WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH AMERICA?
By Mark Ames
Thomas Frank just published another searing attack on the Republicans' manipulative evil, the Democrats' craven reaction to it, and how this has resulted in poor, helpless Middle America getting duped once again. In his New York Review of Books article, "What's the Matter with Liberals?" Frank, like nearly all of his fellow left-wing intellectuals, proves he is fearless when trashing the ideological elites in both parties (indeed, like the cream of the left elite, he is especially adept at trashing his own faction), but he's mysteriously pen-shy when it comes to the American people's enthusiastic role in this grand sucker-game.
In Frank's mind, innocent, vulnerable Middle America was sold on a Republican platform that promised a kind of cultural class war, with the right backing the beleaguered masses of zombie-worshipping imbeciles against the coastal cosmopolitan elite—only to get stuck with a massive post-election bill payable to the Republicans' corporate sponsors.
Well blow me down.
In all of these liberal/left attacks on the Republicans' propaganda con game, and the Dems' allegedly limp-dicked response, no one yet has the guts to say out loud what every leftie knows deep down: The American people are FUCKING CRAZY! They actually WANT to be duped! The reason why the Republican con game works is because most Americans WANT TO BE CONNED! They are enthusiastic slaves! Fierce lickspittles! Congenital bottomers! It makes perfect sense that Dems like Harry Reid and John Kerry moved as far to the crazy-right as they could possibly manage; they were trying to get as close to the rank heart of Middle America as possible. And still they failed.
The Republicans are selling a product that Middle America wants to buy, and it's a far better product than what the Democrats have to offer. That product is meanness. Americans are hooked on meanness, and that meanness is everywhere, particularly at the workplace, where American workers have been getting increasingly reamed for almost three decades. By this point, the brutal squeeze has been so deeply internalized that it is impossible to imagine—indeed, is offensive to consider—the possibility that someone might make life a little easier. The Republicans offer two things to their voters: to make life more miserable on people who seem to be happy (the coastal elite); and to increase the pain of the average Middle American, who, in the words of former GE chief Jack Welch, has "unlimited juice to squeeze."
Speaking of Jack Welch, his new book, Winning, is one of amazon.com's top 20 sellers, as was his previous loathsome memoir, Straight from the Gut. I would advise Thomas Frank go dumbshit-trekking on the Amazon reader reviews, where sucker after Middle American sucker praises "Neutron Jack" for firing tens of thousands of workers in order to make himself a billionaire. Read these, and you'll come a little closer to understanding what's the matter with Kansas.
<http://www.nypress.com/18/19/news&columns/markames.cfm>
Carl