Thursday, March 15, 2012

A Televised Republican Revolution

Brother Gil Scott Heron wrote a song back in the day titled ““The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”. Well, if he were around today, particularly with respect to the GOP candidates in this primary race, he would witness a political revolution taking place, and it is televised.

With that said, a revolution has to be brutal by its nature and we see the chaos being left in its wake. Frankly, it’s a little too late for the republicans to shut down their presidential nominating contest just because the party is in the midst of upheaval wrought by the growing dominance of its extreme right wing.

This is not to mention their unresolved attitudes toward the Bush’s presidency, and the terror that the GOP rank and file has stirred among the more moderately conservative politicians who once ran things. It started with nine, or more, resulting in four now with Romney, who they cal "Him", as the front-runner who keeps failing to bring this pitiful show to a close. Apparently, even republican supporters will never see him as one of their own. They will keep signaling their refusal to surrender to the Romney machine with its torrent of nasty advertisements and its continuing education courses in delegate math designed to prove that resistance is futile.

His rival Slick Rick Santorum is a superb vehicle for this cry of protest. This guy has pitifully few resources compared with the vast treasury at Romney’s disposal, but this only feeds the David narrative against the Goliath in this contest. Now, Slick Rick’s purity as a social and religious conservative is unrivaled, and his traditional family life — he’s always surrounded on primary nights by a passel of kids — contrasts nicely with Newt Gingrich’s rather messy personal history. So this is why he is viewed as the “Anti-Him”.

They both, and in fact all of them, shout to the heavens against class warfare when in fact it is about saving their wealth. The revolt of the right-wing masses means that Romney stands alone as the less than ideal representative of a relatively restrained brand of conservatism. The growing might of the conservative hard core, reflected in its primary victories in 2010, led other potential establishmentarians to sit out the race in the hope that the storm will eventually pass.

This group of clowns, I am sorry, candidates, who almost never speak Bush’s name because of the disaster created by his administration knows that we know it will happen again if they were elected. It is to Santorum’s discredit that he did not dare defend his perfectly defensible vote of Bush’s No Child Left Behind education program. Santorum, too, fears the Tea-Baggers who see any exertion of federal authority as leading down a road to serfdom.

So as we watch this ridiculous farce that is little more than a defunct reality show. Or let’s call it a rerun of an old sitcom that should have never been rerun. And that’s my Thought Provoking Perspective…

"Just a Season"
Legacy – A New Season is Coming!
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