First Evidence: America As It Fades
With the “election of the century” over it is appropriate to examine the black box of the disaster and decipher, for future safety or simple curiosity, how the systems failed. For the most part, this amounts to berating the so-called American people for whom a new term needs to be coined. American just does not fit anymore. That term, while geographically accurate to some extent, no longer connotes what it has historically. Americans can no longer be assumed believers in the American Way that Superman defended, or to have American Values like—well, in having to explain them to Americans, the point is self-making. Blaming the flaccid non-campaign of John McCain, or the deceptive slickness of the Obama one does not help arrive at an answer to the current problem: What to do. If it did, changing tactics would be prescribed. But here we do not have a tactical or even strategic electoral issue but instead have a total failure of the American electorate. Democracy is not the problem, the people are the problem. As a left-wing cartoonist put it, unintentionally locating profound truths in what he was attempting to depict as the igner’nt mouth of Sarah Palin; “It’s official. The American People are un-American”. Precisely. You can’t even blame activist judges for that, though rest assured there will be blame aplenty for them in the near future (the concept of “future” might need reassessment as well. As in What is America’s future? as opposed to, Does America have one?). Before my diagnosis gets dismissed as over-the-top sour grapes from a right-wing, nationalistic, American, look at exactly what has transpired.
For the first time ever, Americans have elected a President who isn’t American. This is not important from a technical aspect— though his father was not an immigrant as is erroneously reported by sycophants, he was a foreign national who stayed long enough to impregnate at least one American girl, then went home (accolades for the latter). Barry Jr then went on to spend some formative years in Indonesia, under the auspices of his also non-American step-father. When exactly he met his first American male is not specified in either of his masturbatory autobiographies. We assume it was his white American grandfather, whose heritage he seems more alienated from than that of dads’ one or two. He sure doesn’t have Kansas written all over him. But anyway, he is a US citizen, like many attending international schools in New York, Honolulu, Mumbai, Rio, Nairobi and Hu (that’s Shanghai for you provincials, who probably identify with just one specific country). Given that trait covers many who would never be considered for the Oval Office the question becomes Is he an American patriot, a patriotic American? The answer, sadly, is It Doesn’t Matter.
Back in April, CBS News/New York Times Poll took a poll. It is astounding that they took this specific poll, and one can only imagine that they would not do so today. If they did, neither they nor any other outlet of the OBC (the Obamian Broadcasting Conglomerate, comprising ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, NYT, LAT, Washington Post, among others) would publish it.
According to the poll, only 29 percent of registered voters said they would describe Obama as “very patriotic.” Seventy percent said that John McCain was. Nearly ¾- (74%) allowed that Barry was at least “somewhat patriotic”. And before overly vocal conservatives get blamed for Obama Bamming, the assessment of BJ’s character wasn’t just from Republicans. Of Democratic primary voters— that’s the Redest of the blue— 61% thought McCain was very patriotic, and only 39% thought so of Obama. Thirty nine percent. Less than 40% of the most loyal Democrats thought that Barry was a very patriotic American. Less than 30% of the overall electorate thought he was very patriotic. And a critical mass voted for him anyway. To be President of the United States. Wow. Let’s just let that sink in and fester a while…
Now patriotism can mean a lot of different things to different people, but in the American context, especially when talking about political leaders, it was always something good and desirable. So much so, that to question someone’s patriotism when that someone is running for office is considered terribly dirty and inappropriate,. It is ad hominem and McCarthyesque, to even raise the issue. Certainly BHO treated the question as such whenever it was put, which it almost never was being so beyond the pale. It was something he always feared, evidently, given his warnings about its potential raising. Which itself raises the interesting problem that it must be super-inappropriate to question the patriotism of someone whose patriotism is questionable; else the issue wouldn’t arise. But why should this be? We have to ask that now, as all evidence indicates that the patriotism thing is no longer of any consequence, or at least not much. Being seen as less patriotic than the other guy, anyway, is obviously no longer the kiss of candidate death, if it ever was. So long as a guy is “charismatic” and "eloquent", and champions Hope and Change, and makes some feel less guilty about their own being because of the way he looks, then who cares how American he is? To be concerned with that is so provincial, so “fly-over country”, so un-European, so so-old fashioned, so..what? So American is what. America always thought of itself as special. The Shining City on a hill, as in Reagan’s reference, was always a popular poetic description. Even MLKJr played it for all it was worth. If not something specialy American, what was he appealing to? Well, thankfully all of that is behind us now. We no longer have to embarrass ourselves in front of other countries by handwringing over what makes the USA the USA.
A new people can invite anyone to lead them, since they have created a separate notion of “our” best interests versus “America’s” best interest. We just need to define who “we” are in new way. If the new We is the part of the group formerly known as Americans (by outsiders if not by self-identification) that wanted Barry Obama to be their president, or prime minister, or guru, or general secretary, or whatever title they might prefer—no oppression of tradition anymore!-- then what of those who comprise the new Them? At odds with the ObamaNation? Anthropologists call the creation of a new core identity ethnogenesis. That is what this election was. The only question now is who should rightfully get the old name—those whose values made it worth something, or those who so craved Change they were willing to raze the City?
With the “election of the century” over it is appropriate to examine the black box of the disaster and decipher, for future safety or simple curiosity, how the systems failed. For the most part, this amounts to berating the so-called American people for whom a new term needs to be coined. American just does not fit anymore. That term, while geographically accurate to some extent, no longer connotes what it has historically. Americans can no longer be assumed believers in the American Way that Superman defended, or to have American Values like—well, in having to explain them to Americans, the point is self-making. Blaming the flaccid non-campaign of John McCain, or the deceptive slickness of the Obama one does not help arrive at an answer to the current problem: What to do. If it did, changing tactics would be prescribed. But here we do not have a tactical or even strategic electoral issue but instead have a total failure of the American electorate. Democracy is not the problem, the people are the problem. As a left-wing cartoonist put it, unintentionally locating profound truths in what he was attempting to depict as the igner’nt mouth of Sarah Palin; “It’s official. The American People are un-American”. Precisely. You can’t even blame activist judges for that, though rest assured there will be blame aplenty for them in the near future (the concept of “future” might need reassessment as well. As in What is America’s future? as opposed to, Does America have one?). Before my diagnosis gets dismissed as over-the-top sour grapes from a right-wing, nationalistic, American, look at exactly what has transpired.
For the first time ever, Americans have elected a President who isn’t American. This is not important from a technical aspect— though his father was not an immigrant as is erroneously reported by sycophants, he was a foreign national who stayed long enough to impregnate at least one American girl, then went home (accolades for the latter). Barry Jr then went on to spend some formative years in Indonesia, under the auspices of his also non-American step-father. When exactly he met his first American male is not specified in either of his masturbatory autobiographies. We assume it was his white American grandfather, whose heritage he seems more alienated from than that of dads’ one or two. He sure doesn’t have Kansas written all over him. But anyway, he is a US citizen, like many attending international schools in New York, Honolulu, Mumbai, Rio, Nairobi and Hu (that’s Shanghai for you provincials, who probably identify with just one specific country). Given that trait covers many who would never be considered for the Oval Office the question becomes Is he an American patriot, a patriotic American? The answer, sadly, is It Doesn’t Matter.
Back in April, CBS News/New York Times Poll took a poll. It is astounding that they took this specific poll, and one can only imagine that they would not do so today. If they did, neither they nor any other outlet of the OBC (the Obamian Broadcasting Conglomerate, comprising ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, NYT, LAT, Washington Post, among others) would publish it.
According to the poll, only 29 percent of registered voters said they would describe Obama as “very patriotic.” Seventy percent said that John McCain was. Nearly ¾- (74%) allowed that Barry was at least “somewhat patriotic”. And before overly vocal conservatives get blamed for Obama Bamming, the assessment of BJ’s character wasn’t just from Republicans. Of Democratic primary voters— that’s the Redest of the blue— 61% thought McCain was very patriotic, and only 39% thought so of Obama. Thirty nine percent. Less than 40% of the most loyal Democrats thought that Barry was a very patriotic American. Less than 30% of the overall electorate thought he was very patriotic. And a critical mass voted for him anyway. To be President of the United States. Wow. Let’s just let that sink in and fester a while…
Now patriotism can mean a lot of different things to different people, but in the American context, especially when talking about political leaders, it was always something good and desirable. So much so, that to question someone’s patriotism when that someone is running for office is considered terribly dirty and inappropriate,. It is ad hominem and McCarthyesque, to even raise the issue. Certainly BHO treated the question as such whenever it was put, which it almost never was being so beyond the pale. It was something he always feared, evidently, given his warnings about its potential raising. Which itself raises the interesting problem that it must be super-inappropriate to question the patriotism of someone whose patriotism is questionable; else the issue wouldn’t arise. But why should this be? We have to ask that now, as all evidence indicates that the patriotism thing is no longer of any consequence, or at least not much. Being seen as less patriotic than the other guy, anyway, is obviously no longer the kiss of candidate death, if it ever was. So long as a guy is “charismatic” and "eloquent", and champions Hope and Change, and makes some feel less guilty about their own being because of the way he looks, then who cares how American he is? To be concerned with that is so provincial, so “fly-over country”, so un-European, so so-old fashioned, so..what? So American is what. America always thought of itself as special. The Shining City on a hill, as in Reagan’s reference, was always a popular poetic description. Even MLKJr played it for all it was worth. If not something specialy American, what was he appealing to? Well, thankfully all of that is behind us now. We no longer have to embarrass ourselves in front of other countries by handwringing over what makes the USA the USA.
A new people can invite anyone to lead them, since they have created a separate notion of “our” best interests versus “America’s” best interest. We just need to define who “we” are in new way. If the new We is the part of the group formerly known as Americans (by outsiders if not by self-identification) that wanted Barry Obama to be their president, or prime minister, or guru, or general secretary, or whatever title they might prefer—no oppression of tradition anymore!-- then what of those who comprise the new Them? At odds with the ObamaNation? Anthropologists call the creation of a new core identity ethnogenesis. That is what this election was. The only question now is who should rightfully get the old name—those whose values made it worth something, or those who so craved Change they were willing to raze the City?
posted by the wrightist at 2:03 PM
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