ARE THE WINGNUTS EVEN TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE REST OF US?
The second and third excerpts from gutter-dweller Edward Klein's new anti-Obama book appeared in the New York Post this weekend ... and it's not clear who the target audience is. You'd think it would be swing voters, but really -- an interview with Jeremiah Wright? Most of the public just got bored with him after the press had mined as much of his story as there was to mine back in '08; the people who remained embittered about Wright -- wingnuts and racially unenlightened whites -- are still angry, but they've been angry forever, and their votes are just not in contention. We know the wingers' hatred of Obama was at a maximal level long before the Klein excerpts were published; it's not as if the Wright stuff is going to make them any angrier at Obama than they already are. As for non-Republican white racists, well, Appalachia was the only region where McCain did better in '08 than Bush did in '04, and this year, before the Klein excerpts appeared, West Virginia Democrats gave 40% of their votes to a white felon rather than Obama in the Democratic primary. There's your conservative-white-Democratic-racist vote, already lost to Obama. So how is Klein's Wright story going to move any votes?
The story quotes Wright as saying that "one of Obama's closest friends" offered Wright a bribe in the low six figures if he'd be silent throughout the '08 campaign. Will anyone turn against Obama for this who wouldn't have otherwise? The supposed scandal is that some ally of Obama tried to silence a guy who wasn't actually silenced, and tried to get us to ignore a guy who certainly wasn't ignored. That's all you got, righties?
Well, that and some sort of convoluted supermarket tabloid story involving Michelle Obama, Oprah, Gayle King, Valerie Jarrett, and a lot of very sharp claws. Michelle keeps tabs on Barack because she thinks otherwise he's going to go slipping off with some other woman! Especially Oprah! He really might get nasty with Oprah! Who's just a big fatty -- or so "sources" say that Oprah says that Michelle says! Oh, and the White House, with Jarrett as gatekeeper, didn't give Oprah the red-carpet treatment when she visited -- she had to communicate through intermediaries! She had to wait when she showed up!
I guess I don't know much about people who read supermarket tabloids. Do they believe what they read? Do they think less of the people who are portrayed badly (however implausibly), or do they just continue to find them fascinating? The interesting thing about the nasty Albert Goldman portrayal of Elvis back in the '70s is that everyone accepted the notion that he was a tacky, gluttonous, burned-out drug addict with odd sexual kinks and a fondness for shooting TVs -- and they never stopped loving him regardless. Even if some people do believe these stories, to some extent, don't the stories just make the Obamas seem larger than life?
I just think this stuff serves no purpose other than to make haters feel the pleasurable sense of even greater hate. I think it's supposed to move the electoral needle, but I think it's going to do that at all.
8 comments:
Conservative monkey's, after redirecting and flinging poo at one another for about a year, are still flinging poo at Obama, after almost 5 years, to see what can stick to him.
And sure, all the poo stinks - but what will stick?
Flinging poo is what they do.
Flinging poo is all they're good at.
FSM knows these people can't govern...
The 40% vote in WV for Keith Judd was a combination of Republican mischief and protest (anyone but) vote. In my county he got 25%, but I might be the only one who knew who he was. I don't think racism played a big role, but the media is saturated with anti-Obama bias, and our politics are almost entirely sponsored by coal and banking industries.
I have a fondness for shooting televisions. Kind of a disappointment these days - old tv's, the CRT tube type tv's, implode often as loudly as the gunshot; these new fangled flat screens just keep going, and going, and going...
Hello Steve,
To answer your original question, “ARE THE WINGNUTS EVEN TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE REST OF US?”
Here in lies the problem. They are not about trying to talk to, but TALK AT you. The Wing Nuts are not about a true dialogue but instead spewing rhetoric mindlessly without any logical aspects or critical thinking.
The Wing Nuts are so far into being mindless drones to continue the Preprogrammed Propagation for the 1%, there are no real original thoughts contained within their own minds.
I'll have to disagree with Danp. My county went 60% for the felon. It's not that most knew he was a felon, but they knew he was not Obama, and that was good enough for them. Racism runs very deep here, as it does throughout Appalachia. It's the "poor white trash gotta have somebody they are better than" thing. And it's not going away. The thing that made it worse in my county is the strong farm component anger at the intensification of the effort to fix teh Chesapeake Bay.
Hello wvng,
I want to start off by saying I have a very warm spot for West Virginia.
My father's family is from the Fairmont coal mining area and I love to vacation around the Lost River / Moorefield, Petersburg, Seneca Rock, Blackwater Falls, etc. areas. I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I do have the mountains in my DNA and it does break out much like a return attack of malaria. We call it, “I’m having a Mountain Attack” and I just have to get out there to recharge.
My sir name has been in West Virginia since the Scotch-Irish migration after the Revolutionary War. He was a Congenital Army solder who fought under General “Mad Anthony Wayne” and when the war was over, he was paid his 200 acre farm for his service to the country…..on the side of a mountain of what was then the western part of Virginia.
IMO, the issue Romney has to contend with is that he will never generate any real excitement as an candidate. So in order to ensure the base comes out and pulls the lever in November he has to rely on punching the "isn't Obama horrible" line as hard and as often as possible. He'll never win by asking people to vote for Romney, but he has a shot if he gets enough people to vote against Obama.
So, to address your post directly, I think stories like this are about keeping the base riled up and angry. The GOP must make sure the base comes out in force in Nov if they want a chance to win and anger is their main, some might say only, weapon since excitement ain't in the cards.
I agree, Erik. Further, the scuttlebutt is that RomneyCo is consciously seeking to avoid an "exciting" VP candidate in memory of Palin, adding further credibility to your opinion. Ultimately, an electoral base is only as valuable as its turnout rate.
Post a Comment