Anybody remember the early 90s?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

They were pretty batshit, but major differences were that they were anti-world-trade and pro-made-in-USA, they had not yet been annexed by the Neocon movement (which was just getting going) and there was still a little room for Republican Moderates to function within the party.

[Kai]

Black helicopters.
Mena.
New World Order.
Hillary Clinton is a lesbian Satanist.
UN troops secretly preparing to take over the USA.
The Patriot Movement.

If TOTSE was still up, I'd link you to the batshit insanity that was the early 90s...every bit as good as this, for sure.  The only difference is now the Movement has slipped the leash, and the crazy has now moved up into the main ranks of the GOP.  Before, there were enough old skool republicans to (barely) keep the movement under control - though Newt and his merry gang didn't help matters.

i never understood the crazy aspect of black helicopters.  Isn't that just about helicopters that have noise reduction tech?

Oh no - that would have some rational basis! The Black Helicopters were the front line of the UN/NWO army that was being poised to force the whole world into a one-world totalitarian government (run by the socialist fascists of the Clinton regime? can't remember who was supposed to be running the UN/NWO regime). The Black Helicopters are how "they" would come to get you, according to the crazies, at least as far as I remember from the lunatic rantings of the early/mid '90s.

Funny. IIRC, it was Bush Sr.'s daddy who plotted to instate a NWO for real

[LMNO]

NWO is ok, as long as it's Amurrika who's calling the shots.
  \

[That One Guy]

Indeed, Kai. That's what always struck me as hilarious about the NWO thing - Bush, Sr. coined the phrase in I believe one of the State of the Union speeches (and started the ball rolling for globalism as ordered by corporate America looking to "outsource" jobs and production via tax breaks). IIRC, I don't think it caught on as a bogeyman until the Clinton era, though. Could be wrong about that, but I seem to remember it was blamed on Clinton since it started having noticeable effects in the mid 90s, even though it was started by Bush, Sr. (sound familiar? )

[Requia ☣]

The opposition will always blame the current administration for problems that were started by the old one, *always*.  The liberals did the same thing with attacking Bush for causing the economic problems that started at the end of the Clinton years,

[fomenter]

i dont remember bush 1 being the darling of the tinfoil hat crowd during his term, they had the paranoia and his CIA history and NWO comments didn't help that...

[LMNO]

And then there was Ruby Ridge in 1992... The Seperatists, remember them?

[Jenne]

Ruby Ridge and the OK City bombing seemed to be anti-Clintonian and fringe elements of the rightwingnuttery that pervaded with Bill's presidency...the dogged tracking of his life before the WH (remember Hillarys "vast, right-wing conspiracy" comment?), the cattle futures, Ken Star's investigation...etc.

[Cain]

Yeah, Bush Sr wasn't exactly favourites with the tinfoil hat crowd or the Neocons or the evangelical base.  He was too Establishment and too Realist for their liking. 

But at least he wasn't a goddamn Communist loving Satan worshipping drug-running rapist murderer, like Clinton. 

[Requia ☣]

Wait... the guy who said he doesn't consider atheists to be American citizens wasn't extreme enough for the fundies?   

[Cain]

I think it was around then the fundies realised the establishment GOP would say any crazy old horseshit to get their support, without actually meaning it or doing anything to act upon that belief.

At least going by What's The Matter With Kansas, that was when the evangelicals decided to overrun the moderates, instead of merely being their mass of voters.

[Thurnez Isa]

Wait... the guy who said he doesn't consider atheists to be American citizens wasn't extreme enough for the fundies?   

There is a core of the fundamentalists that don't actually believe anyone could be atheistic.
They believe everyone believes in God and those who don't, or those who believe in nonAbrahamic Gods are lying so they could live in sin.

[Jenne]

12 years of uninterrupted Republican, right-wing, very Christian leadership in the White House gave the Fundamentalists in the local governments a feeling of power.  They then took to the streets from the churches and recruited voters in throngs.

I remember it well.  When Clinton won, there was this upsurge in "fight for your right to pray, fight for your right to be on t he Right" etc. schtick.  It is, essentially, how Dubya ended up squeaking by.  By the time he was running, it was his percieved charisma that fed into that offshoot of the Republican party that made him so appealing (besides his daddy's credentials and the manipulations of the neocons).

[LMNO]

There was an article in Esquire before the 2000 elections, when it was looking at the potential republican nominees, and they basically said, "W Bush is a fucking idiot with a shady and dubious past.  There's no possible way he'll win the primaries, let alone the election."

I wish I had saved that article.

[AFK]

Fortunately for him, Al Gore was the opponent.