The Romney brain (actual size)
So, where were we. (You can always review 79.2) Right, political and social conservatives are not just quaint folks who wear flags and teabags and reminisce about those “mornings in America” with Ronnie. Nor are they any longer (perhaps never were) an opposing political perspective that afforded a semi-reasonable light-footed brake on progressive acceleration. No, rather conservatism has become an insidious Petrie dish that has given home to and nurtured some of the most reactionary political values and basest instincts of significant cohorts in the American polity.
Radical Conservative Religious Republicanism (the RCRR)
The following conflates conservatism with the Republican Party. It should be said that there are Republicans who are good people, some (if there are any remaining) who are actually politically moderate and reasonable, but few who seem to have the courage or conviction to stand against the tide of rightward slighting conservatism. So I make no apology to them if they feel unfairly besmirched by the characteristics, behaviors and policy prescriptions discussed below.
Residual Racism
Anyone whom is unable to discern a substantial current of bigotry in the conservative drive to, as Bitch McConnell proudly expressed it for them, “insure that Barack Obama is a one-term President,” needs to immediately rush out for a thorough colonic irrigation. The drumbeat of birth arisen, charges that he isn’t one of us, and other allusions to the president’s biographical and racial background, are nothing more than dog whistles to that substantial part of the conservative/Republican political base that used to be the target of their “Southern strategy” but now speak to a more pervasive residual racism in America. The civil rights movement, and civil rights legislation in the 1960s, much less pour some in the South the outcome of the Civil War, stand along with much of the legislation of the new deal, thorns in the side of the RCRR. There are a few token, self-hating African Americans and Hispanic Americans in the RCRR, people like Herman Cain and Alan West and Marco Rubio, but for the most part the RCRR is pretty much an American White People’s Party. Ask your local skinhead who he intends vote for. At the Creston Classic Rodeo in Creston, Ca., the announcer reportedly announced over the loudspeaker that “Playboy is offering Ann Romney $250,000 to pose in the magazine, and the White House is upset about it because National Geographic only offered Michelle Obama $50 to pose for them.” Get the joke?
Political Misogyny
They will deny with vehemence all their groping about in the loins of American women over there issues with birth control and abortion, as well as premarital sexual relations, that they are conducting a “war on women,” but the RCRR’s other major hang-up is with women, or more specifically their status in society and their status as individuals with rights to make their own choices. So part of the misogyny relates to the growth of women in employment, and in positions of ownership. They now exceed the number of men in universities, and their growth in the workplace exceeds that of man as well.1 Many more are deciding to marry later in life, if at all, and when they choose to, not when daddy or Mr. Wright decides they should. Many men in society welcome the arrival of this parity (although not quite yet in wages and salaries), but many of them are pissed off that they no longer have an economic gender advantage, and the RCRR place to that demographic as well. The other part of it ostensibly derives from religious convictions––if your religious convictions are formed primarily out of Leviticus and Deuteronomy––and move south from the minds of women down to their reproductive organs. Make no mistake about it, when the RCRR issues vehement denials of their misogyny, they “protest too much.” As with their slightly disguised racist and bigoted positions, they have their female spokespersons, ranging from the back ship crazy Bachmann’s and Obama owns, to the Stepford wives like Callista Gingrich and Ann Romney. So far as I know, they have yet to be asked if they, or their daughters3 (if they have any), were their daughters impregnated by a rapist whether they would follow the laws that governor McConnell of Virginia or Todd Akin would impose upon them. They of course would have no choice in the matter—such would be the law of a political party that trumpets individual rights and restricting the intrusion of the big, bad government. Which provides a segue to the next insidious characteristic of the RCRR . . .
Hypocrisy
One of the mysteries that continues to puzzle rational Americans is how so many of the supporters of the RCRR are able to hold political positions contrary o their own interests. One explanation is that there are many such people who can be described as “values voters,” who are willing for example, to support a political party or candidate that supports their views on abortion, or prayer in school, but at the same time represents policies that are, or have been, destructive of their economic livelihood. Living that contradiction can, for some, be assigned to outright ignorance, but for many it also reflects an ability to live in a bubble of hypocrisy. Many would insist that they are willing to stand on their principles at whatever cost, but, apparently that cost can be mitigated by taking advantage of Medicare, student loans, welfare, or mother social programs while fulminating and voting against them. Or, in the case of Obamacare, as one reporter who went to the sanctum Santorum of the RCRR, the Values Voters Convention, discovered, many of the attendees were using parts of heath care act to their advantage while trashing it in public and calling for its repeal.2 This is the same hypocritical mealy-mouthing we heard from all the Republican governors who bad-mouthed Obama’s “stimulus package” –that, contrary to the outright lies that it was ineffective, did indeed create and save jobs—took the stimulus money for their state, often acting as if they were responsible for it. Then there was Rep. Ryan, the wannabe vive-president of the USA, who took stimulus money for his district (and lies in denying it) while denigrating the stimulus package. I could go on with RCRR hypocrisy . . . for days; but one of my very favorites is the shenanigans of prayboy-pol Ralph Reed, Who preached anti-gambling rhetoric auto one side of his mouth, and lobbied for a fat fee on behalf of the Louisiana gambling industry the other side of his mouth.
Poisoning of the Political/Governmental Process
First of all set aside all that right-wing bullshit about loving the Constitution. The RCRR doesn’t; they have all the allegiance to the Constitution that Mitt Romney has some unfortunate company he bought under Bain Capital in a leveraged buyout has to its workers and community. Can you say Watergate; can you say Iran Contra; can you say the patriot act; can you say turning the Second Amendment into a national circular firing squad . . . ? Of course the hypocrisy runs through this as well. We all remember Ronnie Reagan going on about how government was the problem not the solution, and of course his using it extra–constitutionally in his dealings with Iran and the Contras, and running up the largest governmental deficit of the time and expanding the size of government considerably.
This of course does not prevent the RCRR from using government to enhance bank accounts, offshore as well as onshore, of their supporters. They do not want to, as anti-tax bully, Grover Norquist, said, “shrink government to the size where you can drowned in a bathtub,” but to keep it alive and suckling at the breasts of its corporate lobbies. They would ship as much of the potentially “profitable” governmental functions into privatization, some of them even into privatization abroad, and for the rest ensure the government makes no rules that would obstruct the kinds of financial corporate behavior that nearly shoved the country into another great depression. George W. Bush, who had over ninety corporate lobbyists in his transition team, inspired a rush of lobbyists to Washington await a piece of left out cheesecake inspires roaches and an upper West side basement apartment.4 And that segues nicely into . . .
Greed is Good
Why? Because you convince yourself at all that money that those Gordon gecko’s make they did with their individual unassisted entrepreneurial talent and drive, and certainly do not owe anything (thank you Ayn) to anybody, especially the government, for it. RCRR types love to believe this bull shipped, and plenty of them will vote for Mitt Romney, probably even a lot of them who are really in that 47% that he, tapping into his inner Gordon Gekko, considers to be a bunch of moochers and layabouts who expect Obama delivered “entitlements” in food, housing, and healthcare, while mitt and his friends are doing all the work. In fact, this is the kind of guy who wants to be president of the United States, as succinctly described by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine:
By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place.5
If the stupid of America and the RCRR get their way, Romney and Ryan will do the same to the 47 percent of America that they hold in their contempt. They will have enough assistance from another 47 percent, the percentage of US representatives are millionaires, as are 67 percent of US senators, whose wealth, The Center for Responsive Politics reports, increased 11 percent between 2009 and 2011, when the other 47 percent was getting screwed by their lack of effort or concern.
Anyone who has spent any time in India, China, or any number of South American countries knows about corruption in the political and economic system. We in America seem to think were immune to it, but it’s already here, and it looks like it will only get worse. It is inevitable if Romney and Ryan come to power.
[TO BE CONTINIUED IN PART 3]
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© 2012, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 9.19.2012)
1. See Hanna Rosin, The End of Men (2012), and my take [42.6] on this.
2. Even Evangelicals Sorta #5DD931 [paste in your browser]
3. Perhaps I should not bury this in a footnote, but I have long had the suspicion that parents who have only sons inclined toward politically conservative positions, and parents with only daughters lean to the left. There are of course families that had a mixture of me male and female offspring, but I also suspect that families that are dominated by boys (say 4 or 5 boys to 1 girl) tend to be politically conservative as against a reversal of these proportions. I don’t know whether any studies of been conducted of this matter, but if you are aware of any I would appreciate having a link or citation.
4. If you are wondering what the hell this is a reference to, it is better to contact me directly.
5. Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829#ixzz26qQqkst8