The death of Freddie Gray in police custody in Baltimore has sparked riots in Baltimore recently and demonstrations in certain other cities. In the past, demonstrations against the Vietnam War persuaded President Lyndon B. Johnson not to run for re-election in 1968. But violent riots in some cities after the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968 helped power the ascendancy of movement conservatism.

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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) April 30, 2015: The death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray in police custody on April 9, 2015, has sparked riots in Baltimore and demonstrations in other American cities.

In the riots in Baltimore, property damage and looting of certain businesses have been extensive. But no deaths have occurred -- thus far. Should deaths occur in the Baltimore unrest or in the demonstrations in other cities, they will escalate concern about the unrest.

If the Koch brothers, or other big shots in the Republican Party, want to see the Republican Party's presidential candidate in 2016 emerge victorious, they might capitalize on the unrest in Baltimore and other cities to hire assassins to kill a few people around the demonstrations.

It is far too early to predict what issues will emerge as the issues on which the presidential candidates in the Republican Party and the Democratic Party will differ most decisively in 2016.

Thus far, no Republican presidential candidate has emerged from the pack of Republicans contending for their party's presidential nomination for president in the 2016 election.

But Hillary Clinton has emerged as the front-runner for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2016. So as she takes her policy stands, she may be able to frame the debate not only for the primary within the Democratic Party, but perhaps also for the general election in 2016.

On April 29, 2015, candidate Hillary Clinton delivered a major policy speech at Columbia University, as the New York Times reported in Amy Chozick and Michael Barbaro's story "Hillary Clinton Laments 'Missing' Black Men as Politicians Reflect on Baltimore Unrest" (dated April 29, 2015). The authors describe her speech as "impassioned."

In addition to her speech at Columbia, she posted a policy statement titled Respect by the Law, Respect for the Law" at the website of the Brennan Center for Justice" (dated April 27, 2015).

As I write, the New York Times reports that the Baltimore police department has finished its inquiry into the death of Freddie Gray. The department's report now goes to the state's attorney for Baltimore, 35-year-old Marilyn J. Mosby. Her office is conducting its own investigation.

MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM

Years ago, First Lady Hillary Clinton famously referred to a vast right-wing conspiracy. But I prefer to refer to that vast right-wing conspiracy as movement conservatism.

Movement conservatism emerged in the Cold War. Even though the Cold War appears to have ended, movement conservatism endures to this day.

Because Hillary Clinton is running to become the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party in 2016, it is 100% predictable that Hillary Clinton is going to face vociferous opposition from the vast right-wing conspiracy known as movement conservatism. She is a lightning rod.

Movement conservatism capitalizes on inordinate fear -- the kind of inordinate fear that President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that we should fear. Yes, we should fear inordinate fear in ourselves and in our fellow Americans in movement conservatism.

On a personal level, we may begin that we tend toward experiencing inordinate fear in our personal lives if we tend to catastrophize about events in our personal lives that we do not like. It is hard to learn how to accept certain admittedly frustrating events in our personal lives and NOT catastrophize about them. By definition, we would prefer NOT to have had those admittedly frustrating events beset us in our personal lives.

Should we somehow manage to learn NOT to catastrophize about such admittedly frustrating events in our personal lives, we might express our preferences NOT to have experienced them in ways that do not involve exaggeration and catastrophizing about the events at hand.

However, even when we are able to recognize that we tend to catastrophize, it is not always easy to learn how to stop this tendency and move toward expressing one's preferences about the situation at hand instead.

But movement conservatism actually encourages people to catastrophize about certain kinds of events in our larger American political and economic and cultural mix. In this way, movement conservatism builds on and encourages rage-aholics.

At times, verbal rage-aholics can be tempted to act out their rage by taking violent action.

At times, even progressive and liberal opponents of rage-aholics in movement conservatism may be tempted to become rage-aholics themselves in opposition.

But the young Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., preferred in the 1950s and 1960s to preach and practice non-violent action to express outrage about racial injustices. No doubt media coverage, and especially television coverage, of the brutal police tactics against Dr. King's black civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 helped engender white outrage about the police tactics.

Tragically, Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Tragically, Dr. King's assassination was followed by riots in certain cities across the country.

In addition, the police riot in Chicago at the time of the 1968 Democratic Party Convention there was widely reported by the media.

No doubt the media coverage of the police riot in Chicago in 1968 helped the conservative Republican Party candidate win the 1968 presidential election.

Unfortunately, movement conservatism capitalized on those admittedly different riots to fan understandable fear in white folks.

In short, media coverage of certain kinds of police violence tends to play into the hands of the fear-mongers in movement conservatism.

However, in general, the fear-mongers in movement conservatism have used anti-60s rhetoric to advance movement conservatism, as Philip Jenkins shows in his book DECADE OF NIGHTMARES: THE END OF THE SIXTIES AND THE MAKING OF THE EIGHTIES (2006).

CONCLUSION

No doubt the media coverage of the recent riots in Baltimore plays into the hands of the fear-mongers in movement conservatism.

But demonstrations against the Vietnam War persuaded President Lyndon B. Johnson not to run for re-election in 1968.

No doubt movement conservatism has been in the ascendancy at least since the 1968 presidential election, in which both the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert M. Humphrey, and the Republican Party's candidate, former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, supported the Vietnam War.

Provided that no deaths occur in the demonstrations in Baltimore and other cities around the country, demonstrations could have a big impact on the 2016 presidential election.

Authors Website: http://www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell

Authors Bio:

Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview