ABSTRACT
The dynamic of eliminationism begins with the conceptualization of other people as less than human and finds its voice in rhetoric that portrays them as objects fit for elimination: vermin, disease, slime, traitors, killers. The eliminationist impulse gained new life in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, especially as the flames of fearfulness were actually fanned rather than calmed by the American Right, including the Bush administration itself. The great tragedy of the genocide of the Native Americans, beyond its cruel injustice, is its utter wasting of human potential: the America that could have been. The real hallmark of the right-wing rule America has endured for the better part of the new century has been its reliance on persuading the public to believe things that are factually false. The phony justification for the Iraq War is only the most infamous example.
