Why This Election Year America Is Nurse Jackie
Last weekend I debuted the first installment in my ongoing series of book reviews here at PJ Lifestyle: "23 Books for Counterculture Conservatives, Tea Party Occultists, and Capitalist Wizards."
In the middle of the list I featured these six books and discussed their contributions to understanding American exceptionalism:
10. Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America by Ann Coulter
11. The Secrets of Masonic Washington by James Wasserman
12. Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion by David Gelernter
15. The Secret Destiny of America by Manly P. Hall
In Demonic, Ann Coulter explains the relationship between mob psychology, human evil, demagogic emotional manipulation, and America's founding as a bulwark to protect against all three. In The Secrets of Masonic Washington, James Wasserman reveals the esoteric meanings behind the statues and symbols of Washington, D.C., the enduring monuments to the transcendent values that liberated America from the tyrannies of the fickle moods of mobs and kings. In Americanism, David Gelernter argues that Old Testament Puritanism evolved into the American Idea, a secular creed uniting citizens of disparate religious identities. In Occult America, Mitch Horowtiz shows that as America grew and expanded her states acted as not just "laboratories of democracy" but cauldrons of religious freedom from which new faiths -- including Mormonism -- emerged. In The Hypomanic Edge, psychologist John Gartner argues that all throughout America's history the peculiar, high-energy temperament of an immigrant nation has manifested repeatedly in the nation's entrepreneurs, scientists, explorers, and statesmen. And finally, The Secret Destiny of America by Manly P. Hall, a favorite of Ronald Reagan, collects together a series of fantastic tall tales and prophecies to mythologize this American ideal of a land dedicated to every human being's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Mitt Romney fits this paradigm. He's the textbook example of the energetic, can-do businessman, balanced and guided by a system of traditional, American values embedded within his Mormon faith. Meanwhile, Barack Obama spent 20 years practicing how to worship himself in this antisemitic conspiracy theorist's church:
Well Jackie, what's it going to be? More Goddamn America to kill the pain of having to take responsibility for the freedom of creating your own happiness? Or some Mormon sobriety so we all can just see the price of gas go back down?