As a Bleeding Heart Libertarian (Left-Libertarian, Liberal Libertarian) Canadian born on the West Coast, I have been inundated with predominantly conservative policies in a largely liberal country. I also have been a keen observer of my neighbour to the south and its politics as compared with those of my home country. As a result, it has become painfully clear to me of America that is not nearly as prevalent in Canada: You guys like your politics to be entertaining.
To be fair, I myself enjoy tuning in at Republican Primary time, waiting with baited breath for the first?hilariously ignorant comment that spews forth from the mouths of Koch Brothers shills. If there is a God in Heaven, he will bless me with the likes of Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry as GOP candidates. And that is what worries me about my southern neighbour.
You guys are addicted to Hollywood entertainment. Millions of people tune into these GOP primaries and actually consider voting for one of these people based on what they actually say. That worrying fusion of entertainment and politics is why Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are so popular and many have never heard of Thom Hartmann and why Republicans have a distinct electoral advantage over Democrats.
Certainly, fearmongering and money play a huge role in American politics, much more so than in my country, but what also plays perhaps an equal role is that people simply, actually, LIKE their members of congress and their president to be entertaining. The more hokey a candidate is, the better chance they have of doing well in an election. If your candidate says something foolish or ignorant, chances are the propaganda machine will steer you in the direction of loving that candidate even more because they are under attack from the “religious right” or the “communist progressives.”
Conservatives are simply better at this than liberals. Conservatives might offer you McDonalds, while Liberals a bowl of mesclun salad, but salad is boring and even though you are or should be fully aware that a Big Mac will slowly kill you, you simply can’t resist Ronald McDonald and his fake food full of flavour enhancements and sawdust.
People simply want entertainment, even if that entertainment is based on a massive lie. In many cases, the bigger the lie, the easier it is to accept. Justice is blind, the police are on your side, the Founders were geniuses and everything they said is applicable today, your standard of living will NEVER decline, socialism ALWAYS leads to communism and far more dangerous than fascism or corporatism, and America is the greatest country in the world.
Fox News is still wildly popular, while other biased news outlets that tend to lean left struggle to get people to pay attention.
Liberalism is boring. Roadkill is interesting. That’s the good stuff. Why help the homeless man rotting away with his shopping cart in the downtown core when you can, well, watch them rot away – so we feel better about ourselves. Liberals offer largely practical and well thought out albeit complicated solutions that most Americans don’t have the time or energy after watching 10 hours of THE BIG BANG THEORY to even bother exploring.
On so many issues, Republicans and many Democrats admittedly are taking America over a damn cliff, and if that happens, they have their God to fall back on – you know, the God they never bothered to learn much about except for platitudes and meaningless, feel good Bible verses. The true message of their Christ is lost on these people, and the idea that if you help “the least of these” you are serving God is completely lost on them. Remember, the Bible is a book, and books take a huge backseat to television and live action in terms of entertainment. We’ve become zombies, all of us.
That’s how Republicans are so easy to forgive when they betray the public trust and sell out to the Military Industrial Complex and the big banks – it made you a borderline diabetic, but you just can’t resist that big red burger.
The Cult of Entertainment is a drug. And we’re all hunting perpetually for our next fix. Republicans offer jokes, platitudes about how much they “love” America, and feel-good stories of “the good old days.” We feel warm and fuzzy at the ballot box, and our vote reflects that. How do you think celebrities score so high in electoral polls? Remember Ronald Reagan? Walter Mondale was simply too old-looking and boring, and by contrast, Reagan had charisma and managed to make people believe he was different from other people in Hollywood.
Liberals are just…boring. Solutions are boring. Republicans blow shit up. That’s exciting. Real liberals and libertarians are largely against everything that party stands for (assuming they stand for anything). If liberals want to win, they have to surrender their principles, become more like “good ol’ boys,” and look to Hollywood for inspiration while condemning it as a bastion of unamericanism. I don’t see that happening.
There are too many smart lefties and left-leaning libertarians who have their heads connected to their shoulders. Still, time will tell. It’s all up to you. You can save my country and the rest of the world and yourselves, or you can repeat all the same mistakes of the British Empire.
More importantly, could you please keep me awake for more than?30 seconds? I need a nap now. Liberals are boring and it’s already putting me to sleep.
