Some on the right are accusing Michele Bachmann of helping Obama steal the 2012 election because of her incompetence in leading the House Tea Party Caucus.
Tea partier and Conservatives4Palin blogger James V. DeLong wrote a conspiracy fueled post on National Review that reached the pinnacle of lunacy by claiming that Michele Bachmann aided Obama’s theft of the 2012 election by being incompetent, “It is plausible to conclude that the administration adopted a successful program of using the IRS to suppress conservative votes while encouraging its own allies — unions, public employees, progressive 501(c)(4)s, etc. The administration may in fact have stolen an election. The House, which could have stopped the abuse, was crippled by the hibernation of its most likely instrument, the Tea Party Caucus.”
DeLong tries to give Bachmann the benefit of the doubt by calling her a bad manager who neglected her tea party leadership responsibilities, but right after those statements he posts another conspiracy theory from blogger Ann Althouse, “Obama’s prime target was the Tea Party (which had crushed him in the 2010 midterms), and the establishment Republicans were at odds with the Tea Party movement. I’m not saying I believe this, but sober reflection tells us we need to redraw the line between paranoia and vigilance. The theory is that establishment Republicans appreciated the suppression of the Tea Party.”
If establishment Republicans wanted the tea party suppressed, and Michele Bachmann neutered the tea party caucus, does this mean that Bachmann was a double agent who was working for the establishment?
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The idea is that Bachmann helped Obama “steal” the election because she was an incompetent leader, with a darker conspiracy looming large. (Mind you, this is coming from a man who is a supporter of America’s poster child for incompetence, Sarah Palin). The reality is that Palin supporters like DeLong have always felt that Bachmann was trying to steal Sister Sarah’s spotlight, so there is definitely an element of right-on-right hostility involved.
Bachmann is being thrown under the tea party bus, because these people won’t grant President Obama a shred of legitimacy. To the far right, Obama is the man who stole the White House. They will keep dreaming up increasingly ridiculous 2012 conspiracy theories until this president leaves office.
Michele Bachmann was labeled the worst thing that a tea partier can think of. She has been deemed a co-conspirator, even if by incompetence, in Obama’s “theft” of the White House. Tea partiers are so delusional that they can’t see that Obama didn’t steal anything.
Mitt Romney was never in a position to win, because the rest of the country doesn’t hate this president as much as the far right does. It is this detachment from basic political reality that leads the right to embrace such wild conspiracy theories.
It is fascinating to watch the some of the same paranoid minds that Michele Bachmann courted and fundraised off of turn on her. Bachmann is being swallowed up by the very Obama paranoia that she helped create. I couldn’t possibly think of a more just ending to such a despicable career.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
