Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) recently lost a primary for the seat he's held from 1993-1999 and since 2005 to a conservative challenger. In an interview with Mother Jones' David Corn, he discusses the spread of misinformation from the conservative media and how he feels it has affected the Republican party. Discussing a meeting Inglis held with conservative donors:

“They were upset with me,” Inglis recalls. “They are all Glenn Beck watchers.” About 90 minutes into the meeting, as he remembers it, “They say, 'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'” Inglis didn't know how to respond.

As Media Matters has regularly documented, Beck continually describes President Obama and his advisers as socialists, Marxists, communists, and regularly claims that we are near dictatorship. It doesn't matter that Beck's rhetoric bears little to no resemblance to reality, it is having an effect (possibly a violent one).

At one point this pushed Rep. Inglis to advise constituents to turn Beck's program off to avoid his fearmongering, a suggestion Beck naturally attacked. Inglis goes on to describe more conservative myths that have now become articles of faith to some:

Instead, he remarks, his party turned toward demagoguery. Inglis lists the examples: falsely claiming Obama's health care overhaul included “death panels,” raising questions about Obama's birthplace, calling the president a socialist, and maintaining that the Community Reinvestment Act was a major factor of the financial meltdown. “CRA,” Inglis says, “has been around for decades. How could it suddenly create this problem? You see how that has other things worked into it?” Racism? “Yes,” Inglis says.

Again, much of this can be traced to the conservative media. The death panels fantasy was popularized by Fox's Sarah Palin, numerous conservative outlets (like WorldNetDaily) have promoted the false issues around President Obama's birth certificate, and blaming the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial meltdown has come up time and time again despite the contrary evidence.

At the end of the day, Rep. Inglis sees the net-effect of accepting and regurgitating conservative misinformation as harmful to conservatives:

For Inglis, this is the crux of the dilemma: Republican members of Congress know “deep down” that they need to deliver conservative solutions like his tax swap. Yet, he adds, “We're being driven as herd by these hot microphones--which are like flame throwers--that are causing people to run with fear and panic, and Republican members of Congress are afraid of being run over by that stampeding crowd.” Inglis says that it's hard for Republicans in Congress to “summon the courage” to say no to Beck, Limbaugh, and the tea party wing. “When we start just delivering rhetoric and more misinformation...we're failing the conservative movement,” he says. “We're failing the country.”