Right-wingers' track record in accurate predictions

Ed Brayton posted some musings regarding the veracity of all those claims the Right has made over the decades, predictions that those Evil Liberalz^TM were taking over, or that America would become part of a New World Order, or that America would become a communist/socialist/baby-eating pseudo-Soviet Union. None of it's happened, of course – which brings into question whether they still have any credibility at all regarding what they say about current-day political policies and future predictions.

Let's go back a ways. In the 30s, they were clamoring about FDR's programs, claiming that he was going to turn us in to another Soviet Union. Didn't happen.

In the 1950s, the John Birch society was claiming that "both the U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order, managed by a 'one-world socialist government.'" Didn't happen.

[...]

All liberals were considered traitors, pushing for a communist America. Putting fluoride in the water was a stepping stone on the path to communism. In the 70s, the normalization of relations with China was proof of a one-world conspiracy, then it was giving away the Panama Canal that was going to destroy America.

When Bush the Elder used the phrase "new world order" that was proof of this global conspiracy. Then it was the secret markings on the backs of road signs that were supposedly there to tell the UN troops where to go when they invaded. And Chinese troops were training in Mexico for an invasion and takeover.

So it seems the GOP has always been a bunch of nutters shaking in fear at the sight of Liberals and screaming in rage at the mere idea of a socialized America. While I'm not exactly surprised here, one does still note that their previous hysterics, whilst amusing and pathetic, were much less ... grandiose, than they are these days. At least they weren't claiming the only way to fix America would be for a renown terrorist to blow up a large chunk of the country for one thing.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)