Own the Libs

"Ridicule. The libs hate it. It drives them crazy. Rush Limbaugh was a genius and Americans loved it."

      Mike Huckabee, on Fox, this morning.

People like to prick the bubble of the self-righteous. The left should know this. 

Jim and Tammy Bakker. Tight with Jesus.

Democrats felt the sting of scorn and moral disapproval back in the late 1970s when Evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell led a socially conservative movement in opposition to social changes of the 1960's and 1970's. The culture was getting more cosmopolitan, more urbane, more conscious of prejudice. The Moral Majority at that time identified trends they opposed and linked their opposition to the Republican Party. Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim and Tammy Bakker were riding high. They said they were tight with Jesus Christ.  

I remember the feeling of satisfaction on learning that Swaggart, who excoriated Bill Clinton for his immorality, was arrested for picking up a prostitute, who then spoke to the media about how nasty Swaggart was. How delicious the feeling to read that Jim Bakker was found guilty of fraud and was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Then, while he was serving time, his unctuous wife, Tammy Faye, divorced him and married the contractor for his house.  

The delight continues to the present. Sanctimonious Jerry Falwell, Junior,  President of the university founded by his father, becomes an embarrassment. He is revealed to enjoy play involving a young pool boy who participates in group sex involving Falwell and Falwell's wife.  

Enjoyment in the misfortune of the self-righteous is an unlovely emotion, but it comes quickly and unbidden. We feel the contempt and moral scorn of others, so we look for hypocrisy and payback. 

Rush Limbaugh, who died last week, gave direction to a political party by calling out the left for its efforts to advance its own values as the better, truer, more enlightened morality of social justice. Limbaugh said they were hypocrites and tyrants.  He did not simply disagree with leftist social justice values. He held leftists themselves in contempt. 

Limbaugh explained it frankly. It isn't that people are conservative. Most people don't think or care about policy, Limbaugh said. Republicans resent Democrats.

“I think the best way to explain it is that there are a lot of people in this country who are conservative. . .. But that’s not the glue that unites them all. If it were, if conservatism — this is the big shock — if conservatism were the glue. . .  then Trump would have no chance. . .. Because, whatever he is he’s not and never has been known as a doctrinaire conservative. But neither is John McCain. Neither is 90 percent of the Republican Party. . .. The thing that’s in front of everybody’s face and it’s apparently so hard to believe, it’s this united, virulent opposition to the left and the Democrat Party and Barack Obama. And I, for the life of me, don’t know what’s so hard to understand about that.” 

The left is winning the culture war. What was acceptable--normal--fifty years ago looks laughable and cruel now. Women have much greater access to workplace equality, homosexuality is more accepted, people of color more integrated, the disabled better accommodated. We have moved toward a more diverse, inclusive world.

Visible spokespeople on the left advance #MeToo and Critical Race Theory. A left vanguard calls out hidden, systemic racism; micro-aggressions against the disadvantaged; sexual assaults; immoral behaviors that need to be rooted out, and their perpetrators shamed. Leftist supporters consider it progress toward social justice and a better, fairer world. People uncomfortable with it call it "cancel culture" and a form of tyranny.

Inevitably, a revolution that succeeds in changing thought and behavior creates a counter-revolution. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are voices of that backlash. The Republican Party under Trump is its political expression. 

Provocateur

That is why whatabout-ism worked so well to draw and keep an audience for Limbaugh, and why the primary content of Fox News is some form of outrage over Democrats. Democrats think we are racist, they say. Democrats think we are stupid. Democrats have contempt for us. So prick their bubble of high-and-mighty pride! 

Hillary Clinton used the word "deplorable." It revealed a manner of thinking, of judgement, of moral certainty: Racism is wrong; misogyny is wrong; homophobia is wrong. 

Limbaugh said those smug moralists on the left, calling us "racist," were hypocrites. The rich ones live in gated communities. They preach it but don't live it. They send their kids to private schools. Democrats don't carry guns because they hire other people to do it for them. Limbaugh mocked "Obama, the Magic Negro," for adjusting his accent and speech pattern to sound more or less Black, depending on circumstance. What a hypocrite, Limbaugh said. 

Democrats, HA!

There is little consensus among Republicans on what they are for. Business-oriented Republicans oppose unions, the populist Republicans want what unions offer. Chamber of Commerce Republicans are OK with immigrants; populist Republicans think there are too many of them. The Reagan-Romney-Ryan Republicans want low taxes on the rich; populist Republicans think the elitist rich are screwing the average American. Establishment Republicans were appalled by Trump's effort to undermine elections; populist Republicans agree with Trump that the election was stolen and that stealing it back was only fair. 

Rush Limbaugh understood his audience and the new GOP. Republican glue is opposition to Democrats. The go-to device is teasing and ridicule. It drives Democrats crazy when Republicans claim that Obama is Kenyan? Great. It drives Democrats crazy that some Americans won't accept Biden won the election? Great. Drive them crazy. That's the point.

Note: Tomorrow, it is turn-about. Ridicule is bi-partisan. Ted Cruz was an unlikable scold. Politics is brutal to unlikable scolds.