RIGHT-WING GRIEVANCES NEVER DIE -- THEY JUST LINGER ON OR MUTATE (updated)

(I was wrong on the first point in this post -- see the update below.)

Mark Halperin, covering Scott Walker's campaign announcement, tweets this:

At Dave's diner in downtown Waukesha, they serve "American fries." And some quality Mexican food. #OnWisconsin #OurAmericanRevival

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) July 13, 2015

Yup -- it's 2015, so you thought hating the French was something that went out of fashion a decade ago, but no:



(I'm not sure about that "quality Mexican food," and I'm absolutely not sure I trust Halperin, who grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, to be the judge of that. The menu posted on the restaurant's site in 2013 is strictly diner food, though we're also told that "Tuesday is all about fresh tacos... and the best homemade salsa!" So maybe that's what Halperin's talking about.)

(See update below.)

Meanwhile, Betty Cracker, in what she calls "a wingnut bar" in Florida, spots this:



I thought hating Michael Moore was as passé as hating the French ... and, well, I guess it is, in the sense that wingnut grievance collectors can't give up this hate, either. But this is meta wingnuttery -- the Hanoi Mike urinal target is an allusion to the Hanoi Jane (Fonda) urinal target, which never goes out of fashion, and apparently won't until the last Fox-watching Vietnam vet dies. Um, these folks do know that Michael Moore made his name long after the Vietnam War ended, right? (Apparently not, any more that they know that, as Betty writes, "we ladies don’t generally aim our pee, so toilet rim stickers are wasted on us.")

And here's one last wingnut grievance news item:

Ted Nugent and Kid Rock have teamed up to record a song in support of the Confederate flag.

The song, titled “Kiss My Rebel Ass,” was reportedly written and recorded in the space of a day after Nugent, seeing that Kid Rock had invited anyone protesting his use of the flag at his concerts to “kiss my ass,” reached out to express his support via text message....

Nugent, who’s been typically outspoken in his disappointment with the recent removal of the flag from the statehouse grounds in South Carolina, weighed in on the subject during a recent appearance on the World Positive Thinkers podcast.

“I believe that we always have to look at substance over symbolism, and I think we have to be honest,” argued Nugent. “If we burned every Confederate flag today, would they stop shooting each other in Chicago? If we burned every Confederate flag today, would we stop sanctuary cities from accommodating murderers and rapists and savage people?”

... “Kiss My Rebel Ass” will reportedly be available as a free download from both of their websites on July 17.

Nugent now lives in Texas, but he and Kid Rock are both from the Detroit area; the latter bought himself a mansion there a few years back. What's up with that?

I get the feeling that not only is the Confederate flag not going away, it's becoming the national flag of angry heartland white people. I see Zandar mocking yesterday's Howell Raines op-ed -- Raines argued that the South is undergoing a demographic shift that's going to make it a lot less Republican very soon, as a result of Asians and Hispanics joining the non-white population in increasing numbers -- and Zandar is correctly skeptical, given the suppression of the non-white vote in the South (and pretty much anywhere else Republicans reign), and given the fanning of the flames of white resentment by the GOP and right-wing media. I think that's a contagion that's spreading beyond the South -- why are states that have traditionally voted Democrat in presidential elections electing Republicans governors and legislatures? This is a particular trend in the Midwest: Wisconsin, Ohio ... and Michigan. It's possible that the Confederate flag is being decoupled from the Confederacy, and soon it will just be the flag of anti-multiculturalism and meat-and-potatoes unhip classic rock. The 2016 election will tell us if something like that is already happening at the electoral level.

****

UPDATE: In comments, Yastreblyansky writes:

That's a fucking breakfast menu, and "American fries" is a known term for what we in the East refer to as home fries.... I'm sure they serve French fries for lunch.

And I should have taken a closer look at page 3 of the menu, because that's true: