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

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