© 2009, UrbisMedia
In these pages I have addressed or referred to “our Republican friends” from time to time. We have wondered and even worried about them. How could people we knew back in our school days who once seemed to have human values and a sense of humor have transmogrified in worshippers of The Gipper and zombie-like followers of the Bushes and Cheney? How could people you knew to be intelligent human beings be fooled into trickle-down economics, non-existent WMD, fake missions accomplished, and the faux-Christian nonsense of the American Taliban. Could some of them even be attending the CPAC in Washington this past week, a convocation of gun-loving, Obama-hating, Limbaugh-slavering whack-jobs so-called “conservatives” who are like sharks feeding on their own entrails? Is this a political party, or is it a . . .
Cult?
This is not hyperbole. We have to find out whether “our Republican friends” have been taken over by some insidious and nefarious what?—Parasite? Germ? Alien life form? All the signs of a cult are there. The slavering adherence to an ideology—one that has failed miserably and ruined the country’s reputation, military, and economy—but which they unfailingly believe is the answer to the very disasters it has created. There are frequent references to the word “evil.” Bloated blowhards with dark names like Rush and Newt, and butts as big as their egos, receive thunderous applause from people who don’t mind being called “ditto heads.” Theirs is a siege mentality, frightened by Muslims and Socialists and Satanic forces intent on stealing their stem cells as they sleep. They are so fearful and distraught that they actually—forget that “country first” stuff—will fight to see the new American president’s economic recover policies fail! Yes, fail. They would rather see more Americans out of work, shelter and health care, than see—what they call “socialism”—than to see the other political party succeed. Such is their conception of America. Such is their notion of “bipartisanship,” of “hands across the aisle.”
The cult has rejected its most recent leader, W, and is frantically searching for another object for their worship. Some, but not enough, placed their hopes on an erratic arm-flailing “John the Prisoner” and a serial breeding bimbo who shoots wolves from helicopters, but they failed the test. They were soundly thrashed by that “uppity” guy they claim was not born in the USA (although Springsteen did sing on his behalf), and they will soon claim he was the “second shooter” on the “grassy knoll.” Their cult never admits to its ineptitude or psychotic creativity.
And so the search for a cult leader has moved to CPAC attendees, who see themselves as the purists of the conservative movement, the true heirs to the legacy of the putrefying Gipper. Joe the Plumber showed up, hawking a book he has supposedly written, but drawing only a half-dozen takers at his book signing. Joe’s popularity is even plunging among the conservative faithful. He has peaked in his purpose to he movement as the idolizing acolyte to Sarah Palin.
Then along came a strange fellow who might be called “Slumdog Governor,” from tiger infested mangrove swamps of Louisiana. This swishy-stepping fellow with the sibilant whispery delivery of Mister Rogers was seen as a leading candidate until he self-destructed on a set aptly left over from Gone With the Wind. To evidence his flatulent conservative ideological purity, Bobby Jindal actually said he would refuse Federal aid for his still Katrina-ravaged state (Bobby lives in the governor’s mansion). Frankly, Bobby (real name Piyush, Hindi for “shit for brains”), my dear, we don’t give a damn.
But old on folks. The CPACers hauled out some new blood, an arrogant little 14-year-old twerp named Jonathan Krohn (who just might be a pint-sized re-incarnation of Ralph Reed), who every kid in is class must be dying to kick the crap out of, who is clearly looking for a regular spot on Fox and a seven-figure book deal. They adoringly applauded his robotic recitation of all the conservative Obama bashes and we can expect that, although he sounds like the bastard issue of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plunger, he will be touted as having been born in a manger in Orlando. Against hope (that his schoolmates kick his arrogant ass), I expect to see and hear more of this little creep.
The Republican Cult continued in its search.
Also with no chance to lead the cult back to the promised land of K Street goodies is Michael Steele, a black Republican (maybe with hen’s teeth as well) who has a perpetual look of surprise (why not?) and the demeanor of a white Baptist Minister with an all-Black congregation. Steele heads (not leads) a devastated party that the CPAC people feel has strayed from its “conservative roots.” It hasn’t; it just destroyed the country it used to live in. If the CPACers consider themselves the “true believers” of the cult, then Mr. Steele really has nothing to do (except maybe stand in front of Bobby Jindal’s mansion in a little jockey outfit and holding a tether ring for carriages).
Meanwhile, Steele showed his steely resolve by kissing the bloated ass of that angry tub of Oxycontin-laden guts, Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is a god to the intellectually-challenged “base” (or is it de-based) of the Republican Cult. He sews fear and hatred so well that O’Reilley, Hannity and Coulter are mere minor deities in conservative pantheon. He took Mr. Steele to task before his millions of dentally-deficient Mountain Dew swilling “ditto head” listeners (indeed the very people who probably most need President Obama’s projected medical care and jobs initiatives) and the RNC head puckered up and smooched his ample butt. Mr. Limbaugh can say, if he wants to, that he wants Obama “to fail” and the cult should devote itself to that end, or he will rip the guts out of all that remains of the Republican base.
And so, like Opus Dei and other dark and sinister burbling to the surface of the Nazi Catholic Church of Benedict XVI, the Obama revolution has forced the cult of the Republican party out into its only real option, obstreperous opposition. They will do their voodoo, sticking pins in Hillary dolls, calling the country the USSA. They must hope for more unemployment, foreclosures, financial meltdown, more of what their laissez-faire capitalism and greedy, corrupted political leadership brought about, and they will be proven correct. Their newly-anointed leader, Rush, apparently not interested in reading to the end of Aesop’s fable, announced that “the scorpion must sing the frog.” Of course, both end up dead. That’s he way of cults; sort of like if the Rev. Jim Jones had become president.
Our Republican “friends” might be beyond redemption.
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© 2009, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 3.4.2009)