Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America

What’s a Wingnut? It’s someone on the far-right wing or far-left wing of the political spectrum - the professional partisans and the unhinged activists, the hardcore haters and the paranoid conspiracy theorists. They’re the people who always try to divide us instead of unite us.

Wingnuts looks at the outbreak of extremism in the opening years of the Obama administration – from the unprecedented government spending that spurred the Tea-Party protests to the onset of Obama Derangement Syndrome. John Avlon explains how hate-fueled rumors take hold (one section is called “How Obama Became Hitler, a Communist and the Antichrist”), looks at the ‘hunt for heretics’ that is taking place inside both parties and details the rise of hyper-partisan media. Avlon profiles preachers who are praying for the president’s death, goes inside the growing “Hatriot” movement and parallels the “Birthers” and the “9/11 Truthers.” The book compares current merchants of political paranoia with past fear-mongers and finds that divisive demagogues have sold this snake oil before. But the two parties’ increased polarization and the echo-chamber of the internet are helping the fringe blur with the base, making the Wingnuts more powerful than ever before.

We are allowing paranoids, hysterics and hyper-partisans to hijack our politics – but it doesn’t have to be this way. Avlon asserts that centrists need to stand up to the extremes on both sides and declare their independence. The book ends on a hopeful note – the conclusion is “How to Take America Back from the Lunatic Fringe.”

A wingnut is someone on the far-right or far-left wing of the political spectrum professional partisans, unhinged activists and paranoid conspiracy theorists. Campaigning as the antidote to polarized politics, Barack Obama promised to transcend the old divides of left and right, black and white, red states and blue states. But during his first year in office, he presided over an eruption of hate and hyper-partisanship that mocks the pledge upon which millions ushered him into office.
From Revolutionary War-inspired “Tea Party” protests to the health-care town hall hijackings, principled policy opposition to government spending has taken a sharp right turn into Crazytown. Not to mention death threats to elected leaders and Sarah Palin’s ranting about administration “death panels.” For those with a vested interest in stirring the crazypot, all of this has been good for business hate is a cheap and easy recruiting tool. But it can be murder on a democracy…
As creator of CNN’s hit segment, “Wingnuts of the Week,” Daily Beast senior political columnist John Avlon has unique insight into how far-left and far-right political extremists came to dominate the country’s political dialogue and, with this audiobook, he shows the way back to a saner, smarter national conversation.

John Avlon is the creator of the breakout “Wingnut of the Week” segment on CNN, and from his Daily Beast columns and commentary on cable news. He is also a regular contributor to CNN’s American Morning and Campbell Brown. He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics. Tina Brown (foreword) is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines and host of CNBC’s “Topic A with Tina Brown”.