The “Who Now?” Hilton - Part 2

Oh Brave New World,
That has such meatheads in it.

At some point at Yearly Kos, should anyone manage to tree a member of the national press and corner them into a candid conversation, I would dearly love to know why – really, really why – they continue to scratch their collective heads, play dumb and pretend not to understand why, in a political world where the Republican Base squats like a troll with an RPG beneath the GOP bridge to the White House, nothing gets done.

Pretend not to understand why, when the voices that utterly dominate the Right are those who (in lieu of actually debate) daily run berserk, verbal wildings against anyone who disputes the infinite wisdom of the Dear Leader, the political atmosphere is so poisonous.

Pretend that the fact that the Republican Party has lost its fracking mind and is now trussed up with a knife at its throat in the back James Dobson’s Windowless Clown Car, doing 90 down a dark road into Hell, is not a huuuuge fucking story.


And if they need the story told to them in better-dressed thread, maybe this can help.

For the record, I lifted this bodily from a chapter in Aldous Huxley’s indispensable dystopian novel, “Brave New World”. So don’t ever let it be said that I steal anything less than the top-shelf goods.

And then I made a few changes:

…
"These early experimenters," the Karl Rove. was saying, "were on the wrong track. They thought that Conservative Media could be made an instrument of intellectual education"

(Film of an angry wingnut driving to and from his shitty job, listening absently to a radio broadcast of a loud, breathless man blathering on about Supply Side economics.

Through a round grating in the dashboard of his Canyonero, a voice dins on and on.

"An economic theory which holds that reducing tax rates, especially for businesses and wealthy individuals, stimulates savings and investment for the benefit of everyone.”

At work the next morning, "Whitey," someone says, “could you explain Supply Side economics?"

A shaking of the head.

"Maybe remember something that begins: ‘An economic theory which holds…?’”

"An -- economic - theory - which - holds - that --- re-du-cing --- tax rates – es-pe-cial-ly -- for -- businesses -- and -- wealthy in-di-vid-uals – stimulates – sav-ings - and – in-vest-ment for - the - benefit - of - eve-ry-one.”

"So what is Supply Side economics?"

The eyes are blank. "I don't know."

"But, ‘An economic theory…’, Whitey."

" An -- economic - theory - which - holds - that --- re-du-cing --- tax rates …”

"So why does cutting rich people’s taxes benefit everyone, Whitey?"

Whitey burst into tears. "I don't know," he howls.)

That howl, Rove made it plain, discouraged the earliest investigators. The experiments were abandoned. No further attempt was made to teach wingnuts “facts” over the radio.

"Whereas, if they'd only started on moral education," said Rove, leading the way towards the door. The College Republicans followed him, desperately scribbling as they walked and all the way up in the lift. "Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational."

"Silence, silence," whispered a loud speaker as they stepped out at the fourteenth floor of the Fox News Tower, and "Silence, silence," the trumpet mouths indefatigably repeated at intervals down every corridor. The students and even Rove himself rose automatically to the tips of their toes. They were Wingnut Think Tank Veal-kinder, of course, but even Wingnut Think Tank Veal-kinder have been well conditioned.

Fifty yards of tiptoeing brought them to a door which Rove cautiously opened. They stepped over the threshold into the twilight of a row of Hate Radio broadcast booths, air sharp with the ordure of manufactured bile, cigars and OxyContin sweating out of huge, greasy pores.

A GOP Handler rose as they entered and came to attention before Rove.

"What's the lesson this afternoon?" he asked.

"We had Elementary Christopathy for the first forty minutes," she answered. "But now it's switched over to Elementary Class Consciousness."

Rove walked slowly down the long row of booths, so like the efficient rooms of the whorehouses of his youth. A keening, shrieking voice seeped out under every door.

Rove halted and listened attentively.

"Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let's have it on the speaker."

At the end of the room an AMS Concert Portable PA System projected from the wall. Rove walked up to it and pressed a switch.

"… why they always want to compromise," said a loud, furious voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, "and Democrats are all Socialists. Oh no, I don't want to play with Democrats. And Dirty Fucking Hippies are still worse. They're smelly and awful and they hate America and want the Terrorists to win!. Besides they’re all gay, and they want to take your guns away and make you gay too!. I'm so glad I'm a working-class Conservative."

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

"Our Glorious Conservative Leaders work much harder than we do, because they're such fucking geniuses. I'm really awfully glad I'm a working-class Conservative, because fighting islamofascism and their Evil Liberals Dupes is such hard work. And then we are much better than the Centrists and Liberals. Centrists are stupid and don’t love Jebus. They don’t believe in anything, which is why they always want to compromise, and Democrats are all Socialists. Oh no, I don't want to play with Democrats. And Dirty Fucking Hippies are still worse. They're smelly and awful and they hate America and want…"

Rove pushed back the switch. The voice was silent. Only its shrill ghost continued to mutter from behind the nearly-soundproof glass.

"On Fox, Hate Radio, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the Mainstream Media, they'll have that repeated forty or fifty times more before the end of tomorrow; then again on Thursday, and again on the Sunday Mouse Circus. A hundred and twenty times three times a week for thirty months. After which they go on to a more advanced Talking Points."

Gayphobia and a nostalgia for bygone days of burning crosses do their early work, but cannot bring home the finer distinctions, cannot inculcate the more complex actions needed to get out the vote.

For that there must be words, but words without reason. In brief, Hate Radio.

"The greatest weapon against the evils of Democracy ever invented."

The students took it down in their little books. Straight from the horse's mouth.

Once more Rove touched the switch.

"… such fucking geniuses," the blustering, professionally-aggrieved voice was saying, "I'm really awfully glad I'm a working-class Conservative, because…"

Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob.

"Till at last the wingnut’s mind is these suggestions, and the sum of the suggestions is the wingnut’s mind. The mind that judges and desires. The mind that will hysterically impeach one man for trivia, and fanatically adore the next as he commits treason right in front of them. The mind that believes being impervious to reason and canine-loyalty to the Dear Leader are actually the highest virtues. That mind is made up of these suggestions. But all these suggestions are our suggestions!" Rove almost shouted in his triumph. "Suggestions from the Party of God." He banged the nearest table. "It therefore follows…"

A noise made him turn round.

"Oh, fuck!" he said in another tone, "I've gone and made Hugh Hewitt pee himself again."