Musings, Mumblings, and Masticating the Right Wing

One thing that has always fascinated me about right wing talk show hosts, whether they originated from TV or radio is a tendency to write books with very long and awkward titles.

How Liberals Are Ruining America With Weird Ideas From France That Will Force You To Wear Thong Underwear On Your Head And Make You Burn Your Bibles In Public. Or..

How Conservatives Are Really Super Great and Right About Everything So You Don’t Have To Think For Yourself Or Wear Thong Underwear On Your Head. Do their publishers like those really long and awkward titles and just have a Pavlovian response to any book structured like that? I have read a few of them for entertainment. It takes only about five minutes since the titles have more content than the actual books. An easy summation follows: Liberals are really bad people who hate America. It still shocks me to discover that they think Liberals and progressives are. You know what? If there is an progressive organization out there trying to force Americans to wear thing underwear on their head while taking French lessons, I might join it. My French is rusty and the only way I will ever wear thong underwear is on my head.

When I moved to the United States a number of years ago, I quickly discovered a way to infuriate Americans even those who considered themselves Liberal/progressives was to hesitate to answer this one question: I think America is the greatest country in the world, don’t you ? I give the same answer today that I gave when I first arrived more than ten years ago: I don’t know, I have only ever lived in one other country. If I want people to STFU in the little office I share, I convince somebody to bring up patriotism/and or a speech about how great America is. Dead silence after I deliver my line. If I am feeling prickly I add: gee, I have never lived in Australia, France, or Spain… I am still confused about whether people like to declare that America is the greatest country in the world to convince me or reassure themselves. Naturally, I like America…  Many American adore certainty.The have been primed by the right to prefer certainty over contemplation. Even when they are certainly wrong. Saying: I don’t know infuriates them. Honesty infuriates these folks especially when it involves telling them they have to change their ways, conserve resources, and wear sweaters. Telling them they have to change and adapt somehow translates into a liberal conspiracy and a liberal critique. I blame the right for that nonsense, as well.

One political activity I find particularly enjoyable particularly with supreme right wingers is to casually agree with their accusations. You have to be fairly relaxed to do it. Liberals/progressives have a tendency to defend themselves when hit with inane, irrational accusations, and hopelessly rm themselves with facts. If the supreme right wing in America wanted to deal with facts and base their movement on that, they wouldn’t exist. They want a meek apology or sputtering.

I have been personally accused of “taking God out of the schools”, which I found rather flattering. But it also confused me. How is it I had the ability to kick God out of the school system but I can never get my hair to look neatly coiffed? I told a colleague in private that I had a confession: Yes, you caught me, that was me, I called him up and evicted him myself. She stormed out of our cramped little office and refused to speak with me the rest of the evening. A few nights later, I said, look we obviously had a misunderstanding because I don’t believe in God, so it was one of my progressive colleagues who thinks he exists that did it. Silence. Agreeing with right wingers when they fling their stupidity around hoping to make it stick can be risky since they can go into an unpredictable rage. My colleague gave up on me and now calls me the Liberal Tree Hugger, I cheerfully agree and clarify that I enjoy hugging humans just as much.

Will the right wing and the saggy, middle aged, drooling pundits who make money hacking tubercular hate on Americans who try to think independently eat themselves or get in line behind the Republican nominee? Eric Boehlert seems to gleefully chart evidence that they are imploding. He notes that many wackadoodle pundits are either tepidly supporting or outright dismissive of McCain. The GOP, he argues, are now paying the price for egging on attack dogs pumped full of metaphorical meth like logic skills and oily misery. Turns out the attack dogs will also chew their own legs and those of the guy who is supposed to own them.

The extreme right will have a choice: stay home or vote for a guy who doesn’t exactly skewer them with fits of end time joy. They have too much fun with power. They are not purists. They don’t mind compromising a bit to remain tyrants. Sure a pundit or two will grumble about McCain but when the real contest begins, they know who the enemy is. You and I. Any American who does not agree with them.

Fucking with individual wingers can be a fun sport. Underestimating them as a group has brought us an eight year preview of what they want a permanent Reich to be. They won’t ditch McCain. Don’t hope for it, don’t plan your 2009 We Finally Got Democracy Back Hoedown just yet. McCain is an independent moderate to the same degree I am a super model, but enough Americans are taking the serum. Prepare to rumble.