Afternoon Must-Read: Anne Laurie: Monday While-We’re-Waiting

Anne Laurie:
Monday While-We’re-Waiting:
“Matt Yglesias…

…[on] the new Wingnut Wurlitzer meme:

Conservative pundits who didn’t like the bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the US Senate in 2013 also didn’t like Obama’s deportation relief through executive action. They object to both the content… and to the process… as roughly akin to overthrowing the democratic constitutional order through military force in order to establish a brutal Latin American dictator…. There are many things one could say about this comparison, starting with the fact that unlike a proper caudillo such as Augusto Pinochet, Obama hasn’t had thousands of people detained and tortured without trial. Or, indeed, that it was actually Obama’s predecessor who was having people detained and tortured without trial.

But perhaps the strangest thing about it is that when American conservatives analogize Obama to a Hispanophone military dictator, we are meant to understand this a criticism when the historical reality is that American conservatives have generally been quite enthusiastic about caudillos…. Indeed, thanks to the miracle of modern-day traffic recirculation methods, old National Review content singing Pinochet’s praises falls directly adjacent to complaints about Obama’s caudillismo…