Last month, Glenn Beck accused the Obama administration of deliberately instigating a national emergency in order to justify a totalitarian revolution. No disrespect to Mr. Beck's investigative skills, but his account was short on details. He had not determined what kind of emergency would occur, when it would happen, or whether the revolution would be communist, fascist, or some monstrous hybrid of the two. (Fascmunism?)

Fortunately for America, FOX News' indefatigable conspiracy hunter has continued to the sniff out the plot, and as of this evening, we have a few more details. First, the emergency will be economic. According to Beck, the U.S. will not be able to pay its mounting debts, and the Treasury will be forced to print money in order to fulfill the nation's obligations, as Germany's Weimar Republic did in the 1920s. The value of the dollar will subsequently collapse, and the U.S. will again emulate the Weimar Republic by introducing a new currency backed by real estate, which the government will obtain in several ways:

Between Fannie and Freddie, the federal government already owns 55 percent of the mortgages in this country. And coupled with all the federal land grabs for parks, polar bears who are crowded but endangered and all the oil we're not drilling for or coal we're not mining, you might be able to base a currency on all that.

But then it gets a bit foggy. Beck predicts that we will need some kind of help to create the new currency, some allies in the endeavor, and he wonders aloud, "Who would the new regime responsible for this new system of currency...after they've destroyed our future and your children's future, who would they have on their side?" Beck then answers his own question. Our new currency buddies will be international all-stars, Russia, China, and Venezuela. The astute viewer can imagine what happens next. Our "helpers" will help themselves to our houses and national parks. That's bad enough for the American people, but it will be disastrous for the poor polar bears:

Do you really think Russia and China will be better protectors of the planet than we have been? Will Russians cordon off 200,000 square miles of extra space for polar bear roaming or will they shoot them in the head to get a barrel of oil that used to belong to you? I know I would. Surely, Ivan will.*

OK, so Beck clearly has some homework to do, but it's coming together. Will he get to the bottom of the plot in time? Will Americans be able to stop the the Obama administration's diabolical plan before it's too late? Stay tuned to Persecution Politics to find out.

* For the young and stupid: Ivan means "evil Russian dude who hates polar bears."

One reason that right-wing commentators continue to spout paranoid hysteria is that no one has told them to shut up. OK, Keith Olbermann and a bunch of left-wing bloggers have told them to shut up, and the White House has indirectly implied that they should please keep it down. But the people who really have the power to undermine the conspiracists--the non-paranoid conservative leaders, or what's left of them--have not said a damn word about the wild accusations hurled by Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Michele Bachmann. Some may be afraid, particularly after Limbaugh schooled RNC Chair Michael Steele when Steele called him an "entertainer." But others have cynically calculated that the paranoia works for the party, so they just let it ride.

Take Bill Kristol. Kristol is a very conservative man, but he is not a stupid man. Unlike Beck and Limbaugh, who never graduated from college, Kristol received a B.A. (magna cum laude) and Ph.D. from Harvard. Instead of beginning his career as a radio D.J., he taught political science at U. Penn and Harvard's Kennedy School. He has never expressed the kind of paranoia that has become the standard fare of FOX News commentary. But he has no intention of trying to stop it. Kristol believes that the Republican Party's center of gravity lies "with individuals such as Palin and Huckabee and Gingrich, media personalities like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, and activists at town halls and tea parties," and he praises their effectiveness:

Some will lament this -- but over the past year, as those voices have dominated, conservatism has done pretty well in the body politic, and Republicans have narrowed the gap with Democrats in test ballots...The lesson activists around the country will take from this is that a vigorous, even if somewhat irritated, conservative/populist message seems to be more effective in revitalizing the Republican Party than an attempt to accommodate the wishes of liberal media elites. So the GOP is likely, for the foreseeable future, to be of a conservative mind and in a populist mood. In American politics, there are worse things to be.

In American politics, there are worse things to be. Kristol doesn't tell us what those worse things are, but red-baiting witch-hunters from the 1950's are fairly high on many peoples' lists--the politicians whose paranoid fearmongering tore the country apart until someone finally stood up and said, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" Conservative leaders of the day surely felt that the "populist mood" benefited their election chances. Eisenhower toured Wisconsin with McCarthy, and it probably helped him to win the Presidency.

But Eisenhower hated McCarthy and actively worked to undermine him after winning the election. We might also recall a more recent president, George H.W. Bush, who resigned his lifelong NRA membership after an NRA advertisement referred to "jack-booted government thugs," a fascist reference that seems almost quaint by today's standards.

Yet today, we hear nothing but silence from the right side of the aisle, or worse, complicity from politicians who seek to profit directly from the hysteria. As long as conservatives provide a haven for conspiracy theories, the paranoia will continue to boil and heave and devour the party that protects it.

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Stay tuned for more crazy talk in my Persecution Politics series at dagblog.com.