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Know your wingnuts Tj Templeton
Bush and Congress currently share dismal approval ratings. Most folks have come to their senses and fewer and fewer are willing to cheerlead for the GOP as they had in the past. Still, some truly die-hard Bushonauts continue to prattle on in favor of the current course of events rather than admit they had been mislead. As more sensible republicans and conservatives have dropped ranks, these stalwart foot soldiers of the neoconservative movement been revealed to us on online forums and discussion groups all over the internet. These are the folks who could watch George W Bush eat a live baby while crapping on the Constitution and simultaneously setting fire to Lady Liberty's dress and still they would chant in unison how this was necessary for national security and saying otherwise is treason. We at the Project for the Old American Century thought it would be interesting to observe them in their own habitat, Marlon Perkins style, and see if we couldn't observe some kind of pattern of social behaviors. Our researchers spent fourteen whole minutes observing Bushbot wingnuts on popular online forums. The following is an account of the social groupings that we discovered.
The Martyr Persecuted republicans who, even though 80% of the country celebrates Christmas, claim that Christmas was under siege and the Republicans can reverse that. These are the folks who express outrage at the "liberal media" any time something negative about the administration is covered in the press, even though AM radio has become almost totally a right wing propaganda tool and the likes of Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Dr. Laura, Ann Coulter, the entire Fox news Network (minus one, if you count faux liberal Alan Colmes), and scores of other "conservative" commentators comfortably dominate political discourse in all broadcast media. The solution to this problem for the persecuted voiceless martyr is, of course, support for the republican party, not media reform. Ironically, media reform is a liberal issue.
The Über Patriot The Über Patriot claims that anti-war protestors and human rights activists are stabbing the troops in the back, hurting morale, and empowering our amorphous enemies in the War on Terrorism™. This person has absolutely no problem with the fact that the people who lied us into the invasion of Iraq are directly connected to the companies that are making the most money from this bloody venture. War profiteering is not treason to these people, but objecting to it is. These are the same folks who sport "support your troops" magnets and shirts but never raise a peep about the tens of thousands of vets permanently disabled by Gulf War Syndrome.
The Bushbot No matter the infraction, from "Brownie doin' a heck of a job" to bypassing the FISA court to illegally spy on U.S.citizens, the Bush administration can do no wrong in the eyes of the Bushbot. This person will always seek to deflect criticism from the republicans and will use a myriad of tactics: Strawman argument: You didn't support the invasion of Iraq, so you support Saddam! Hyperbole: You protested the Iraq invasion! You would have protested the D-Day invasion! Blame game: Everything good that happens is a result of republican policies. All else is Clinton's fault. Marginalize: Anyone who criticizes the Bush administration is automatically a liberal. And liberals are meant to be seen and ridiculed, not heard.
The "Reformed" Liberal These folks like to pretend that they were once liberals who came to see the light and switched sides. They usually can't define what a "liberal" is and when asked what progressive ideas they supported they can usually only mention abortion, redistribution of wealth, or some other tag that has been placed on progressive issues by wingnuts. Often times this is the guy who will express dissatisfaction with the democratic party because they have been "hijacked by the extreme left" even though the extreme and not-so-extreme left was purged from both parties in the fifties. On rare occasions, you'll hear these people also complain how the "left" is so full of hate. Ann Coulter, Mike Savage, Bill O'Reilly, Michelle Malkin, and Glenn Beck are apparently leftists to these people.
The Useful Idiot This is probably the saddest of the wingnut observations. Often times these people are good-hearted patriotic American conservatives who are simply misinformed. Having only been exposed to right wing talk radio and Fox News, these folks support the GOP because they want a government that is smaller and less intrusive, more fiscally responsible, stronger on national security, tougher on crime, and respects family values. This person hates Bill Clinton even though Clinton balanced the budget, oversaw a record surplus, shrank the size of the federal government (for the first time since the Carter administration), and fulfilled his promise of putting 100,000 more cops on the street.
The Über Capitalist One of the few real PNAC/neocon supporters. They might actually describe themselves as a neoconservative. Worshipping at the alter of Leo Strauss, this individual still parrots the line spoken by Grover Norquist about cutting taxes and shrinking government until we can "drown it in the bath tub" even after the humanitarian disaster of Hurricane Katrina. The Über Capitalist feels that government is better run by business and that subjugating foreign peoples under our military might for corporate profit is simply survival of the fittest and how god planned things. Compassion and charity are not this person's strong point.
The biggest mystery of all probably regards what these individuals truly think. Or if they think. No one knows for sure if they actually believe what they say or if they are just following instruction and parroting talking points to support their "team" . Every society has a segment that longs to obey and craves a leader who will promise them all things good. They will believe that leader because they need a leader to believe. The leader has no need to inspire a following as he simply fulfills a service that these people require: a leader to follow and someone to blame our troubles on. The deeper question of it all is, do these wingnuts actually believe what they say? Are they brainwashed? Or are they just stupid? That has yet to be determined. Certainly there are shades of all three characteristics in the common wingnut. That may be a subject for another study.
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