All the Tea in China

.
My fellow Americans,

I'm not unfamiliar with protest movements.  I've had to endure groups of smelly, unwashed, communist-influenced, sign-waving malcontents for almost my entire political life. So naturally I am pleased as punch to see the right muster a similar movement, complete with frothing-at-the-mouth hysterics and semi-literate troglodytes whipped into blind rage at a liberal President.

I love the fact that these inbred nincompoops are out there holding racist, hate-filled signs, threatening violence and irritating the liberals.  But most of all I love how they've adopted the Nixon way of creating and spreading the biggest and most outrageous lies possible. I built my political life on telling ghost stories about communists lurking in corners, so it warms my heart that these savage dimwits have chosen to resurrect socialism as their monster, and I admit to an admiration of the sheer audacity of this strategy.

Now, of course the whole complaint of these Tea people is completely baseless.  President Obama is no more a socialist than Eisenhower or I were.  The yelping and gnashing of teeth at this health care reform is a clever ruse to hide the real cause of anger, because even these Tea Bag nitwits understand that the health care reform is really no more socialist than Medicare, Social Security, the National Parks system, the CDC, or the money the federal government spends on schools, roads, and protection.  No, the real burr in the saddle of these Tea people is the fact that Obama is a mulatto.  After all, it's not a coincidence that the whole Tea Bag movement is filled with conservative, middle-aged, viagra-popping, xenophobic white men.

The danger, however, is to the Republican Party as a whole.  This Tea Bag thing is a tricky issue.  The GOP needs to keep the extreme reactionary lunatics happy, but can't risk alienating the vast, moderate Orthogonians out there.  Embracing the Tea people, with their racist anger and violent tendencies, could turn off the rational center of the country.  On the other hand, denouncing them as fanatical bigots could trigger a George Wallace type of candidate in 2012.

It's a tightrope for the GOP.  But before the hammer falls the sight of this group of wild-eyed waterheads shouting about socialism brings a nostalgic warmth..

Nixon is: Amused

Send In the Clowns

.
My fellow Americans,

I don’t need to tell you that political campaigns are built on equal parts mendacity, pandering, and charisma.  But for some reason I’ve always had difficulty with that last bit.  Inexplicably, people just weren’t attracted to the Nixon charm. Children would cry whenever they saw me and my campaign managers would constantly remind me to never smile because of the intense feeling of distaste it caused.  Even Pat said that while she loved me, she really didn’t like me at all. 

This wasn’t a problem at first, because I was able to insinuate myself with the rest of the Orthogonians out there and deflect attention from myself through the use of communist boogeymen.  However, in 1960 it became an issue, and by 1966 it was a crisis.  So I did what so many successful politicians did: I hired a joke-writer. Two years later, I was elected the 37th president of the United States.

 
Since then, the charisma thing has elected five of the last six presidents: Carter was the naïve aw-shucks innocent, Reagan played the wisecracking game-show host, Clinton was the suave party-guy, W was the folksy dullard, and Obama is the earnest visionary.  So, it’s not really any surprise that potential candidates for 2012 are already honing their acts.  The one who has the biggest head-start has to be Sarah Palin, trying a Reagan-Bush hybrid of mean-spirited folksiness and one-liners. 

Her speeches are nothing more than a collection of sardonic insults and precisely calculated “zingers” designed to create a persona and give the fawning crowds something to wildly applaud.  Oh, there’s no doubting it’s effective, but it’s also very hollow and at the end of the day, unsatisfactory.  One gets the feeling that Sarah Palin will wear out her welcome very quickly  – sort of like that “Wild and Crazy Guys” thing SNL used to do.  Because gags and insults will only get you so far.  At some point you have to serve some meat to go with all the appetizers.  And the danger for her is that Sarah Palin is quickly becoming nothing more than a warm-up act.  A one-dimensional, insult-spouting MC that whips the faithful into a frenzy, but who then cedes the stage for the main attraction.

Look, when I was unveiling the new, likable Nixon I did the whole Bob Hope thing too, shooting one-liners at people like LBJ.  But I also included a lot of self-mocking gags, and in the end I had the gravitas that comes with experience and knowledge behind me.  Sure, people enjoyed my jokes, but they also knew that with Nixon it was all-business.  Palin gives the opposite feeling.  People look at her and just know that there is absolutely nothing behind her makeup.  Take away her joke-writers and all you have is a nasal-voiced, intolerant nincompoop.

That seemed to work okay for Reagan and W, but at least with me you knew there was more than just a friendly face.

Nixon is: Smug

God Hates You (and Jesus thinks you're ugly)

.
My fellow Americans,

I’ve never been a fan of prostituting my religion for political gain.  It’s always seemed to me to be the most base, vile, and repulsive way to pander to the rubes.  I always preferred aligning myself with the Orthogonians; exploiting the latent racist and xenophobic fear of the people through insinuations and implied threats.  My bread-and butter was always to side with the average stupid and lazy American by claiming that the other guy doesn't understand them, and is actively threatening the safe, soft, middle-class lifestyle of the people.  It worked because Joe Six-Pack and Sally Lunchpail will always be terrified at the thought of communist takeover, or by the horror of filthy, dope addicted hippies overthrowing the nation and raping the women.

So, whenever I see current politicians try to bring God into things, I naturally shudder.  But it’s become the trendy choice for politicians today.  Oh, they don’t come right out and say they are chosen by God – that would be not only too much an ostentatious display of arrogance (on par with the patronizing air of the East Coast elite Franklins), but also just feel too Jewish.  No, the politicians have come up with a much more sinister way of linking themselves with God’s favor.

Whenever asked about a possible candidacy, or about strategy, policy, or position on the issues, the politician will now answer that they have prayed on it, or are waiting for God to provide guidance.  The logical conclusion being that whatever the candidate then does is not only sanctioned, but ordained by the Big Cheese, and thus beyond question or criticism.

I admit, I admire the subtlety of this strategy.  Not only does it convey divine blessing, but has the added bonus of hinting that The Supreme Being isn’t a fan of the other guy.  Yet despite it's advantages, it still isn’t right for me.  I much prefer rolling up my sleeves and diving into the cesspool of slander and calling someone's personal integrity into question.  It would have been easy for me to prey on the fear of subservience to the Vatican by hinting at a Roman Catholic president kissing the Pope’s ring.  But seeing as how it depends too much on the voters being very stupid, easily manipulated, and prone to outbursts of righteous violence, religious exploitation will never be as effective as us-vs.-them tactics. 

Except in the South, that is.

Nixon is: Not Impressed

GOP Playing on Fears: The Worst Kept Secret in Washington

.
My fellow Americans,

It seems that the liberal press is once again working overtime to create a tempest in a tea pot regarding some silly memo regarding campaign strategy used by the Republican National Committee.

Evidently, this so-called memo promotes the use of fear-based tactics, character assassination, racial hysteria, and muckraking in campaigns, and urge republican candidates to portray the president and other democrats as driving the country to socialism.

Leaving aside the likely truth that this so-called memo is a fake, fabricated by the left-wing conspiracy in order to paint true and loyal Americans as dishonest (or at least unethical), the bigger question is why this is news at all?

Have all of you people been in a coma for the past 100 years?  Every important political campaign since John Adams smeared Thomas Jefferson as a slave loving fancy-lad has involved playing on the voters' fears. Whether it's me questioning my opponent's patriotism by making baseless accusations that they're a communist; George HW Bush raising the ghosts of racial horror by using a mug-shot to imply that Michael Dukakis will set free wild eyed negroes to feast on the tender flesh of the nation's pure white daughters; or George W Bush terrorizing people with the looming apocalypse of their christian civilization at the hands of bloodthirsty muslim zealots, poltics is a lowest-common-denominator business.

 

You gonna get raped

And the public are lemmings - either too drunk or too stupid to ever catch on.  Paradoxically, the bigger and more outrageously one creates the fear, the more the dopes believe it, because only then does it seem plausible.  The rubes out in the cornfields who cling to their bibles and hold guns and NASCAR sacred need this.  Fear breeds hate, and hate is a great motivating factor.  When you get people to hate something, you can use that to your advantage. The Nazis understood this, and it's something we republicans have adopted as our own. It doesn't matter who you make the threat: communists, homosexuals, hippies, minorities, illegal immigrants, students and intellectuals, muslims, the French - all you have to do is pick a group to blame for all the current problems, then associate your opponent with them. 

This so-called memo isn't news.  It's the republican way.

Nixon is: Confused About the Fuss

Sen. Jim Bunning: A Profile In Courage

.
My fellow Americans,

It isn't often that we get to witness a lone man display extreme tenacity in the face of adversity.  Particularly not in the world of politics, where one's integrity is often compromised several times in an hour in order to help expedite a lunch order.

Happily, today we get to see a supreme example of a man who absolutely does not care about anything but himself.  A man whose narcissism and delusion are so grand that it defies description. A man who perfectly exemplifies the attitude of "I don't care about you.  Fuck you."

Senator Jim Bunning, (R. KY) is nothing if not a giant middle finger to every American who is struggling during this long recession.  By single-handedly holding up the passage of a bill to extend unemployment and COBRA benefits to more than a million needy Americans, Sen. Bunning is showing a level of disdain and contempt for the common man not seen since Marie Antoinette.

 

This is the world's smallest violin playing just 

for the unemployed slobs out there.

And why should Sen. Bunning give a wet rat's ass about you, your kids, or that guy down the street who lost his job? Sure, it's easy to simply categorize him (as the Democrats and liberal press are doing) as a heartless a man who has nothing but hatred and scorn for people out of work. And my comment about that is, so what?  I applaud Jim Bunning for standing up for himself.  Whether his cause is right or not doesn't matter.  Every now and then a politician has to stand up and remain strong, regardless of what the issue is.  Even if it means dragging the country through prolonged agony.

However, the most delightful aspect of all is when Sen. Bunning read a letter from "Robert in Louisville" who is supposedly out of work, but supportive of Bunning's stalling the unemployment assistance bill.  It's one of the oldest lies in the book (and one I used with great success in my Checkers speech): you fabricate some poor slob without two nickles to rub together to represent all those working class Joes who will get screwed by your policy, and claim they wrote you to say that even though you're making them suffer, they support you and will sacrifice for you because you're doing The Right Thing.  And the rubes buy it every time. It's sublime.  It's elegant.  It's the Nixon way. 

Of course, ultimately Sen. Bunning will lose his crusade, and the bill will pass.  And he'll slink back to the hills of Kentucky, where he'll dream of the good old days of lounging on a porch, sipping Juleps while listening to the dulcet sounds of the darkies working the fields, and dreaming of spending half an hour in the dusky embrace of his octaroon housekeeper.  But in the mean time, Jim Bunning has reminded us all of what America once was.  A nation of God Fearing White Christians who could do what they wanted without concern over sacrificing the poor, the colored, or the immigrants, and who could have any who disagreed labeled a communist and thrown in jail.

Ah, nostalgia!

Nixon Approves