In a Friday article, The New Republic’s Brian Beutler expressed a combination of disgust and resignation that the ideological “absurdity” and supposedly dubious autobiographical “veracity” of Ben Carson don’t matter to conservatives.
Beutler acknowledged that Carson’s poll numbers may take a hit because of the flap over the West Point “scholarship,” but wondered, “Could Carson’s supporters prove so uninterested in his genuine merits and demerits that they might look past this transgression? The very fact that this doubt exists incriminates both the conservative-entertainment complex and the nature of the Republican electorate.”
From Beutler’s piece (bolding added):
Ben Carson’s popularity among conservatives has been marked by their imperviousness to questions about his honesty and fitness. Carson has made dozens of statements about federal policy that have transcended garden-variety conservative over-promising and reached the realm of Chauncey Gardner-esque absurdity. He has also faced serious questions about the veracity of stories he tells about his youth and young manhood. Through it all, conservatives have not only stuck by his side, but actually become more taken with him…
That all likely changes now that Carson has confessed to fabricating a seminal story about having declined admission to West Point in his youth…
But there is room for genuine doubt here: Could Carson’s supporters prove so uninterested in his genuine merits and demerits that they might look past this transgression? The very fact that this doubt exists incriminates both the conservative-entertainment complex and the nature of the Republican electorate…
…Carson…thrust his deception into the public eye over and over and over again, and nobody questioned it until he became a poll leader in the Republican presidential primary.
This is not a great reflection on the media, I suppose—but it's a worse reflection on the people who vaulted Carson to the summa of the conservative movement without bothering to investigate him…
In this way, Carson’s rise is reminiscent of the McCain campaign’s decision to elevate Sarah Palin to vice presidential nominee after the most cursory vetting. Carson and Palin both paired reactionary politics with identities more closely associated with liberalism. Palin’s value was in her potential to undermine the historic nature of Obama’s candidacy. Carson’s is in his willingness to validate and absolve conservative racial politics…
These phenonema [sic] were driven, to a large extent, by the idea that branding can eclipse structural political realities. What’s amazing and distressing is that, for millions of American conservatives, it absolutely can.
