YOU have to wonder, unless you've already given up wondering, just when the Absolutely Sui-Generis Teabagger Movement is going to come to grips with the Republican party, don't you? It's May, Dillweeds. A year from now the Republican primaries will be over, although if you'd prefer a brokered convention, where Roger Ailes and Dick Armey go behind closed doors after the 82nd ballot to select Daniels/Palin ("This Time She's Ready!") I'm fine with it. I just wonder why it is that every Republican "Revolution" winds up, in six months, tops, looking like a minor re-shuffle of a country club board of directors. Okay, no, I really don't wonder.
Where's your candidate? Don't tell me the real fight is in Congress; nobody believes in the mythic powers of the Presidency like the American right does. Don't tell me you're still waiting, or that it's early yet; revolutions kick out the jams, motherfuckers. Go ahead and tell me it's Trump, if you wish, or Bachman, but we already know the downward spiral of the search for electable moronity has no end.
Where's your candidate? Dudes, Rudy Giuliani thinks he has a chance!
Rudy Giuliani called for a return to American exceptionalism Friday, telling a group of GOP lawyers gathered in the nation’s capital that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed how Americans felt about themselves.
Before Reagan was elected, Giuliani said, much had been written about America’s decline and how it was a country of “limited possibilities” that had run its course.
“Sounds familiar, right? There are people who believe that today in America. In fact, some of them are running America,” Giuliani said
It's no accident that American Exceptionalism joins Islam and Christianity as the holy trinity of systems whose Absolute and Unshakable Universal Moral Certitudes can be shattered if someone happens to frown in their direction.
in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, where he appeared to received the group’s highest honor…
Parental discretion advised:
the Ed Meese Award.
[Now let's just note here that the concept of irony, which dates to Ancient Greece, was never intended to cover some shelf-worn mook defending American Exceptionalism while accepting the highest honor of a political group which chose Ed Fucking Meese to memorialize. The Ed Meese Award! Who brought home the Ron Artest Sportsmanship Medal?]
You've got no candidate, and now it's getting worse; with Giuliani you're moving backwards. Oh, you've got Mitch Daniels, so go ahead and support the guy who wrecked the Federal budget in the first place; hasten the day when you're forced to admit the whole thing was a gag. When the joke isn't all that funny anyway, just cut the buildup and go right to the punchline.
But where th' hell's that lightning-powered and laser-focused true belief stuff? Why hasn't it swept the field? Why does Rudy Fucking Giuliani--last seen in Florida in January of 2008, bleeding from a thousand paper cuts and endorsing John McCain--imagine his chances are better this time?
Well, there is the fact that he's the only Republican candidate with foreign policy experience, having been the mayor of a really large town, which is why I have to wonder how come he didn't ask the Bush administration why we weren't attacking Iran. (Sure, sure, I'm a partisan. But you really do need to ask yourselves how far into an Idealized Tax-Free Republican Exceptional America you think we'll get before we're running the same sort of deficits, except now it's all going to aircraft carriers, bombers that fly themselves, space guns, and permanent occupations of tinhorn countries none of you can find on a map.)
So here's a modest proposal: why don't you forget that sacred principle of Always Doing What The Oil Companies Say, and help limit the influence of Big Money in campaigns? Surely you could stand one more instance of cognitive dissonance, right? Then Marco Rubio could afford to run, and Sarah Palin could run off her next book advance, and Tammy Jindal could loan Bobby the money.
Okay, just kiddin'; you guys'd never go for it. So here's one: why not form your own independent political party?
Go ahead and tell me it's Trump, if you wish...
ReplyDeleteI do!
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Before Reagan was elected, Giuliani said, much had been written about America’s decline and how it was a country of “limited possibilities” that had run its course.
ReplyDeleteI was 27 the year St. Ron was elected. I grew up seeing America do good things, like passing the Civil Rights Act, and incredibly bad things, like the Viet Nam war. Much of what was written about America's decline concerned itself with the loss of traditional values, like white people being in charge and unquestioning support for military ventures.
The right wants to go back to those halcyon days.
Re: American Exceptionalism, is there anything more crass and self-indulgent than demanding that people recognize how special, perfect and wonderful you are not by virtue of any personal achievement but merely by being born in a political jurisdiction? Or demanding that your political leaders pander to your fantasy?
ReplyDeleteIronic that these are pretty much the same people who sneer at at the "self-esteem" movement.
Our media have done a pretty thorough job, simultaneously with America's education (both in schools and at home), of convincing enough people that exceptionalism is good. And I am not isolating Fox as a media conduit. On MSNBC, Chris Mathews is interrupted for commercials by big oil. So from what people would an independent political party be derived? The unemployed autoworkers in Kokomo who believe taxing the income of the top two percent is wrong? I agree a new independent party is what is needed. There is no substantive difference between the two parties that dominate. Generally---generallyy--the same groups and individuals fund both. But who would join? I am sorry to sound somewhat cynical, but remember, Communist Martyrs High School was filled with More Science High. (That's a Firesign Theatre thing I thought might be appreciated; I might be wrong in that assessment. I also thought the Colts were wrong to take Manning over Leaf.)
ReplyDeleteFor them tea baggin' repubs: How can you be in two parties at once when you're not anywhere at all?
ReplyDeleteFor thousands of years the peasants adored and even worshipped the Kings and Aristocrats who robbed them, starved them, forbade them to do anything other than farm, and killed them without fear of penalty. T-baggers seem to exist in that surf mentality, happy to tug their forelock or kowtow to the Rich Ones.
ReplyDeleteOh come on... Giuliani, Trump, Bachmann, and the FOX production of "Morons On Parade" are just the warmup act. By the time David Brooks, George F. Will, and David Gregory get done buffing and fluffing Mitch Daniels, we'll all be so brain fried that we won't be able to remember a time when he WASN'T just what this beleaguered republic needed.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Anonymous. I've never understood how American Exceptionalism, were it to exist, devolves to the individual American. Because one is lucky, or "lucky" enough to be born in the USA, which is somehow exceptional, that somehow automatically makes you better than some other schmuck born in Iraq?
ReplyDeleteI know I'm not that smart, but this concept boggles my mind.
Why is it that the folks who scream the loudest about how exceptional we are tend to be the very same people who go out of their way to make sure we are unexceptional. Torture. Worship of wealth. A huge State Security apparatus. The list goes on and on.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing better than Rudy Giuliani winning the Ed Meese Award was Atlas Shrugged, The Movie, "Part 1," winning the Ronald Reagan Great Communicator Award.
ReplyDelete