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Via 3Quarks Daily, I read this opinion piece in Salon by Glenn Greenwald wherein he tries to offer some deeper analysis into why the Republicans pay even the slightest attention to Ann Coulter and the other poo-flinging monkeys of the right.
His thesis: conservatives are a bunch of pussies. Okay, he didn't actually call them "pussies" the way dear old Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot", but that's pretty much what he's saying. Here's one of the better pullquotes:
That laughable absurdity really reveals the heart of this movement. It is a cult of contrived masculinity whereby people dress up as male archtypes like cowboys, ranchers, and tough guys even though they are nothing of the kind -- or prance around as Churchillian warriors because they write from a safe and protected distance about how great war is -- and in the process become triumphant heroes and masculine powerful icons and strong leaders. They and their followers triumph over the weak, effete, humiliated Enemy, and thereby become powerful and exceptional and safe.
It all falls together, if you ask me. You've got a general populace which has been brainwashed into a near-constant state of fear at the slightest threat: LED signs mistaken for bombs, anybody even remotely swarthy getting on a plane causing panic, people taking pictures of public buildings being arrested as terror suspects, the whole lot. Then you've got the constant media message of machismo driving people into a false sense of appropriate role models and behaviors. Next you've got the perversion of the predominant religion, which consistently reinforces selfishness, self-righteousness, zealotry and bigotry. And stir that all up with a dose of near-constant stupidity on the part of public officials and media mouthpieces.
Another quote from Greenwald:
People who feel weak and vulnerable crave strong leaders to protect them and to enable them to feel powerful. And those same people crave being part of a political movement that gives them those sensations of power, strength, triumph and bravery -- and they need a strong, powerful, masculine Leader to enable those feelings. And they will devote absolute loyalty to any political movement which can provide them with that.
And, there, my friends, you have the "conservative movement" in a nutshell. Emphasis on the "nut".
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