What's behind the right-wing attack on ACORN?

At the risk of treading into some foul and scary places, now seems like a good time to plumb the hidden corners of the modern right-wing brain to see if we can try to understand what motivates some of the more outrageous behaviors that have been on display of late during the run-up to the election.

What motivates a number of not unintelligent people to spew the kind of venom and tell the kind of bald-faced whoppers that we've been witness to over the last few days? Is it pure political desperation and opportunism or is there a measure of sincerity at work?

A classic case in point is the recent bevy of attacks on the community organizing group, ACORN, and its supposed efforts to promote "voter fraud." What could possibly motivate the spasm of wild and absurd claims we've seen recently from the far right "think" tanks and blogs? Are these people merely working off of a cynical campaign playbook handed down from the top of the national ticket or do they really believe that there is some sort of dastardly cabal underway to facilitate mass voter fraud by all sorts of black and brown people and "illegal aliens"?

First, a little background

ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is a middle aged and well-respected national organizing group that traces its roots back to 1970 Arkansas. It has offices and operations on the ground throughout the country dedicated to very simple and straightforward mission:

"…to organize a majority constituency of low- to moderate-income people across the United States.  The members of ACORN take on issues of relevance to their communities, whether those issues are discrimination, affordable housing, a quality education, or better public services.  ACORN believes that low- to moderate-income people are the best advocates for their communities, and so ACORN's low- to moderate-income members act as leaders, spokespeople, and decision-makers within the organization."

Over the last four decades, the group has worked on dozens of issues at the local, state and national level. Here is the current list of issues on which it is working to mobilize action: affordable housing, better schools, fair housing, fair tax fees, foreclosures, gulf coast recovery, health care, immigration, living wage, paid sick days, predatory lending, utilities and voter engagement. Its overarching goal is to move public policy so as to produce results that better the lives of the people it serves. To this end, it mobilizes people, registers voters, promotes ballot initiatives and provides direct services to its members (like tax preparation). It has spawned a family of related organizations pursuing the same mission. Pretty subversive, huh?

Right-wing attacks

Over the last few weeks, as people around the country have rushed to meet voter registration deadlines, there has been a spike in attacks on ACORN's efforts to register voters. These attacks culminated this week with the following statement by John McCain during Tuesday's debate:

"We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama's relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

Here in North Carolina, the Pope Civitas Institute blog included this post yesterday:

"I'm sure you've read a lot in the media over the past couple of days regarding the widespread voter fraud operation being headed by ACORN.

The NC State Board of Elections has already identified at least 135 fraudulent registration applications, and we've seen NC's lax residency requirements already make some national blogs."

As has been explained at great length in a number of places, the claims about there being some sort of nefarious plot by ACORN to commit mass voter fraud are, in a word, hogwash. The group's website probably puts it the most simply and cogently:

"ACORN has helped 1.3 million citizens from all parties and all walks of life apply for voter registration. In most states, ACORN is required by law to turn in every voter registration card – even in cases where the cards are not valid. It is ACORN that has reported almost all of the issues regarding voter registration cards to elections officials, and flagged the suspicious cards. Invalid voter registration cards do NOT constitute voter fraud.  Even RNC General Counsel Sean Cairncross has recently acknowledged he is not aware of a single improper vote cast as a result of bad cards submitted in the course of an organized voter registration effort. ACORN hired 13,000 field workers to register people to vote.  In any endeavor of this size, some people will engage in inappropriate conduct.  ACORN has a zero tolerance policy and terminated any field workers caught engaging in questionable activity. At the end of the day, as ACORN is paying these people to register voters, it is ACORN that is defrauded."

Deciphering the right's delusions

What's more interesting than the manufactured debate over ACORN's imaginary voter fraud campaign, however, is the motivation of the attackers. Do these people really believe what they're saying?

In the case of John McCain, it would seem that the answer is almost certainly "no." McCain is no neophyte in the political business. He's known about ACORN and its work for years -probably decades. He even offered a keynote speech at an event co-sponsored by ACORN just two years ago. That he has somehow has come to the conclusion that ACORN is a bad actor (or that his claims wouldn't be different if most of the people ACORN registered were in parts of the country likely to support him) is simply unbelievable.

For the hardcore, extreme conservatives, however, the answer is more complicated. For many in this group, conspiracy theories are a way of life and have been for decades. From Joe McCarthy and the John Birch Society to Spiro Agnew and J. Edgar Hoover to the modern NRA, Todd Palin and his fellow secessionists in the Alaskan Independence Party, the extreme right has almost always demonstrated an intense fear and loathing of any organized efforts to mobilize the poor and disenfranchised. Indeed, one can probably trace the virus back further to the era of the post -World War I "Red Scare" and even to the fears espoused by southern secessionists about efforts to deprive them of their "property."

And so it goes today. For a variety of reasons (about many of which Freud would undoubtedly have had a great deal to say) the true believers on the extreme right are always quick to latch onto and propagate conspiracy theories. Time after time, disaffected people on the right who perceive themselves and their status to be threatened by those who are different (of a different race, religion, region, education, sexual orientation) leap to the assumption that virtually every effort to mobilize their ideological or political opponents is actually a disguised effort to deprive them of their lives and livelihood. Hence the absurd claims of those who see global warming science as a diabolical plot to usher in some sort of Orwellian socialism and every immigrant poultry worker as a foot soldier in a monstrous plot to expand the Mexican border ever northward. 

Sunlight and truth

The only known antidote for both the knowing lie and the conspiracy obsession virus is truth and sunlight. When, as is almost always the case, improper action by activists on one side or the other is actually the result of human sloth and ineptitude rather than hidden conspiracies, we need to make that fact widely known. The same is true when people organizing for basic justice are really just doing what they say they're doing. And when politicians who know better attempt to pander to those afflicted with the virus, all who care about truth and justice should stand up and let him or her know that it will not be tolerated.