Note: The following has been determined to be a diatribe and not a screed. A screed would be several times longer.
This period in US history contains enough meat on the bone to keep both scholars and crackpots gnawing for decades. Collectively, we are in the overlap space of a sociological Venn diagram. The overlapping domains of economic calamity, political paranoia, shrinking international stature, and withering military expense combine like cyan, magenta, and yellow to form a white hot zone of malcontent.
It is no overstatement to say that many if not most Americans have chosen a part of the political pool they want to swim in. Listen to the voices at McCain/Palin rallys. Listen to people being interviewed upon leaving a McCain/Palin rally. They’re invariably angry and fearful. They distrust the “Liberal Media”. Do they mean to include Rupert Murdoch’s media empire? Do they also include most of the AM band talk radio programs? Is this the deep end of the pool or the shallow end?
I cannot help but conclude that conservatives are a fearful bunch. Study the McCain/Palin campaign advertising. Go back to any recent presidential campaign and recall Willie Horton or the Swift Boat attack on the democrats. Fear is the unifying ingredient in conservatism and the people who run the GOP machine know how to swing this stick. Democrats do the Fear theme poorly and as a result, cannot summon the same kind of existential panic that the GOP can pull from their bag of tricks.
McCain is starting to see some of the visceral response to the possibility of Obama as president from underneath all of the rocks and behind all of the tarpaper shacks in the political back-40 acres. He has been openly challenged by angry citizens about the viability of his campaign.
That cartoon figurehead of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, was practically apoplectic in his frustration with McCain. Strangely, this political freakshow impressario is now towing the line on McCain and has focused his leagions of ditto-zombies on bringing down the reputation of Obama with a mezmerising whisper campaign of slander.
I’m beginning to think that McCain wouldn’t be the worst kind of GOP president to have, especially if the conservatives of the land are this uncertain of him. But Palin as runner-up to the Whitehouse leaves me speechless. A country so brain-addled as to put Palin in national office is perhaps a country that needs to have its nose rubbed in it for a taste of its own collective stupidity. McCain/Palin in Washington may be what it takes for the complete implosion of the GOP.
Having watched the rise of Bush II and the conduct of the 2008 campaign, I have begun to understand what it might have been like to have lived in the period leading up to the American Civil War. This was a period intense division between citizens regarding deeply held beliefs. Civil and religous laws were invoked by both sides to justify their actions. Both Lee and Sherman believed that they marched in righteousness. It was brother fighting brother with a kind of hostility that is startling to people even today.
I sense a widespread and internal hostility along with a rigid adherence to doctrine that marks a divided country. I believe that America is in a type of cold civil war. There is a fulmination of anger and frustration out there that is beginning to partition the meaning of America into distinct translations that suit the adherents.
Countries that experience economic and political upset are prone to the surfacing of latent fascism. Fascism is a kind of fever that spreads through the vectors of blame and jingoism. Anti-intellectualism and ethnic hatred are common manifestations of a country having a bout of fascism fever.
Witness the accusations of “elitism” and the whisper campaign questioning the citizenship and religious affiliation of Obama. We have elite military forces, elite police forces, and elite athletes- why not elite chief executives? Why would we demand that politicians be just like the down-home folks like you see, say, running the Tilt-O-Whirl at the carnival? Don’t we want the chief executive to be someone who has honed his skills for public life? The Army has its War College. Why can’t the executive branch have its Administration school?
I think we have a civil cold war brewing in the USA right now and if 20-25 % of the workforce loses its paycheck because of the banking fiasco, I think there’ll be trouble. But no doubt, the DHS has thought of this and has soldiers and Darkwater contractors ready to deal with the sh**storm.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
But screeds are so much more fun!
McCain’s natural mortality renders Moose Jewel de facto President if that ticket is elected. Displacing Bush the Lesser as the most disasterous President past, present, and future is not an accomplishment – nor is doing it twice in rapid succession The Republican platform: “If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
Simple problem, simple solution – irreversible global economic implosion. Note that the acknowledged US debt has passed $60 trillion and is rapidly climbing as the Treasury Secretary desperately searches for beer at the bottom of the hole.
Vote for Obama! Elect a set of crooks whose concept of “stealing everything” is less universal in outlook.
The transition from “lying through your teeth” to “stealing elections” is probably a point no return – once people become convinced that talking will not lead to a solution (that the other side isn’t listening and doesn’t care and will take what it wants with or without you), civil wars is a matter of a few bad days away. I am cynical enough (again!) to think that the point of Republicans running up large amounts of debt on the Federal Government is either to cripple it and prevent its force from being used against industry or to prevent it from working altogether and to default de facto government power to big business. Civil wars rarely stay cold, and the lack of geographic segregation in such a “civil” war might end the US. That is probably a worse outcome than my cynical Republican-determined outcomes (because it is likely an irreparable outcome), but not so much worse that it is obvious.
A heartfelt lament on the state of the republic. May it be chiseled in stone then hurled into space at escape velocity. May it wander blind through the cosmos.
Mcain attempts to squeeze the last vestiges of American pride from the weary carcases of debt laden citizenry. The fools offer up their last breath of freedom to wallow in the warm blanket of hatred for the other.
They’ve created strangers of themselves and country. Once strong folk encased in oblate folds of gruesome fat, strangling every thought of reason till morning breakfast…bacon bucket with cheese sauce.
Yeah Palin….a moron from Alaska! She’s just like me!
I suppose more of us need to try harder not to confuse glib cynicism with productive thinking. As above, I’m not always successful. But at least I’m aware of it.
Only a fool would dismiss Palin as some kind of moron. She is not. It’s plain that she is quite exceptional in many ways. Snide is one word that comes to mind. Exceptionally snide.
Does italics coding work here? I’m just checking.
OK, yep, they work here.
Democrats do the Fear theme poorly and as a result, cannot summon the same kind of existential panic that the GOP can pull from their bag of tricks.
This isn’t correct. Democrats do fear as well if not better than the Republicans. “You’ll be victimized” (by your employer, by corporate America, by the white power class, by the patriarchy, etc.) — this is a pure admonishment to fear, and to be scared enough to FIGHT BACK, DANG IT. By, you know, voting for us.
So some Republican rally attendees distrust the “liberal media.” Isn’t that just their version of distrusting the establishment, which is the quintessence of the populist left?
I’m beginning to think that McCain wouldn’t be the worst kind of GOP president to have…
Actually — without having been acquainted with you before this post — I suspect (with confidence!) that you’re not “beginning” to think that. You used to know it. You just forgot that you knew it. It’s OK that you forgot it — throwing one’s weight behind a candidate often requires a psychological diminution of his opponent. But for those of a left/Democratic persuasion, McCain was always not-the-worst-kind of potential president.
We have elite military forces, elite police forces, and elite athletes- why not elite chief executives? Why would we demand that politicians be just like the down-home folks like you see, say, running the Tilt-O-Whirl at the carnival?
I don’t think it’s that anybody “demands” that. It’s merely that we’re not supposed to care this much either way. Because the presidency isn’t supposed to be this powerful. It’s not supposed to be this important. “Elite” or “down-home” shouldn’t matter much, because the presidency shouldn’t matter much.
A United States president is simply supposed to be a fellow citizen who stays out of our way as much as possible while administrating federal law. This whole dynamic we’ve gotten ourselves into — where it’s as if we’re choosing our four-year king — is not the way it was ever supposed to be. These distinct lines between “elite” and “down-home” have been drawn only because we’ve empowered the role of the presidency far beyond its intended status, and adopted it as a kind of glaring cultural mirror.
Sorry, dimunition, not whatever it was I typed.
While typing the above post, I was interrupted literally twice within five minutes by political polling phone calls. We are definitely in the heat of this thing…
Hi Thomas,
I’m humbled by the extent of analysis you have lavished on these scribblings. You’ve done me a great personal favor by being so generous with your comments.
I suppose I should admit that I am not actually interested in being neutral. I have taken sides in politics. Strangely, I have grown more liberal in my advancing age.
“So some Republican rally attendees distrust the “liberal media.” Isn’t that just their version of distrusting the establishment, which is the quintessence of the populist left? ”
Fair point. I’ll agree.
“I don’t think it’s that anybody “demands” that. It’s merely that we’re not supposed to care this much either way. Because the presidency isn’t supposed to be this powerful. It’s not supposed to be this important. “Elite” or “down-home” shouldn’t matter much, because the presidency shouldn’t matter much.”
Elitism is one of the accusations being leveled against Obama. Having grown up in the rural midwest, it is my experience that people of modest means can empathize with those individuals who come from modest circumstances (i.e., poor).
“This isn’t correct. Democrats do fear as well if not better than the Republicans. “You’ll be victimized” (by your employer, by corporate America, by the white power class, by the patriarchy, etc.) — this is a pure admonishment to fear, and to be scared enough to FIGHT BACK, DANG IT. By, you know, voting for us.”
Good point. I can’t disagree that both sides can swing that stick. But liberals have not been able to influence the public in the same manner as the conservative televangelists. The admixture of evangelical certitude with antipathy for taxes and government serves up a potent brew. But I’m not sure that the GOP has given us reduced taxes and less government.
I think it is possible to be progressive and thrifty with money and governnment. We need to be less war-like and more caring of our common grounds.
NEWS FLASH!
Fox News is pounding the War Drums. Hide your wives and daughters if you see Obama.
http://tinyurl.com/4swdbt
The emphasis on a unitary President and the belief that one person can somehow make everything better hasn’t exactly been a Democratic selling point – the Republicans after all have been selling the Presidency as such in order to justify the ignorance/defiance of the Constitution and of Congress by W (and previously, by Reagan). It has been a selling point of theirs for a while that we would really be much better off without that pesky democracy thing. Kind of like Chile.
The insistence that a President should be a powerful, caring “mommy figure” to the nation is a mistake because so much power in one person’s hands is asking for bad things, and the people who have accrued such power have usually done so to drain the country for the benefit of a lucky few. Given that, having a President who can 1) actually remember his oath of office, 2) be competent, and 3) can actually incorporate reality into his plans would be a drastic improvement. The truck careening downhill is a problem with which we need to deal, but preventing ourselves from being driven blindly over a cliff would seem to be a prerequisite.