Giving Up the Word Wingnut

In this piece at The Nation, Melissa Harris-Lacewell makes a case for giving up the word wingnut, a word that I frequently use to describe the wrongheaded rightwing and some on the left--Ed Shultz comes to mind--but mostly on the right. It's a descriptor that is understood by most. But what else to call Glenn Beck? He isn't just wrong, he's nuts! I sincerely believe that Beck is mentally unstable. Michele Bachman as well. They seem to suffer a paranoia. But Lacewell says we shouldn't be describing people as nuts.

She starts off by recalling how different groups of people throughout history have been called crazy and then says we shouldn't label people:

On nearly all matters of policy and politics I disagree with the birthers, the deathers, the tea baggers, most GOP office holders, a significant number of Southern Democrats, and more than a few members of my own academic department. While I judge them to be stunningly wrong-thinking, I am hesitant about labeling my adversaries "crazy."
Red-faced screaming at town halls, audacious lies about President Obama's citizenship, and incomprehensible obstruction tactics by legislators might be symptomatic of mental instability, and they are clearly indicative of deep human suffering, but the "crazy" label does more to obscure our understanding of our differences than to illuminate them.
Metzl's book is a reminder that diagnosing individuals encourages blindness to the social structures in which these individuals operate. Slavery was the madness, not the escaping slave. Racial inequality is the illness, not the Civil Rights Movement.
The Nation

She concludes:

We learn more and can more effectively influence social change when we consider the situation of our conservative opponents. Their "craziness" might seem more reasonable when we consider the tactics of fear-mongering and race-baiting that have long characterized American politics.

Hmmmm. I'm going to have to think about this.
Here's one for you, the birthers are mad at Glenn Beck:

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