Watching the GOP convention is quite a culture shock even for this relatively old geezer. It is like being transported to another time and place. If the convention is populated by a Wonderbread gathering of white folks (although the network cameras lead you to believe there are lots of people of color there), the music, the dress and the behavior of the delegates only reinforces the impression this is not a diverse group.
During the Democratic Convention I honestly cannot recall hearing any country music. During the Republican convention it seems like that is all they play. Now those who read this blog know I like country music so I have no beef with what is being played, what I do question is that I have yet to hear a note of African American or Latino music or anything young people are listening to these days.
You can’t tell me this is not as deliberate as the exclusion of people of color as delegates. The profound difference in the music between the two conventions suggests we are witnessing not merely two parties but two cultures of opposite polarity. If you’ve ever accidentally touched the negative and positive leads on your car battery or an electrical wire you know what that means–sparks fly. You might even have an explosion.
My sense was that in the last couple of years the so-called culture wars had died down and that Americans had finally decided to live in peace with each others’ different tastes in entertainment, but watching the GOP convention you can tell that the culture wars are far from over. I would love for someone to do a suit/sportcoat count of both conventions (if you get bored tonight count the suits and let me know what you get). My guess is that there are a lot more suits at the GOP convention.
Although it’s somewhat awkward to being this up, I also think we need a count of blond women. Maybe the cameras just like to pick them out–they seem to do it sportscasts–but the Ann Coulter look is so prevalent at the GOP convention that the women seem cloned. Certainly the number of young, long-haired blondes outnumbers those at the Democratic Convention. It certainly is curious to have all these Nordic types running around the stereotypical Scandinavian state of Minnesota this week wearing Republican regalia.
The GOP delegates also do not seem to like to have a good time or know how to have one. The party-like atmosphere of the interludes at the Democratic Convention has been replaced with something resembling a high school prom at Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Wobegon. Speaking of dancing, these folks don’t know how. Maybe if the GOP learned to shake its booty a little more it might loosen up.
The GOP delegates actually appeared to be more animated when they were being nasty. Any line that really insulted the Democrats and liberals in particular had them hooting and yelling like some lynch mob. These folks’ idea of a good time appears to be stringing up liberals. Mitt Romney used the word so many times and with such a sneer I though he was Joe McCarthy talking about “reds.”
Behind this I sensed a deep hatred. These people seem motivated by anger, which could be seen in the snarl of Sarah Palin’s mouth. It is not for nothing she is known as Sarah Barracuda. Someone I know who knows animal behavior and body language said that message sent by Palin was clearly not far from the look on a pit bull before it puts the munch on its victim.
These folks apparently want to purge America of anything they consider “unAmerican” and some of them appear ready to do so by any means necessary. I remember my father telling me that the 1964 Republican National Convention was the closest thing he had seen in America to a Nazi rally–and he should know because he witnessed more than he cared to.
Here three themes from previous essays come together: the lack of people of color at the GOP Convention, the essay I wrote about the fear of African American culture that lies behind many of the attacks on Barack Obama, and the desire of Karl Rove and others to take this country back to the days of the McKinley Administration.
Judging by their tastes in music and clothes these people don’t like the present. The entire atmosphere of the GOP Convention resembled a time warp, as if America had fallen into a wormhole and ended up in a place that wasn’t Kansas anymore.
The problem is that the past they crave never existed except on television or in the movies. Curiously for all their boos at the media–some of them getting scary enough that I expected to see the equivalent of John Chancellor being hauled off the floor in 1964–these people seem to have constructed an image of America that comes as much from Hollywood as from reality. I heard a few references to John Wayne, as if his screen persona were someone real.
Somehow in their minds The Shootist appears to have been shotgun-wedded to the Social Darwinism of William Graham Sumner. When Mike Huckabee launched into his “poor me” recitation the place went positively wild when he said he didn’t wait for government to help him, as if those who are helped by the government are somehow lazy. Unfortunately Huckabee has a selective memory.
Let’s start with Huackabee’s parents. They both were born in the 1920s which means they were teenagers during the Great Depression. He likes to speak about his parents growing up “dirt poor” but neglects to mention that they probably would have grown up even worse if it had not been for the New Deal. His community also benefited from New Deal Programs like the WPA. Later on Government aid went the public schools he attended. The roads he traveled on, the medical research that gave him his polio shot, the FDA regulations that insured he didn’t die of food poisoning, the national parks he visited, the fact that the airplane he flew around while campaigning did not crash, the Internet that he used to stay in touch with his campaign, all were government help for Mike Huckabee.
But Huckabee and the Counterrevolution clearly forget the help government gave them. So while they have been slashing government programs, bridges have been falling into rivers, cities inundated with hurricanes and schools failing. When Huckabee said government didn’t help him, the looks on the faces of the delegates said they agreed.
The music, the dress, the handmade signs saying, “Build the Wall” and “America for Americans” said it all. These folks want America to become the equivalent of the gated communities where many of them live. Keep out people who look different, speak different and think different than they do. The culture wars are far from dead; they are only heating up. In fact they will be front and center during the election.
For November will be about whether this nation decides to become part of this new century or go back to the nineteenth. If Barack Obama can frame it that way for the American people he will win, but if he lets Sarah Palin and John McCain frame this in terms of the culture wars, then it will be a tough fight.
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