of what will happen when the real ugliness starts to break out.

The Ugly Storm has been gathering for awhile. We've been reporting regularly on the increasing activities of far-right extremists, particularly the anti-Obama racism rampant throughout much of this contingent. Of course, it doesn't help when mainstream conservative media are fanning those flames, either. And it seems like it's getting close to an outright explosion.

My friend Max Blumenthal went to a gun show in California and emerged with the above video and the following report:

Fueled by the screeds of radio hosts Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, and the lesser-known but increasingly influential online conspiracist Alex Jones, many gun-show attendees I spoke to were convinced Obama planned to usher in a Marxist dictatorship. They warned that the president’s power grab would only begin with mass gun seizures. “If Obama takes away our guns,” a young, .45 pistol-toting man from Reno told me, “it’s just a step into trying to take away everything else.”

Indeed, in their minds, average Americans opposed to the Obama agenda would be herded into FEMA-run concentration camps by a volunteer army of glassy-eyed liberal college graduates. “When they start imprisoning Americans, and people start seeing that we’re the enemy, then that’ll make it hot,” predicted one Antioch-based young man sporting a button for former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul. “People talk about a revolution,” the young man continued, “an armed revolution. I think police crackdowns on individuals will tip the scales.”

More than a few gun dealers and attendees echoed the young man’s seeming enthusiasm for armed revolt. One Contra Costa, California-based gun dealer named Rich predicted during an otherwise casual off-camera conversation that “some nut” would assassinate Obama within one year of any Democratic attempt at gun-control legislation. While the prospect of organized right-wing violence against the federal government seems far-fetched at this point, the paranoid rhetoric I documented suggests the militia movement that organized against President Bill Clinton’s policies during the 1990s could experience a dramatic resurgence by mobilizing resentment against Obama.

The gun-show crowd is more the "Patriot" contingent of far-right extremism: obsessed with guns and conspiracy theories, yet capable of paranoid bursts of extreme violence by "lone wolf" actors.

Yet we're also seeing a similar upsurge in outright white-supremacist organizations. Newsweek also has a report on this trend from Eve Conant:

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President Obama the other day threw a sharp elbow back at the man who has been proclaiming loudly his desire to see Democrats fail in their efforts to get the economy back on its feet:

“You can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done,” he told top GOP leaders, whom he had invited to the White House to discuss his nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.

In other words, you can play ideological hardball (as Limbaugh urges) and lose, or play real bipartisan ball with Obama and get something done. Sort of that "my way or the highway" approach Limbaugh recommended Bush take back in 2004, but with a gentler touch.

Of course, a dose of their own medicine is exactly what we needed to send these nutcases into a paranoiac frenzy that would make an oxycodone addict blush. See, for instance, Hannity's discussion with his ace panel on Fox last night:

Hannity: Obama says Republicans should stop listening to Rush. I don't know what this obsession is. He said this in this meeting the other day --

Karen Hanretty: He's obsessed with you too.

Hannity: He's mentioned me 10 times by name. [Ed: Keeping count? I guess Hannity does rhyme with vanity.] By the way, keep it coming, more promos.

But I have a theory on this character. And you're the Republican here. He wants to divide and marginalize the Republicans and sort of isolate Conservatives that are the heart of the party. And I think the other thing is, I think they're paving the way, probably not for the Censorship Doctrine, which is what it is, but some backdoor effort to silence people, opposition voices.

Hanretty: Yeah, I think -- look, they call it the Fairness Doctrine, it's not the Fairness Doctrine.

Hannity: It's the Censorship Doctrine.

Hanretty: It is, absolute censorship. I think that is part of what Obama's doing. And it's kind of bizarre that he gives so much credence to -- look, Limbaugh himself says, I'm not a journalist, I'm an entertainer -- and it's almost as if Obama thinks all Republicans are sitting at home with their little tinfoil hats, with their ham radios, waiting, you know, in the middle of the night for Rush to beam his, you know --

Hannity: But he has been the defining voice of conservatism in this country.

Why, yes, according to you the other night, he has: "You are the leading voice of opposition -- conservative. And have defined conservatives for over two decades." When you are the face of the Conservative movement, then you're much more than an entertainer, and it tells us everything we need to know about Karen Hanretty that she tried out that particular nugget. Nice try, but -- whiff!

Meanwhile, did any of these loons happen to notice that no one in Congress, no one in the Obama administration, no identifiable Democrat, not even any of those dirty hippie bloggers -- no one is seriously talking about resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine? The only people talking about it are the folks on the paranoid Right.

In any event, Hannity was just getting his Twilight Zone theme music warmed up. The following rant probably should have been accompanied by a Theremin:

Hannity: Look, there are people that did shut them down, want to shut them down, they wanna go after Imus, they wanna go after Rush, they want me dead. It's like you can't tolerate another viewpoint -- whatever happened to free-speech liberals?

Hmmm, well, they may have gotten tired of their liberality being abused by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who write books about them with titles equating them with despots and terrorists. But no one is impinging on their free-speech rights, because should Hannity and Limbaugh be unemployed tomorrow because of the insane crap they spew regularly (if only), they would still enjoy the very same free-speech rights of every other American citizen -- the right to stand on a street corner, stand up at public meetings, write letters to the editor, author a blog, or do whatever it takes to have your say. The right of free speech doesn't guarantee anyone the right to hold the public megaphone; that's a privilege determined usually by market forces, or more precisely, ownership decisions.

Hannity tops it all off with a classic Socialist Hail Mary:

Hannity: I've supported Obama. I think to keep Gates was a good idea. General Jones was a good idea. But I don't support socialism.

When Conservative ideologues like Limbaugh and Hannity proclaim their hope that Obama fails, they're basing their "loyal opposition" on their belief that conservative governance works best and that Obama's "socialism" is doomed to failure. But what do they mean by "socialism"? So far, their definition seems to include such normative ideas as progressive taxation; so they need to present more persuasive evidence, perhaps, that their definition of "socialism" is something other than "anything that deviates from Conservative dogma."

They seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around the fact that they're trying to convince Americans that anything other than continuing their narrow economic prescription -- a program that simply continues the failed policies of the past eight years -- is "socialism". And if there was any clear signal in the 2008 election, it was that staying the Conservative course was no longer an option.

Liberals don't need to marginalize right-wing ideologues like Limbaugh and Hannity. They've done that job all by themselves.

Keith Olbermann comments on GOP attempts to suppress votes by attacking ACORN

In 2008, faced with a groundswell of public opinion that should deliver a landslide of disapproval for the Republican party and send it into the political wilderness for years, the poor losers of the GOP are more than ready to prevent that end by any means. Few, if any, of the tactics it is using are illegal - often the result of careful legislation designed to preserve the Republican majority forever - but added together they comprise an assault on democracy which would stun even the cynical and sly politicians of Old Europe.

In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."

The GOP and the McCain campaign have been trying to drum up a Bradley Effect, with campaign and party apparatchiks trotting out racist whistles against Obama (and by extension against the party he now leads) at every opportunity while party leaders pretend to be oblivious and unknowing. McCain, Palin and the GOP's Congressional leaders would condemn any overt racism, of course, and attribute it to some bad apples - but they seem remarkably dense in not spotting anything other than utter hate speech racism from their followers (or the candidate himself) when it occurs. The merest veil of deniability conceals their deliberately looking the other way while their supporters run riot.

Nor have their smears stopped at racism. Calling Obama and Dems in general traitors, terrorist abettors, "feminazis" and (oh, horrors) socialists has become a substitute for debating issues. (Actually, Obama's just echoing Lincoln.) From an early stage, the GOP knew it was going to run on personality smears as a substitute for facts. Again, much of the groundswell of hate on the Right is implausibly deniable by the leadership, but since any media attention only fuels their base's paranoia and engenders new smear attacks, "implausible" is all they need to keep the ball rolling independently.

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