Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics Read Free

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