Grover Norquist says that Bush’s popularity wouldn’t suffer if he pulled out of Iraq immediately. Norquist is absolutely right. The 29% of the nation that still backs Bush backs Bush, not his agenda. Bush could gnaw the head off a puppy live on national TV and his popularity wouldn’t drop below 25%. It’s been said that a certain percentage of Americans tend towards fascism. Seems to me we’ve found ‘em.
I can keep up the charade no longer, for what you say is true: I, and legions more like-minded Americans, are indeed clandestine fascists. Like the Nazis of the 1930s, we have found or Messiah, and his name is Bush.
The pieces fell into place early as we modeled our diabolical plot on the Nazis we secretly worship. Cheney is our Goering; Rove our Goebbels; and Rumsfeld was our Himmler. After we staged 9/11 (the parallels with the Reichstag fire should be obvious) we had the last piece of the puzzle - we had our Jews.
We knew the American people would clamor for order, and we gave it to them in the form of the Patriot Act. Now we monitor all communications and have a stranglehold on the free press.
Many of you here have been under surveillance for years, and the fate that awaits you in Guantanamo will be grim. It will not end on January 20, 2009 as many of you hope, for there will be no election. There is no need for one now that we have Our Leader.
Posted by Judge Smails on 3 April 2007 @ 5pm
J.S., be honest with yourself: If you were asked in a poll whether you approve of the job that President Bush is doing, would you answer in the affirmative? If I know you — and I may not — your answer would be “no.”
Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 3 April 2007 @ 5pm
I suppose you’re right about that - I don’t approve of the job he’s doing - but I suspect your reasons for holding him in disrepute are lots different from mine.
Posted by Judge Smails on 3 April 2007 @ 5pm
And BTW, as much as I enjoy this blog and as much as I respect the fact that it’s yours and not mine, I, I dunno, uh, I kinda resent being called a crypto-fascist. I’m a little sensitive that way I guess.
Posted by Judge Smails on 3 April 2007 @ 5pm
Cheney == Goering doesn’t work: Goering had military-service experience.
Posted by Jeff Uphoff on 3 April 2007 @ 6pm
Hate to have to break out Logic 101 here, but if Waldo is identifying the part of the population that still backs Bush as “crypto-fascists”, but you don’t approve of the job Bush is doing, then Waldo doesn’t appear to be talking about you. So no need for resentment, Judge, sensitive as you may be.
Posted by Will on 3 April 2007 @ 6pm
Waldo, there’s a free “E-book” that deals with this exact topic. It’s written by Bob Altemeyer whose research inspired former Nixon Counsel John Dean’s most recent book “Conservatives without Conscience”. Very interesting psychological research on the “authoritarian” mindset written for a popular audience.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
And, yes, I’m sure that Goldwater and Edmund Burke would run for the hills from today’s Republican party. Today’s “End of Days” conservatism doesn’t seem to have much in common with Conservative principles of limited, fact-based, deliberative governance.
Posted by JPTERP on 3 April 2007 @ 7pm
Very much second that recommendation.
(Wish the guy had put it up in something besides PDF, though.)
Posted by MB on 3 April 2007 @ 7pm
It’s uncanny how libs now claim to look back fondly on conservatives like Goldwater and Reagan. Wasn’t there a Time Mag cover the other week with a picture of Reagan crying? Funny how bitterly most liberals opposed him when he was rebuilding America’s economy, reconstituting our national defense, and winning the Cold War.
Posted by Judge Smails on 3 April 2007 @ 8pm
Who’s looking back fondly on Reagan? Only deluded conservatives desperately searching for a hero, and finding one in a man who saddled the nation with debt, committed crimes in office, and escaped any serious post-office criticism. But I guess that yes, in comparison to W., he doesn’t come off as the worst president ever.
Posted by MB on 3 April 2007 @ 8pm
I suppose to people who hold up Castro-loving commies like Marquez as idols Reagan wasn’t very popular, but most Americans like him OK.
Posted by Judge Smails on 3 April 2007 @ 8pm
It’s uncanny how libs now claim to look back fondly on conservatives like Goldwater and Reagan. Wasn’t there a Time Mag cover the other week with a picture of Reagan crying? Funny how bitterly most liberals opposed him when he was rebuilding America’s economy, reconstituting our national defense, and winning the Cold War.
I have to agree with MB — I don’t know any self-described liberals who claim to look back fondly on Reagan. But even given Goldwater, there are a pair of reasons why that’s so. The first is that many of us weren’t born or aware of politics in Goldwater’s day, so you’re not comparing the same people over time but, rather, two discrete demographics. The second reason for this is that modern conservatives bear little resemblance to the conservatives of Goldwater’s day or, really, to those of back in Clinton’s day. President Bush’s support of massive spending increases, ever-deepening debt, record annual deficits and overseas military adventures have absolutely nothing in common with the interests of historic conservatives like, for instance, his own father.
Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 3 April 2007 @ 8pm
Smails, if you’re going to be as amusing as you think you are, you ought to try a little harder. Because that? Was just kinda sad. “Castro-loving commies”? That was lame even when Red Dawn was #1 at the box office.
Posted by MB on 3 April 2007 @ 9pm
I have no problem with fiscal conservatism; a limited government that doesn’t encroach on personal liberties; and reality based foreign policy. Those are core conservative values that I can appreciate.
Edmund Burke’s rationalistic, deliberative, non-dogmatic conservatism is something that I admire as well.
But I can’t really think of any major movement Republican who has measured up particularly well on those standards within the past 15 years. I think the more reason-based, less ideological conservatism probably began to die off, or migrate elsewhere after George H.W. Bush’s defeat in 1992.
Even Goldwater was cursing what the GOP had become in his final days. If he had lived to see the George W. Bush years, it’s not that hard to imagine what he’d say. Bush the younger is a 60s radical in his own way. Unfortunately, his radicalism didn’t find expression until he was put in a position of responsibility where he could do real damage.
Posted by JPTERP on 3 April 2007 @ 10pm
“That was lame even when Red Dawn was #1 at the box office.”
God I love that movie! WOLVERINES!!!!
Posted by Kevin on 4 April 2007 @ 8am
As someone with a few of these folks in my family woodpile, I have to agree with this assessment. Essentially, there is a craving for control. Democracy is way too messy for these folks, and they are impatient with the debate/deliberation process. W exemplifies this attitude, and they love it. He may be an utterly incompetent executive, but he executes - mostly in the anti-ACLU, organized labor, anti-regulatory vein that runs like a river through the malcontents.
So they huddle around their FoxNews feed, read their American Rifleman editorials, wag their tongues with Rush, and inhabit a concocted reality more akin to a hardened hamster cage. Living in a perpetual state of angry victimhood, but proud that they at least, have one of their own fighting the good fight from the Whitehouse. They are the winners, and it is the major part of why they call themselves Republican. Somebody has to lose, it won’t be them.
No insult, no subpoena, no FUBAR can take away from the simple truth that their guy controls the agenda, or owns the bully-pulpit. It was a mistake to cut the Iran-Contra deal with Reagan. It will likewise be a mistake to let Bush and Cheney walk on the Middle East disaster. Deceit, Malfeasance, Abuse of Power, Subversion of the Constitution are serious High Crimes in America, and approximately 25% of Americans need to have this truth presented clearly, and deliberately.
In the intervening years, cynical partisans have re-written the Reagan legacy - turning a bumbling face man, and criminal into a statesman, and no doubt, the W fans will attempt a similar path. America must make it clear that there are serious consequences to an unnecessary and failed war, subversion of the Constitution, and economic ruin. Otherwise we can expect the cycle to repeat itself with more incompetent Chief Executives abetting a hidden criminal agenda, cheered on by core of misdirected fascist-leaning Americans. Nothing reinforces criminal behavior like getting away with criminal behavior. And nothing reinforces fascism like the thrill of seeing it rewarded.
Posted by Bubby on 4 April 2007 @ 9am
@ Bubby:
I certainly concede there are many conservatives of the stripe you suggest in your 2nd para above. (So they huddle around their FoxNews feed, read their American Rifleman editorials, wag their tongues with Rush, and inhabit a concocted reality more akin to a hardened hamster cage.) But I would argue that the phenomenon of only listening/reading/watching that media that reinforces pre-existing beliefs is more true of the left than the right.
Those of us on the right are forced from an early age to confront the left’s take on all manner of issues. This ususally begins in school where teachers and the materials they use are overwhelmingly sympathetic to the liberal point of view. Later, as one ages and hopefully begins to think a little bit for oneself, the primary materials that aid this process are network news broadcasts, big newspapers, and the like. Again, they tend to tilt to the left. This is often followed by exposure to university faculty and their ideas. Ditto.
I am not at all suggesting conservatives are naturally more broad or open-minded than liberals. (I’m not saying we’re not either.) Merely that by the time a conservative reaches young adulthood, he’s been exposed to more liberal thoughts/ideas/viewpoints by an order of magnitude than a young liberal has conservative ones.
It’s no one’s fault. It’s the nature of our sociery. But I think it’s a little uncharitable to suggest that we’re completely ignorant of liberal viewpoints. It’s more likely, IMO, that the opposite is true.
Posted by Judge Smails on 4 April 2007 @ 5pm
God Bless son, we passed “difference of viewpoint” somewhere between Abu Graib and H.Katrina. We’re between Criminal and Conspiracy now. And the evidence keeps coming.
Posted by Bubby on 5 April 2007 @ 12am
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