I did an experiment today, to see how long it would take to get banned from RedState.com, the right wing site that styles itself a home for "independent conservative thinkers," not at all like the thought-policed, drone-winger sites like the Free Republic, or the loony bin flypaper sites like Little Green Footballs, and which gets frequent link love from "legit" online journalists at places like Politico and the Washington Post. So here's what I did. I signed up, using the same ID I use here, JReid. Then, I posted a comment to a thread entitled "You are the one McCain is waiting for" whose point is, I guess, that ordinary Republicans will carry McCain over the top, not his vp pick. (I think the post is supposed to be tongue in cheek, but hell, with this crowd? Who knows...) First a clip from the original post:
Much virtual ink has been spilled Internet-wide on the problem of Senator McCain's running mate selection. Policy views, succession, age, experience, home states, and every other conceivable preference are touted by one person or another as essential to the pick.
I say they're all right, and they're all wrong. You should be John McCain's running mate in 2008. It's perfect! You are in a swing state, you shore up the Bush states, and you make Obama work in his 'safe' states. You are a political novice, and you are experienced. You're young. You're mature. You are a mainstream Republican, a reformer, and a maverick. You even look like America.
You were even Time's People of the Year. You can't go wrong. ... Okay, so now for my comment, which went up at 11:02 a.m. by their clock (which is odd, because I joined at 11:48 a.m. EST) Anyhoo, I wrote:
RedStaters discover God: and He is John McCain
JReid August 19th, 2008 at 11:02 a.m. (link)
What's with the sudden hero worship of McCain by RedStaters? Here I'm assuming it's tongue and cheek, but other threads? Not so much. Frankly, it's getting creepy, like the "Pray for George W. Bush" threads that used to dominate the Free Republic.
John McCain is a politician, and frankly, not a very good one. Certainly not an inspiring one. His entire campaign boils down to: "vote for me. The other guy's a traitor." Which means that no matter who wins in November, his campaign has ensured that half the country will hate the next president's guts ... again.
Besides, wasn't this the guy RS readers found unacceptable during the primaries? Now he's Godlike? Kind of hard to accuse Democrats of beatifying Obama when this site does the same to John McCain...
[Waiting to be banned for apostasy.] Literally 4 minutes later, came this post:
well, if you insist.
Moe Lane August 19th, 2008 at 11:06 a.m. (link)
Although if I wasn't on my way to Pearl right now I'd keep you around long enough to ask whether you guys really think that anybody actually believes you when you try to pass yourselves off as Republicans. So that's it. The amount of time it takes to be banned from RedState for criticizing John McCain is 4 minutes. And you can't be a Republican if you don't slavishly support John McCain.
I think that might even beat my previous record at Free Republic, where I was banned a grand total of THREE TIMES (using three different ID's) for criticizing George W. Bush, back before he became "unpopular..." The point: the right is consistent, in using strict thought policing to keep their flock in line. The FReepers aren't outliers, they're mainstream. Recall that RedState was one of those sites where so-called conservatives denounced John McCain all through the primaries (along with tax raiser Mike Huckabee,) as unacceptable as the Republican nominee. McCain, lo those many months ago, was guilty of the sin of collusion with Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold. He was soft on immigration. He was soft on the Bush tax cuts. He was soft on torture. Now, having reversed himself on all three, and returned to his pre-Bush, neoconservative zeal on Iraq, McCain is RedState's boy, and you'd better love him, if you want to post there. Sadly, American conservatism has been reduced to a series of cults of personality -- Reagan, then Bush II, now John McCain, where the drones (talk radio listeners, group blog members, and worse, Republican voters of all economic classes,) are inducted, indoctrinated, and deployed in the service of the people paying the bills: major corporations, oil companies, and lately, the private military. To push the agenda, the right uses wealthy individual talking heads like Rush, Hannity and the former Bush flaks who run RedState, and they whip their throng into shape, demanding total loyalty and obeisance, and weeding out doubters. Perhaps most unseemly of all, the right has also indoctrinated religious zealots -- America's Taliban, if you will -- to tie these beliefs to existing zealotry on issues like abortion. Combined, its a potent mix of religious zeal, hero worship, and strident determination to enrich others, at the expense of the faithful. I find it remarkable that it continues to work on so many people, and that the right has managed to convince those poor slobs that it's the other guy who's turning their candidate of choice into a Messiah. | Labels: blogs, John McCain, RedState, right wingers |
