Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics (2 page)

This twisted template has now become rooted in American political discourse. Those who favor starting wars and sending others off to fight in them are somehow strong, tough, and courageous. Those who oppose sending their fellow citizens off to wars are weak and cowardly. The United States goes to war far more than any other country in large part because our political culture now demands pro-war (though always
risk-free
) advocacy as proof of one’s manhood and courage. This ludicrous equation has produced an entire generation of right-wing male leaders who excel at acting the role of tough-guy warrior without having an ounce of real strength or toughness.

Chapter Four
examines how the same methodology of deceit is applied by Republicans who parade around as wholesome, moral family men when the reality is exactly the opposite. While the right wing endlessly exploits claims of moral superiority and dresses up as the moral Everyman, virtually its entire top leadership have lives characterized by the most decadent, hedonistic, and morally unrestrained behavior imaginable—not merely once or in isolated instances, but chronically—as their defining behavior.

Leaders such as Limbaugh, Giuliani, O’Reilly, Gingrich, and scores of others have had a string of shattered marriages, divorces, active out-of-wedlock sex lives, and highly “untraditional” and “un-Christian” personal lives. Precisely because of the messy and often ugly reality of their own personal lives, demonizing others as abnormal becomes the only way they can parade around as moral and normal and righteous.
That
is the central psychological and cultural mythmaking tactic on which the entire right-wing GOP electoral edifice rests—crusading under the banner of personality attributes they so plainly lack.

Indeed, the vast majority of the leaders of the Clinton sex witch hunts in the 1990s have since been revealed to have been engaging in behavior,
even at the time when they were leading the impeachment crusade,
that was (at least) as sleazy and morally “untraditional” as any of the improprieties of which they so righteously accused Bill Clinton. And countless leaders of the “Values Voters” movement over the last several years—from Larry Craig and David Vitter to Ted Haggard and Mark Foley—have been caught in the most scurrilous scandals as a result of their oozing, chronic hypocrisy.

These right-wingers not only refuse to adhere to their alleged moral principles, but worse still, they apply those principles in the most exploitative way possible,
only
when doing so generates political advantage and demands no sacrifice or restraint from their own followers. Self-proclaimed “traditional marriage” advocates harp continuously on the need to ban same-sex marriages while not only endorsing but often
engaging in
the equally “untraditional” practice of shedding one’s wife when the mood strikes and finding a new one (often from a pool of current mistresses).

They enforce moral dictates only as applied to small minorities (such as gay people) because doing so is politically popular, whereas enforcing those same dictates in a way that would require sacrifice and restraint from their own supporters (such as opposing easy divorces and remarriages) would entail a political cost. This moral agenda is thus a hollow hypocrisy.

Despite all of that, the establishment press continues hungrily to eat up these manipulative themes, digest them, and mindlessly spew them back out. Hence, GOP leaders are “cultural conservatives” and wholesome, regular men, while Democrats reek of elitist “San Francisco values.” This deceit of salt-of-the-earth, mainstream moralism from our right-wing leaders thus continues to thrive and plays a large role in determining the outcome of our elections.

Chapter Five
examines what has perhaps become the most transparent Republican myth of all: that it is the party of small government, limited federal power, and individual liberty. When Bill Clinton was president, right-wing pundits and leaders never ceased warning of the dangers of expansive government power. Of particular concern, they claimed, was expanding police powers and the ability of the government to spy on and control the lives of individual Americans. Republican leaders love to claim that they stand in support of regular Americans against incursions by power-hungry, controlling Washington politicians.

Yet once in power, these supposed limited-government mavens reversed course completely. They cheered on virtually every one of George Bush’s unprecedented increases in presidential power, from how the government detains us, to how they interrogate us, to how they listen in on our telephone conversations and read our e-mails. Whatever government power under the Bush presidency has been, it has been the opposite of “limited,” yet the conservative movement has enthusiastically embraced every one of these radical measures and, even now, advocates still further expansions of such powers.

These power grabs are by no means limited to federal police powers. In virtually every realm, Republicans seek to use the force and power of government to control the lives of American citizens. To secure this control, they spend recklessly and with abandon, and propose one law after another designed to criminalize the private choices of citizens. They are the party of government power and control over the individual. And, as they do in every other realm, they disguise themselves as exactly the opposite when it comes time to win elections.

Chapter Six
focuses exclusively on John McCain as the GOP nominee and examines how these manipulative personality themes are already being wielded by him in order to disguise himself to the American people. As is always true, McCain parades around as the paragon of exactly those virtues he most lacks: the apolitical, independent-minded, moderate maverick who rejects elitist values and is an honor-bound, truth-telling man of the people, pursuing his principles even when doing so comes at a great political cost. Even more so than any other politician in memory, the establishment press corps is giddily enamored of McCain and is gearing up, as always, to bolster the Cult of Personality that surrounds the Republican candidate.

The Republican Party of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater will use these same personality-based themes in the 2008 election, because it is all they know and, more important, because nothing has stopped it yet. Their actual platform of more Middle East militarism and domestic policies designed to further widen America’s rich-poor gap is, as every poll shows, deeply unpopular. A mid-2007 Rasmussen Reports Poll revealed just how disadvantaged Republicans are when it comes to actual issues and substance, rather than personality smears:

Democrats are currently trusted more than Republicans on all ten issues measured in Rasmussen Reports tracking surveys. Democrats even have slight advantages on National Security and Taxes, two issues “owned” by Republicans during the generation since Ronald Reagan took office….

Rasmussen Reports monthly surveys have shown a sharp decline in the number of Americans considering themselves Republicans over the past eight months.

A
New York Times
/CBS poll released in mid-December 2007, as the primary presidential season intensified, revealed that Americans have an overwhelmingly unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party (33–59 percent), while their opinion of Democrats is favorable (48–44 percent)—a bulging 15-point advantage for Democrats. In early 2008, this mountain of anti-GOP polling data led conservative David Brooks, in the
New York Times
, to conclude: “
The Republican Party is more unpopular than at any point in the past 40 years.
^*1
Democrats have a 50 to 36 party identification advantage, the widest in a generation. The general public prefers Democratic approaches on health care, corruption, the economy, and Iraq by double-digit margins.”

Worse still for Republicans, they are burdened with the record and reputation of one of the most widely despised presidents in American history and by the country’s most disastrous war. Trying to win this election with cultural, psychological, sexual, and gender-based smears and John Wayne mythology is their only option, and they will pursue it vigorously and with glee. They always do.

With the aid of the establishment media, which reflexively views the political landscape within this vapid framework, these already became the dominant themes during the primary season. Hence, John Edwards was an effeminate, elitist, hair-obsessed “faggot” and Hillary Clinton was a pants-wearing, emasculating dyke. Conversely, Fred Thompson was hailed as a down-home Regular Tough Guy and Southern Cultural Conservative by our media stars—
because he has played one on TV!
Contrary to his television and film persona, in which he’s played the role of wise prosecutor and military commander and CIA officer, in real life Thompson ran away from Vietnam and spent years as a rich Beltway lobbyist. His current wife—whom he married after years of short-term relationships with Hollywood actresses and New York socialites—is four years younger than his own daughter.

Two things are urgently needed to prevent deceitful electoral tactics from working again:

1. exposing the tactics the right-wing noise machine uses to drown out both reality and consideration of actual issues, thus ensuring that elections are decided based on manipulative cultural, psychological, and gender-exploiting marketing imagery;

2. demonstrating the Grand Canyon–wide gap between the Attributes and Virtues that these marketing campaigns tout and the actual lives of the GOP leaders.

These themes are all grounded in myth and propaganda. Across the board, the lives of the right-wing standard-bearers exhibit exactly the traits that are the opposite of those that they claim they represent. And the policies these party leaders advocate are designed to achieve exactly the opposite goals.

But the reason why this has worked is that there are almost never any attacks on these myths, no aggressive examination of the real lives of these leaders. Critics of Republicans shy away from these themes. There is a squeamishness to use their own weapons against them. To the extent Democrats address these themes at all, it is always in a defensive posture (“we love America, too” “we’re not unpatriotic” “we also believe in God” “we support the troops, too” “I also love my family”).

It needs to be shoved into the media’s faces and into our public discourse how false and deceitful and artificial are these “Republican Values” and personality attributes that they concoct for themselves. To do that, the most prominent right-wing political leaders need to be put under a microscope—their actual lives and beliefs—to show how lacking they really are in the virtues they claim to exude and revere. Addressing these psychological and gender-based smears head-on—by subjecting the right-wing leaders to their own standards—can cause the whole edifice to crumble. It can’t be refuted by defensive explanations or self-justifications or overly analytical critiques, but only by speaking plainly about what these right-wing leaders really embody and represent. And more than mere “hypocrisy” accusations are required; the GOP leaders need to be indicted with their own accusations, attacked with their own weapons, in order to make it impossible for them to use these tactics further.

By exposing the Republican Party’s real playbook—by deciphering these cultural and psychological themes—they can be neutralized, even turned against those who resort to such tactics. This method can refute in advance the standard GOP smear machine that will be employed throughout 2008—not with overly rational discussions of why the themes are invalid or with petulant protests that the tactics are unfair, but instead, with highly visceral and personalized critiques that show that the GOP leaders are in no position to stake claim to virtuous behavior.

Allowing the results of these tactics to fester and letting these innuendos lurk have given us the “brave and upstanding” George Bush, “the sober and responsible” Dick Cheney, the “Christian conservatives” Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Tom DeLay, and a country left in ruins. As the country decides who will succeed George W. Bush, there simply is no more important priority than ensuring that we topple the big myths of Republican politics and the Great American Hypocrites who feed off them.

CHAPTER ONE

The John Wayne Syndrome

T
HE
D
UKE AS
P
IONEER OF THE
G
REAT
A
MERICAN
H
YPOCRITE

T
he Great American Hypocrites of the right wing have a long and storied history. One of the earliest trailblazers of this specific course of deceit was John Wayne, whose life provides a vivid guide for how today’s right-wing political movement parades around as everything that it is not.

Beyond his acting career, John Wayne has long been famous as a symbol of the ideal, supermasculine American right-wing male. From his all-American name to his cowboy swagger, from his numerous film roles as a war hero to his hard-core right-wing politics and steadfast support for American wars, the image of the Duke has remained the model of masculine American strength and wholesomeness.

Yet the gap between Wayne’s image and the reality of his life is enormous. While Wayne adopted über-patriotic political positions and held himself out as a right-wing tough guy, he did everything he could to avoid fighting for his country during World War II.