I want someone to go on television and say, “Well, the Republicans are fascists.” I want one of these pundits to discuss how the GOP is synonymous with the German Nazi Party. It’s a discussion that needs to be had. I just wanted to get that out there, in the blogosphere. In my opinion if you put a Republican Party activist and a Nazi with no german accent into a dark room and then asked them both to tell me what they believed, I don’t know that I would be able to tell which was which. The Republican Party is the Nazi Party of the United States, in my humble opinion. Period.

I’ve had the opportunity to tune in to a couple of the keynote speeches of the GOP convention now just ending. I watched Fred Thompson, Guilliani, Sarah Palin, and of course Mr McCain, the Republican Party’s nominee for President. I’ll dispense early with the speech I preferred of those four. John McCain’s speech was even. I noted a few jabs at his opponents, and the standard Republican fare we have all become accustomed to: More jobs, lower taxes, better schools, more money to religious institutions, against reproductive choice, middle class, Country first, military blah blah blah (notice he didn’t talk about immigration. That issue sort of lost salience when Tom Tancredo exited from the race). Not much new there. McCain’s speech, probably because he isn’t really that good a speaker (especially when compared to Obama), but more likely because I will bet he used his own speech (unlike Palin) was a decent speech, a nice rousing speech that I can’t find much fault in except it is for the Party of white millionaires.

Worse than McCain (and this is a substantial distinction I am making here) were Thompson and Guilliani. I don’t have much to say about these speeches either. They were nationalistic to a fault. I didn’t hear much of the jingoist rhetoric that I am used to hearing from these nationalists, but there was a lot of appeals to some patriotic sense, and a hidden implication that the only people capable of keeping us safe from boogymen (implicitly from the middle east, but also from Mexico and other places where non-white people live) are John McCain and Sarah Palin. This is clearly not the case. The people keeping us “safe” are the police and the military. Quite frankly, as a Vet, I am rather offended that these people were using the military, and militaristic imagery to help them rally the support for thier imperialist projects. These are the kinds of people who are more than happy to vote to approve military action, because they themselves don’t have to fight the war. It’s real easy for them to stand up in a convention in Minneapolis Minnesota and claim that “we” are winning. They aren’t winning shit. They aren’t even fighting. No people from my generation and my class are fighting and dying in their war. Just because several in the military weren’t smart enough or lacked the appropriate resources that they posses to go run for office and thereby avoid military service all together doesn’t mean that the war is just, or the deaths of the people these politicians are happy to send off to war so that they can stand on a stage and thump their chests at how great our country is are just. In this regard, I qualifyingly agree with McCain. These people want something done, let THEM go enlist and fight the war they want so bad against people they view as evil monsters. Let Fred Thompson go shoot at Iraqi insurgents, let Guilliani quit his law practice and go over there to get the “terrorists”. Clear all those assholes out of the work force and open jobs up for people who are over there but don’t want to be to come home and make the salaries of the Republican politicians who shipped out to replace them.

By far the qualitatively worst speech of the three days was Palin’s. This is a person who is 12 years older than me, a real Gen X-er. Plus one for her. She might not have liked Nirvana, but she sure knew who they were. Like many of my generation, she lived before personal computers cost less than 1500 dollars , and camcorders cost less than a grand (a distinction which seperates my generation from my wife’s and brother’s generation, whatever that is called), and yet is still completely competent using both (a distinction which seperated Gen-Xers from the Baby Boom). She was probably just as amazed as I was when the Mac II came out and you could actually change the background color. She and I should identify on a million levels.

So you can imagine how mortified I was when I discovered that she was not a real gen xer but some freakishly conservative sycophant of a member of the generation of our grandparents!

Let’s leave that line off. I want to get to the aesthetic of her speech. It’s not so much what she said. Having sat through Thompson and Guillani, I was prepared for the content of that speech. I knew she didn’t write it herself. It was canned, it was on the talking points and it was vitriolic. It was precisely what I would expect from a Rove Republican. What upset me so much was the way it was delivered. It was like looking into the soul of hatred. If I would have read those same words, I don’t think I could have done it like that, like she did. She delivered the speech designed to do one thing: win votes by inspiring hatred of your opponent.

Her tone was smug and sarcastic, her facial expressions were perfectly coordinated to the message. Several times she delivered some one-liner which got the crowd howling, and the look on her face said to me, “You know it’s true. They really ARE that wicked.” As if she really REALLY believed the things she said about the Democrats and their candidate. Like, they (meaning Obama and Democrats) are really REALLY interested in harming us, but not only me, but (thanks to the montage on MSNBC) your family and my family. They will rob you in the night, they will pickpocket you in the street, they will turn the country over to the Iranians. You KNOW it’s the truth. She let us in on the fact that she really DOES believe that stuff.

As an illustrative anecdote, my brother used to tell me about one of his passions, which is professional wrestling. At some point in the 80’s or 90’s, there was no longer any way to deny that the matches were faked, and the outcome was really scripted (this was around the time that the WWF/E started referring to their presentations as not wrestling, but as sports entertainment, and the difference, while subtle, is still important). But there still remained something like a code of honor, called the Kayfabe, and if you were a real fan, you totally bought into it. It was a wink and a nod between fans and the industry, and it led to a massive increase in popularity of pro wrestling and mainstream acceptance of grown men with long hair in tights throwing each other around in a wrestling ring three or four different times a week. It was as if the WWE said to fans “Look, you know its all staged. We know it, and we know you know. But let’s pretend its real, and we’ll all have a good time.” Yeah, people got down with that and ticket sales expectedly soared.

But you know, every once in a while, wrestlers (rather, sports entertainers) broke that code, and that breaking was never sanctioned or preferred. If done at the wrong time, it led to the elimination of the wrestler from the job. But if wrestlers did it at just the right time, and for the exact right reasons, it led to something really special for the fans. There was an episode that Derek told me about and I’ll probably screw it all up, but here it is as I remember it: These two guys had a long standing and very bitter rivalry, and one of them was required to throw a match. Everyone knew this was how it would end, the “loser” would get screwed. But you see, secretly they were really friends, and when the match was over with the predictable outcome, and these two were supposed to be hating each other (for the sake of the rivalry) they instead hugged and both stood on the ring and both took applause. See, the fans knew how it was supposed to end, but the two guys couldn’t go on pretending to hate each other, so they broke the Kayfabe for this one time only. And the fans were on their feet, and the match was an instant classic. (Ask Derek which matches violated the Kayfabe. He’ll be happy to talk to you about them.)

Professional Politicians also have a Kayfabe. They have to put on a show like they really hate one another, and that Dems and Republicans are really against one another. It’s the preferred method to keep the average non-polisci public interested in the boring topic which is policy debate. Thompson and Guilliani put on a good show, they kept their Kayfabe really well. McCain is not very convincing at that, because I really don’t think he does a very good job at pandering to the hard right; he’s the guy we gotta wink at. But you know, for Palin, I got the sense last night, that she just hasn’t been informed about the Kayfabe yet. She did precisely the opposite of what those two wrestlers did: She gave the speech without the wink.

She presented that speech like she REALLY believes it, like she sincerely hates. And you could just see those bloodthirsty Party advocates feeding off that hatred, that black cloud that came over the auditorium. She was sarcastic, but she was also smug, like she was completely justified in tarring her opponents, and that’s what the thousand or so Party activists that filled the auditorium wanted out of this person about which they knew almost nothing, but thanks to quickly composed talking points they were able to lavish glowing praise upon nonetheless. (If you listen to the talking heads supplied by the Republican Party, Sarah Palin is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you know, they only say one thing: She has executive experience, and Obama doesn’t. Apparently she was the most successful governor ever, she is the most principled candidate and so on and so forth, like they really want to believe it so they are overcompensating for their uncertainty.) But Palin herself got up on the stage and presented herself as a kard-karrying kultural warrior (yep, I did that), and that is wicked. Whether or not she believes that stuff is a totally different question. If she doesn’t, then she is a liar, and if she does then she is dangerous. She’s like the person who goes to a staged event and hasn’t yet been told that it’s all a show. You really gotta watch those types of people.

Speaking of “those people” where were all the non-white people in the audience? It would be easy for me to say, “Well, it’s the Republican Party, so of all imaginable Party activists, one in ten black ones should be there.” But Cubans from south Florida love the Republicans, and to some degree Latinos from other parts of the country, who speak with Texas or Jersey accents love Republicans too. And I think all night tonight I saw one person that even closely reminded me of a Latino. But I will tell you what I DID see: A LOT of fat red faced white people with bleached blond big hair and red cowboy hats which wouldn’t be too small for their heads if their heads didn’t have so much fat on them. And there were a lot of suits, on both men and women.

I digress. My impression of this convention is that these people will vote their hatreds. Listen. I am sure there are a lot of really principled men and women with a rightist perspective. I know they are out there, and I probably have had conversations with some of them. But you will never see William F. Buckley (if he were still alive) chanting “USA USA USA” to silence some protester trying to interrupt the GOP convention. Principled people have more decency than this. Buckley would eviscerate these people in the Press, I am sure, but he would do so probably because disruption like this is a violation of the rights of assembly, not because that person was saying something that Buckley didn’t appreciate or want to hear. I am sure Buchanan is the same way. I like Pat “the racist” Buchanan because he is at least honest, and he is not simply a cheerleader with a set of talking points. But these people weren’t at the GOP convention. They had enough sense, I think, to stay away from these bloodthirsty sociopaths that populated the convention hall in Minneapolis.

Country First. Peace through Strength (and Leadership, and other abstract nouns which connote military prowess of a nation with a perpetual inferiority complex). These are slogans of closeminded, unreasonable, hate-filled partisans. These people have no intention of admitting that there is even a possibility that they are not correct. These are the people who served at the GOP convention, and Sarah Palin is their candidate. Let them have her, and while I still don’t identify with the Democrat Party (I am voting for the man, not his Party), I really REALLY hope that Joe Biden takes the paint off her and knocks her down a few pegs. If he has to hit below the belt, let him do that. I mean, you could do it honorably; I am sure some sort of damning evidence about this person exists somewhere that will demolish her career. But to me this is not enough. She needs to have her attitude adjusted for her, she needs that smug chip knocked off her shoulder, and whatever it takes short of violence, I support that tactic. She needs to not only be defeated in this election, she needs to be retired.

You did it Republicans. You gave me the most convincing reason I have to vote for Obama in the fall. I want to do what I can to keep that white-privileged, oil soaked, anti-choice smug twerp from getting anywhere near Washington DC. She may be the governor of a State, but I firmly believe that Alaska made a mistake when it voted for that arrogant little punk, and hopefully, there will be enough dirt come out about her in this campaign that when she loses and returns to her job in Alaska, the government can impeach her not only for the improper handling of the career of a state trooper, but for a myriad of other crimes as well.

This is my reaction. I hope Biden takes that person to school in the debates and on the campaign trail. She is only part of my generation because of a coincidence of her birth (but certainly not as a result of her beliefs), so I am not being a traitor to my cohort when I say that. I have a visceral response, just like all those pro-life christian women that the corporate media was happy to splash on the screen from time to time, to Sarah Palin: She needs to be clocked. (I want to head off some criticism here: I am not advocating violence against women. It is a mere deficiency of our language which assigns Sarah Palin a female pronoun. I would have the politician clocked, regardless of what gender this person was ascribed by my society’s inadequate language. There is afterall, no gendered pronoun for a generally wicked person. So I have to call her “she”.)

And one last word. I want to say that I was absolutely right. You can check me on this: During the last Creepy Sleepy Show I did with Daniel and Quentin, before Obama made his Veep pick, I said McCain needs to pick a fundamentalist preacher with no experience in politics. His people must have heard me, because they got the closest they could to my prescription without causing a revolt at the convention.

Yeah, I’d rather it were Michael Palin, though I don’t think he would have accepted.

Tags: Convention, GOP, kayfabe, McCain, Michael Palin, Nazis, Palin, Polemic, Politics, wrestling, WWE