It is a common mistake to assume that the right-wing noise machine is driven by ideology. True, they do espouse an ideology of sorts, but only if rants that come directly from the brain’s R-complex can be considered an ideology.
In truth the machine is the ultimate expression of America’s youth culture carried to the point of farce. It is little more than the world’s longest temper tantrum thrown by a gaggle of spoiled brats who are incapable of accepting that their “Father-Knows-Best” worldview was grounded in fantasy and delusion from the get-go.
And like all illusions, it was only a matter of time before it vanished in a puff of smoke, and since the poor darlings had believed in it with all their hearts and all their souls, its loss left a vacuum that could only be filled with spite and bile.
The world they think they lost was one dominated by white, male Protestants, men who wore suits to work while mother stayed home and cared for the children. It was a world in which the family marched off to church every Sunday, the females in hats and white gloves, and the males neck-tied in their polished shoes. It was cosmetic and scrubbed, while those whose skin was off-white barely existed.
Any doubts about the quality of this world were quickly cured by cocktails and Valium.
The young rebelled against this lifestyle in the sixties, but, with the exception of the Civil Rights movement, it was a self-centered movement addled by drugs and sex. Even the peace movement was driven by young people who had no desire to serve in a senseless and unnecessary war. Ultimately, the brightest in this movement cut their hair and found their way to Wall Street where the self-centeredness they’d nurtured during the rebellion made possible the economic rape of America.
But, the most tragic outcome of the sixties was that the left severed its ties with America’s working class, and, in doing so, left them naked and exposed, easy picking for the right-wing noise machine. The payback came in 1980 when the working class helped sweep Ronnie into office.
Now, in the midst of an economic meltdown, the left sits paralyzed, mumbling about peace and healthcare while the noise machine successfully pushes the buttons of the working class and fans the resentments and the anger that is the inevitable outcome of being unable to put enough food on the table.
It is a testimony to the machine’s talent, and the left’s lack of it, that one of the most discredited parties in American history, the Republicans, can still garner enough support to put Obama’s health reform in danger of failing.
And the left continues to mumble.
*With an apology to Joni Mitchell