Here’s one mistake wingnuts always make: they view political opponents as their enemies, not well-intentioned fellow Americans. They demonize disagreement.I quibble with this a bit. It should be okay to regard political opponents as enemies--heck, we very often call them "political enemies". But I do agree with him that personal demonization--essentially an ad hominem--is a wingnutty thing to do.
Recently I demonized the Pope almost literally, saying "he may as well be the Satan of world politics". Oops. Mea culpa.
Sure, he's against free speech, women's rights, reproductive rights, gay rights, euthanasia rights, certain kinds of medical research, as well as for higher taxes and spending on his favored social programs. However, I don't see much evidence that he's intentionally doing evil--he's just advocating policies and lobbying governments for things that I regard as evil because of the (hopefully unintended) harm they cause. So I should demonize his politics, not the man.
Similarly, arguing that a political opponent is anti-American, which Avlon was discussing wingnut examples of, is a pretty clear-cut ad hominem.
Calling an opponent's positions "anti-American" is a little dicier. Critiquing a position rather than a person can't be an ad hominem, but the anti-American label is pretty hubristic. There are many conflicting conceptions of what it means to be American, and one should not assume that just because someone's view disagrees with your own that they cannot both be American.
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