The New Political Dicks
The Pepper’s recent post about the guy surreptitiously reading Ann Coulter on the train prompts the reclusive Dr. Pepper to emerge from hiding and puzzle over a new phenomenon: the socially visible conservative who does much more than carry the conservative canon around. This is the cultural rebel who, as the Pepper reported in its January 12 report on Metrospy, cultivates conservative antagonism for its own sake, proclaiming defiance and death to all the powers that oppress them: the, er, liberal (corporate) media, activist (Republican) judges, and the obstructing (enfeebled) Democratic representatives.
Rather than wrapping themselves in the banner of Americanism and the ideology of the universal appeal of our country, the new socially visible conservatives prefer the notion of an irremediable conflict. Their lack of interest in winning you over has everything to do with their lack of interest in the idea of the U.S. as a level playing field. They flaunt their rebellion against rebels, advertise their feelings of martyrdom, and reject any attempt to reason others into their view of the world. It’s a cynical, post-ideological conservativism. They don’t even pretend to speak for the common American. The popular new T-shirt "Hung Like a Republican" expresses this view of the world quite well: the slogan equates their newfound political dominance with the size of something we are not actually invited to look at. If they were just to come out and say that political power should belong to the guys with the biggest dicks, they wouldn’t need a T-shirt. It would at least be authentically male-centered, like the crowd at a gay bar. Indeed, to the extent that the T-shirt’s swagger is directed at other men, it is ultimately homophobic, fearing what it also flirts with.
There's an insidious way that the biggest political dicks are suddenly becoming visible in the Bay Area. There always have been waves of radicals in the East Bay, but never before of the flagwaving variety. We had hippies, then communists, then punks, then hippies again. All of these groups made at least some pretence to inclusiveness. Now some of these radicals are committed to self-interest along. They’re not unlike the singing Senator who Tim Robbins portrayed in "Bob Roberts," with his hit single is "The Times are a'changing--back."
To illustrate: Dr. Pepper was opening the door of his car in North Oakland on Telegraph Avenue, on the Berkeley border, when a doofy-haired surfer guy steps up and points to the John Kerry bumper sticker that Dr. Pepper hasn't had the heart to peel off. "John Kerry, huh?" the guy says. "Why not Karl Marx?"
Oh great, I thought, fine. Another sidewalk communist muttering to himself about how pulling the lever for the Democrat will amount to chump change in the final struggle. Probably ready to sermonize about how I need a red bumper sticker with a hammer and sickle.
"You know, Teresa Heinz Kerry was in Angola at a time when you had to be in bed with the Communists to get out of there alive."
Oh, boy. It's a radical Republican--and not one of the kind from the 1870s!
He continued: "Hey, more power to you, man, since you're going with Marx. Communism is not a bad way of life, bro. The only problem with it is that you're going to have to kill the one-third of the population that don't agree with you."
Getting into my car, I muttered a craven observation about how Teresa Kerry's political views weren't relevant. "Perhaps she was much more to the left than her husband."
"No, man," he replied. "John is just as foul."
The Bay Area is likely to become the home of such wingnuts in the future. Having no religious fundamentalist base, right-wing conservativism in the Bay Area may tribalize into the new political factions that we already have in many other parts of the country: people who do what they do not out of some deep faith, but for the sake of conflict itself. They articulate the kind of historical paranoia, and preach the kind of anger, previously seen only among the extreme Left.