Expressing Ambivalence

NewDonkey says that Democrats get it wrong when they say that economic populist approaches will work but that changing our position on social issues is right. He's right about the first part (more on that later) and, as anyone who's been reading this blog the last few days knows, I believe he is wrong about the second.

He quotes Tom Coburn Senate Nominee from Oklahoma who says:

For the vast majority of Oklahomans--and, I would suspect, voters in other red states--these transcendent cultural concerns are more important than universal health care or raising the minimum wage or preserving farm subsidies. Pace Thomas Frank, the voters aren't deluded or uneducated. They simply reject the notion that material concerns are more real than spiritual or cultural ones. The political left has always had a hard time understanding this, preferring to believe that the masses are enthralled by a "false consciousness" or Fox News or whatever today's excuse might be. But the truth is quite simple: Most voters in a state like Oklahoma--and I venture to say most other Southern and Midwestern states--reject the general direction of American culture and celebrate the political party that promises to reform or revise it.


New Donkey says:

We're the "wrong track" party when it comes to the cultural direction of the country, and we have to decide whether to bravely swim upstream out of loyalty to hip-hop and Michael Moore and Grand Theft Auto IV and Hollywood campaign contributions, or do something else, like at least expressing a little ambivalence about it all. Changing the subject is cowardly and insulting no matter how you look at it.


I agree with Carson that these so-called cultural issues transcend economics for a bunch of reasons that I'll go into over the week-end hopefully. However, that does not mean that the Democrats will ever gain anything by denouncing popular culture. Carson doesn't believe it is a false consciousness and maybe it isn't. Perhaps it is just sheer hypocrisy, I don't know. But, the fact is that somebody in the red states is watching Will and Grace and somebody is watching Girls Gone Wild and a whole bunch of somebodies are downloading pornography. I'm sure they tut-tut those terrible liberals while they pass the popcorn and laugh over The Bachelor's latest catfight.The biggest hit of the TV season is the sexually adventurous Desperate Housewives and it ain't just because people in new York and LA are watching it. The National Enquirer and the Globe are hugely popular in Middle America with their fascination with Hollywood dirt.

This is mass consumer culture and it plays very successfully all across that great swathe of red. Somebody's watching all this stuff and buying all this stuff and consuming all this stuff. I'm sure that many believe it's a problem, but I'm just not sure it's our problem. After all, these are the salt of the earth individuals who believe in taking personal responsibility, unlike us Hollywood and east coast elites. And let's not forget who's making the profits selling all this decadent culture to these innocent, God fearing folk who are evidently hypnotised into buying it. Republican Big Business.

I agree that economic populism isn't going to work. But, we have proven that adopting socially conservative positions doesn't work either. These people pretend to be morally superior even as they indulge in all the dirty hanky panky they hypocritically pray over in church. It's not about what they actually do, it's what they say they do -- not the same thing at all. If they were so concerned about moral values they wouldn't be chuckling along while the drug addicted Rush Limbaugh makes jokes about pornographic images with a knowing nod and wink. They wouldn't so easily forgive their leaders who are divorced two and three times in ugly and cruel circumstances. They wouldn't stand for media personalities who call female employees on the phone and regale them with sexual fantasies. These are the icons of their Republican party and media elite. Yet, they are held to a much lower standard than Michael Moore, who may have said inflammatory things but never to my knowledge actually did anything blatently immoral or illegal.

If these people were truly concerned about moral values you'd think they'd start at home.

Nope. This is a marketing ploy set forth by the Republican party to exploit the tribal differences between the red and the blue the urban and the rural by creating a very convenient illusion of middle American (read: Republican) moral superiority. It's a crock. They consume just as much of this allegedly toxic culture as anybody else in this country. They just lie about it.

Pandering to hypocrites is a fools game --- as Brad Carson found out when he was beaten by the crazed wingnut doctor, Tom Coburn, who had hallucinations about lesbians in elementary schools. Obviously, "expressing ambivalence" about Hollywood values will never be able to compete with something like that.

Correction: I made a huge mistake and thought that the above quote was by the democrat Brad Carson. It has been corrected to reflect it was Tom Coburn, the very wingnut doctor who won with his fantasies about grade school lesbians.

This makes Kilgore's point even less salient. If we are "listening" to guys like Coburn explain why they won then we are bigger fools than I thought. They have absolutely no reason to be sincere about this.

Correction II: Yes, I realize that I screwed up. The quote is Carsons after all. Sorry for the confusion. Mea maxima Culpa. Posting and running is never a good idea.