Extremism:

We've all known more than a few, I myself had a deeply paranoid co-worker once who literally believed every conspiracy theory in the book especially if there were Jews attached to it.
Now it's pretty much an article of faith that the GOP has steadily moved rightward since 1980.
The right has gotten "rightier" while still making a big play for swing voters...they this do in two ways:
1) Cloaking their real goals in bombastic pseudo populist rhetoric.
2) Spending a lot of money on crass party propaganda. Herein there are assisted by a vast install base of radio talk show hosts and professional conservative talking heads.
So it's a given that the extremists are in charge over there.
Yet among these activists and propagandists there are certain glaring contradictions...there is a vast gulf between that prissy puritan floorwalker John Ashcroft and a morbid debauchee' like Laura Ingraham.
Yet there is no diversity here....rarely do serious movement conservatives take their fellow worshippers to task for philosophical heresy.
So when we talk about the "gulf" between Ashbrook and Ingraham, it is a thing of style... or better lifestyle.
Maybe when we talk about conservative extremism, we are less talking about an idea or ideology and more about extremes of behavior.
These are extremes of behavior that the movement can reconcile and even control.
Both extremes of behavior-if properly channeled are sources of power to the modern conservative movement.
Thus there may be less of an ideology at work here...just a series of protocols for the management of boors, pseudo patriots and pious puritans.
Operationally, power is maintained by distributing boons and perks to key cadres. Laura Ingraham gets an easy gig on the radio, Anne Coulter is wrapped in the warm protective blanket of conservative book publishing...legislation is virtaully for sale giving fundraisers a stake in the movement's well being.
There are literally thousands of sinecures public and private in play here.
And extremists are given what the crave most of all, a chance to harangue the polity from safe vantage points on talk shows, radio programs and the internet.
Their views are not in any way challenged but treated with respect no matter how freakish they may be....the movement drifts ever rightward by making ever more outlandish views part of the mainstream.

I so many ways it is a lifestyle we are describing here.
Well it is worth thinking about anyway.