Its not the fact the Joe Wilson has the self-control of a 5 year old. It’s not the fact that he has no couth – Congress has a long proud history of hosting the crude and morally challenged of all political persuasions. Its not even the fact that political rhetoric in this nation is at it’s lowest point since Joe McCarthy. It is singularly the fact that the Republican Party has totally abandoned the one ‘value’ that they had previously championed above others; Patriotism.
In the past, Republicans took great pains to highlight to the public that THEY were the party of Christian family values and; that THEY would never behave like the Godless liberals; that THEY respected the institution of government above all, no matter who was in charge. They wrapped themselves in the flag, demanded a strict adherence to a manufactured code of reverence for the symbols of the nation, and relentlessly denigrated those who didn’t match their nationalistic fervor.
Replace the Bush caricatures and anti-government slogans of 2004’s peace demonstrations with the Obama caricatures and anti-government slogans of this summer’s tea-bag protests, and the rallies appear quite similar on the surface. THE DIFFERENCE is that back when it was the Democrats doing the protesting, the GOP lost its collective marbles.
For the past 8 years, they wagged their fingers at anyone who deigned to criticize George W Bush, because, naturally, those who spoke ill of the President of the United States during a time of war were ‘emboldening the enemy’ and would therefore be responsible of the deaths of US servicemen and women in uniform. They said protesting the war was tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy. They charged that the protestors were WORSE than Bin Laden himself. They were aghast at photos likening Bush to Hitler. How horrible. It was an insult to the President and to the brave Americans who died fighting the Nazis. He was the elected leader of the United States, the greatest nation in the world and therefore he deserved respect.
During Reagan’s and both Bush (41 and 43) administrations, the political doctrine crafted by Reganites Cheney, Rove and Ashcroft dominated the landscape. Their Neo-Conservative movement synergized a fanatically puritanical ethic by blending elements of patriotic national duty with obedient service to the Lord.
September 11, 2001 assisted in the sanctification of the names and symbols of their image of the United States – Reagan’s Christian “Shining City on the Hill.” Flag worship reached epic levels. Bully patriotism ruled. You were either ‘with us’ or ‘against us.’
Predictably, this January, a few days after George Bush quit D.C. for good Republicans reacted in horror as a few in the crowd gathered for the Obama inaugural derisive cheered the outgoing President. They argued that that Republicans would never act as ‘low-class’ as that. Never. Not a Republican. Respect the rank, not the man, they demanded.
John McCain vowed that the GOP would be a ‘loyal’ minority, not-so-subtly suggesting that Democratic opponents to George Bush were somehow disloyal in their dissent. Republicans may not agree with Obama, McCain argued, but they were Americans first, and they would always support the President of the United States no matter what.
These were to be their final acts of ‘traditional’ patriotism.
Reality set in as the Right Wing found itself completely shut out of power for the first time in almost 15 years. Suddenly the notion of blind obedience to the President didn’t look so fun. Their rules of patriotism and values no longer seemed to apply.
So, they changed the rules, and a new patriotism was born – a Neo-Patriotism. No longer was dissent treason. Suddenly, it became the pinnacle of patriotism, and if one did NOT dissent, well then they were now the traitors to this democracy. The reversal was stunning, and supremely hypocritical.
It started quietly the very first week of the Obama Presidency. Longtime Neo-Con hack, former Bush Chief of Staff and Czar of Bush’s White House Iraq Group , Andrew Card, who began his career in the Reagan White House, chastised the new President like a parent scolding an insolent child over his apparently too-informal Oval Office dress.
The implication, of course, was that Obama was either woefully ignorant of the rules of White House etiquette and deference, or worse, was insultingly flouting a sacred, albeit fictitious, tradition. Either way, to the Neo-Cons this was evidence that the man with the ‘deep-seated hatred for the white man’ was unfit to lead America. Right wing media operatives took to the airwaves and lectured America ad-nauseum on how proto-patriot Ronald Reagan never, ever took his jacket off in the Oval Office because he revered the room so much – that is until photos of a jacketless Gipper sitting at his Oval Office desk emerged. Ironically, also discovered were pictures of Andy Card himself defiling the Oval Office with his unpatriotically-casual attire. Oh, and by the way...George W. also went jacketless in the Oval Office, just fyi.
This spring, the Flying Monkey brigade of the Republican Party began openly wishing for the failure of the American President – as if there was no correlation between the Executive failing and the nation’s woes – and the began promoting wild conspiracy theories in an attempt to de-legitimize President Obama to rationalize behavior that they themselves had previously decried as anti-American.
Unfortunately, the elected leadership of the party lacked the fortitude to stand up to the hysterical ranting, and stood aside impotently as the Furious Few of the fringe became the public face of the Grand Old Party. The inmates were taking over the asylum.
Led by the self-serving Neo-Con-Media’s millionaire celebrity mouth pieces, Republicans have spent the first 8 months of the Obama administration actively renouncing most of their previously held beliefs of inherent respect for the President of the United States of America, the institution of American democracy and the concept of the loyal minority.
They howl that the stimulus was Communist and inherently anti-free market – even though both Bush and McCain supported the plan originally championed by Bushie, Ben Bernanke. Ironically, Bernanke himself was originally appointed by Dubya. to be the Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. Yes, Ben Bernanke was George W. Bush’s Economic Czar.
Right wing Republican governors held news conferences specifically to denounce the very idea of being forced to receive Federal funds to aid their state’s failing economies. They claimed that Obama was becoming a dictator. Some actually threatened secession - because apparently one of the most patriotic of American ideals these days is advocating the dissolution of the beloved Union itself.
They play to any and all post 9-11 fears including presenting as definitive proof of the President’s true allegiances the fact that his middle name is Hussein and last name sounds like Osama. To some it is just too coincidental that his name is so similar to those of the two biggest enemies of the United States. Really.
Self described ‘men of god’ now publicly pray for the death of the president – apparently another newly consecrated patriotic, as well as Christian, principle. Mind you, if these so-called clergymen happened to be Muslim, they’d be branded radical anti-American clerics, but to the right wing they are Christian soldiers in the righteous fight against Statist tyranny.
Neo-Con corporate media uses its might to promote, participate and manipulate ‘grassroots’ rallies and demonstrations, protecting their financial interests and even profiting by reporting rumor and innuendo as fact, spreading disinformation and manufacturing ‘rage’ photo-ops for the sake of ratings.
Random, ‘average’ Americans show up at town-hall meeting armed to the teeth with assault rifles on their shoulders, as if they were in Afghanistan instead of Arizona. Revolutionary rhetoric is regularly invoked amid not-so-veiled threats of violence. Conservative publications call for the violent overthrow of the US Government by its own military. What can more democratic than a coup?
Neo-Conservatives became completely unhinged recently at the prospect of the current President of the United States addressing the nation’s schoolchildren. Some of them screamed that Obama the Socialist was indoctrinating their kids; that letting him near them would be like supporting the collective molestation of the youth of America. They bawled that he was politicizing public schools for personal gain. They freaked out over teachers placing Presidential portraits in classrooms as if it weren’t a tradition that dated back to the birth of the nation. In the end, it turned out that the President told the children to study hard and wash their hands often to prevent the spread of germs. The speech was so Socialist, Mao would have been proud.
Ronald Reagan spoke to schoolchildren while President, too. But that was also before the rules of Neo-Conservatism were changed. What did Ronnie say to the kids of America? He lectured them about the evils of gun control in the midst of the 80’s crack wars. Yes, kids, guns are good. Cowboy President Ronnie said so. Clearly, back then bringing partisan politics into the schools wasn’t considered child abuse like it is today.
And the most recent example of the Republican Party’s New Rules for American Patriotism was the positively orgasmic reaction to the President’s unsuccessful bid to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. After weeks of trashing Chicago, portraying the city as Mogadishu on Lake Michigan, inhabited by two-by-four wielding marauders on the South Side and morbidly obese mid-western Daly liberals on the North, when the IOC ultimately selected Rio de Janeiro these ‘patriots’ cheered, gloated, and pronounced that world had finally rejected Obama.
At least we all now know that to the Neo-Con ‘patriots’ the success of their GOP is more important than the success of the nation.
To be fair, there are a few moderate Republicans left who have spoken out against the radicalization of the GOP, however all but the strongest are being browbeaten into submission, forced to offer embarrassing mea culpas at the feet of the Neo-Con hatertainers, or run out of what remains of the ‘Big Tent’ party.
The few as-yet unmuzzled voices of conservatism who continue to speak out, like John Derbyshire, columnist for the conservative National Review, who coined a term that is very accurate: "Happy Meal Conservatism, cheap, childish and familiar," and Reagan biographer, Steven Hayward who asks the question; "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?" are being increasingly marginalized in the battle for the GOP.
It is sad, but fitting, that this is what has become of the GOP. America voted down the Neo-Con philosophy in 2008, of that there is no doubt. The hate, rage, and anger they are displaying now is the same as the juvenile theatrics of a jilted teenager lashing out over being dumped. They refuse to examine their own behavior. If you don’t love me, then you’re a bitch. Unfortunately that line of argument rarely wins the girl back.
MS 10.06.09
