Motley Moose – Archive

Resolved:  The Teahadist wing of the Republican Party hates America and wants everyone who doesn’t hate it the way they do to leave it.

That is to say, they hate the America that exists in the real world because it doesn’t conform to their fantasy America.  They want everyone who refuses to believe in their fantasy America to go away and stop bothering them with that pesky “reality” nonsense.

The more violently and passionately they shout about how much they love this country and want to save it, the more passionately and violently they want to cleanse it of everything “other” that refuses to fit within their sclerotic worldview, even if that means burning it all down and dynamiting the ashes.

I go off on this rant because I’ve just read a post at Bob Cesca’s blog that says all this, and more, and says it so magnificently that I’m going to copy and paste the whole damn thing here.  Normally I wouldn’t take someone else’s work wholesale like this, even with proper attribution, but dammit, I can’t improve on this, a post that had me hollering “Hell yeh!” as I read it.  I checked the writer’s profile for an address to ask his/her permission, but found nada. But I knew, reading it, that this is the sort of analysis — agree in whole, in part, or not at all — that is meat and drink to the Moose. And thus I repost it here.

So, mods of Moosery, if you disagree that what I’m doing is proper, grab your rolled-up newspaper and smack my snout, and I’ll take down the diary.  Okay?

Anyway, here it is, by one GrafZeppelin127:

I really think that the GOP/TP/Fox cohort really believes, since they only ever talk, listen to and interact with each other, that the country will pin this on President Obama, not the Republicans. We all heard Hannity at the end of his tête-à-tête with McCain remind the Senator, and the audience, of what they are required to believe: “Obama and the Democrats caused this, no one else.” The Big Lie has become common knowledge.

The Republicans cannot think they are “screwing themselves” because they think they are screwing the President. They have a base of religiously-devoted followers who are inherently incapable of believing that the GOP is, or has ever been, remotely blameworthy. They know they can get away with anything because their base will always enable them, unlike the whiny, petulant Democratic base that is never, ever satisfied with what Democratic officeholders accomplish.

I guess my point is that while there may be “millions of us spending our remaining free time pinning this entire thing on the pasty white foreheads of every last member of the Republican Party”, there will not only be millions more pinning this on the brown forehead of President Obama, there will be a 24-hour cable news network and hundreds of hours per week of talk radio doing the same thing, 24/7, until President Palin takes the oath of office on 20 January 2013.

There are two conclusions that I think I can draw from all this, and from the last two-and-a-half years.

– First, I think it’s clear that the RW/GOP/TP/FNC cohort, which spent the entire Bush presidency accusing everyone else of “hating America,” truly, deeply and passionately hates this country. I say that with great trepidation, because it’s an awful thing to say and I don’t like ascribing emotions to others, and what the speaker means by “this country” (or “America”, or whatever) may not be what the listener or the target understands. But what has become abundantly clear in recent years is that the “country” this cohort thinks they “love” is an abstract fantasy, a country that does not exist, has never existed, and cannot and will not ever exist. What they “hate” is the country that does exist, the one that’s filled with non-whites and non-Christians and gays and liberals and labor unions and college professors and entertainers and all sorts of other people who don’t vote Republican; the one that has publicly-funded roads and bridges and fire departments and parks and libraries and outdoor film festivals; the one that inspects food and water and drugs to make sure they’re safe, and tries to keep the air breathable; the one that “forces” them to contribute to its upkeep, its defense, its public institutions, and the well-being of its people.

– Second, and again I say this with great trepidation, but I am at the point where I would welcome and indeed encourage secession, and/or a second Civil War. If these folks want to live under the delusions of right-wing fantasy, economic, social and otherwise, and take Republican campaign rhetoric absolutely literally, let them have their own country to do it in. Not mine. I love this country for what it is, not for what I think it once was or what I wish it would be. They can even have the name “America,” since they think they “love” it so much. They can be “America,” and the rest of us will remain the United States.