THE 33%

by Malik Isasis






















The Ghost of former President Richard Nixon has lived comfortably within Karl Rove’s political hackery over the past six years. Former Deputy Chief of Staff and right wing savant, Rove otherwise known as Turd Blossom—how fitting, was the brain behind George Bush, and during Bush’s tenure Rove was able to take Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy to the next level.

The Southern Strategy was designed by Nixon and the Republicans to comfort the bigotry, sexism and prejudices of Southern white men who felt disenfranchised by the Democratic Party’s tacit support of minorities’ and women’s challenge to the white male paradigm. The Democratic Party’s embrace of civil rights and civil liberties in the 60s during the empowerment movements caused a mass exodus of disenfranchised Southern white men.

The Nixon Doctrine was not adopted to address the misperceptions or heal the grievances of these so-called disenfranchised but to build a voting block of white men by pitting their interests against those of people of color and women. Although all of the disenfranchised shared more in common than not, the Southern Strategy was a euphemism for divide and conquer. This tried and true strategy works because it fractures communities by individualizing them, if people are fighting rather than discussing their shared grief, a collective revolution is less likely. Politicians and dictators the world over understand this concept.

Steady at 33%

Bush’s support in the polls will always hover between 30%- 33% no matter what he does because the foundation was laid down by Nixon, and turned into fundamentalist right-wing ideology by the Turd Blossom. During the Republican Party’s rise to absolute power, Turd Blossom used so-called “wedge issues” to introduce prejudiced, paranoia into the 2002, 2004 and 2006 election cycles. These “wedge-issues” were gay marriage, sexist propaganda such as the feminization of America, abortion and fear mongering such as the invasion of the US territory by Mexicans. The “wedge issues” were used to keep the American public asleep while the federal government was being used as a money laundering service for Bush and his corporate raiders.

The neocons’ propaganda machine has created a simple narrative, not simple in the pejorative sense, but simple in a brilliant way. The neocons’ fictional narrative folds neatly into America’s white supremacy values. It is in this brilliant strategy that the Republicans are able to get people to vote against their own interests.

The neocon narrative tells Southerners that their moral and religious values are superior, beyond reproach—they are the moral compass of America, the corporate media coddles this folklore by persistently referring to this voting block as “Values Voters” (see here) If they are Value Voters what does that make the rest of us?

The Disconnect

There is an interesting dichotomy with the 33% in which the corporate media glosses over, take for example, the abortion and the culture of life propaganda; some voters vote Republican on abortion alone (The Turd Blossom understood this), it is their only issue. However, these same voters are supporting the Occupation in Iraq, which has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

The Republican presidential candidates are twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to out do one another to see who can become more primitive. The regression of John McCaine, Rudy Guiliani, and other once social progressive Republicans are the canaries in the mine--the representation of just how despotic and puerile the political system has become. Their catering to the religiosity of the 33% right wing ideology is shameful, and they’re shameless.

The corporate media’s responsibility in all of this is that they have bought into using the “Values Voters” as a gold standard to marginalize the Democratic Party, and liberals. The neocons have been successful at getting the corporate media to portray conservatism as the only value on the political spectrum. Conservatism is the new center.

The corporate media’s worship of this false idol has legitimized bigotry, xenophobia and sexism and has made it easier for the Southern voting block to operate proudly in their ignorance, completely unaware of the moral conflicts and consequences that their voting patterns have on domestic and foreign policy.

PIMP THIS |