Hate And Hard Times

The Atlantic:

Like Father Coughlin, Billie James Hargis, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and so many other right wing media crusaders before them, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and Laura Ingraham understand that for many religious Americans, "evil" is not just an adjective but also a noun. When the Puritans first arrived in New England, they believed they were reclaiming a wilderness from Satan. Many traditionalists on the right, whether Christian Millennialists or not, feel much the same way.
To them, Godless Communism or Secular Humanism isn't the absence of a religious orientation so much as they are Satanic religions in and of themselves, whose acolytes glorify evil, promote the slaughter of innocent, unborn babies, and persecute believing Christians. Blue State America is Rome in the time of Christ. Whether its depravity is manifested in the form of sexual libertinage, income redistribution, spiritual or economic incontinence, blasphemy, women's and gay rights, or the threat of "race mixing," anathema and even violence are completely appropriate responses to it.
As melodramatic and overwrought as Glenn Beck's and W. Cleon Skousen's forebodings for the Constitution might be, I suspect they are informed by a specific Mormon prophecy that resonated with both men's sense of self-importance. "When the Constitution of the United States hangs, as it were, upon a single thread," Brigham Young wrote in 1855, referring to Joseph Smith's still earlier "White Horse" prophecy of 1843, "They will have to call for the 'Mormon' elders to save it from utter destruction; and they will step forth and do it." Above and beyond that, I suspect that Beck's conspiracy theories serve an essential psychological purpose--they provide both him and his listeners with a sense of order and control (something that was clearly missing from Beck's life during his alcohol and cocaine-addled years in the radio wilderness). Conspiracy theory has been a goldmine for Beck as an entertainer too, both figuratively and literally--not only has it made him rich, it provides him with an inexhaustible source of material, no small thing for someone whose job requires him to extemporize for hours every day. If Beck has made himself more ridiculous than his rival Rush Limbaugh (who also failed on television) ever did, he can still indulge his megalomania with a radio audience that is larger than the populations of many countries.

Why do the right-wing and hate automatically go together?  Because to retain the status quo they have to hate the "other"?  I'm just not sure.