and to gain broad respectability. They were embarrassing to themselves and everyone else around them, and they sure were NOT admired or taken seriously in any way! They were laughed at - for the ridiculous creatures they were.
I remember when I worked at a big FM rocker here in L.A. years ago, and across the hall was a then-big AM talk station. They had a VERY erudite and brilliant 9a-1p host who was a liberal and had a rolodex that must have been the size of the building (for the sheer mass of the significant or famous people he knew and the VIPs for whom he had private numbers). There was a lot of sports in the afternoon, and a harmlessly amusing news-talk morning team, AND this ridiculous crackpot on the overnights. The resident conservative. A true nutcase that everybody rolled their eyeballs and laughed at, and snickered at and scoffed at, and no one took seriously. He was the crazy uncle in the attic of that station and his opinions were pretty much up his ass.
He reminded me of the "Frank Burns" of that station. Anyone remember the prime time series "M*A*S*H"? There was this one character who was a knuckle-dragger John-Bircher Commie-chasing, joe mccarthy-worshipping hypocrite extremist who was the comic foil and butt of jokes for Hawkeye, Trapper, and even the CO - all of them more open-minded, tolerant, liberal, and reasonable. They were the protagonists and poor hapless ridiculous Frank Burns was the antagonist and the fool. He was a figure of ridicule. And no one took him seriously either.
These figures were ALL regarded that way. They, and their opinions were simply the stuff of embarrassment. You were embarrassed by these people and Good GRIEF they were the LAST people on earth you regarded with an respect or admiration. You certainly never took them seriously. They were an embarrassment that you tried to downplay if they were part of your family. They used to be like that proverbial crazy uncle people hid away in the attic when company came over because you didn't dare let him out among nice normal people. These were all once regarded as subjects of ridicule because of what they said, what they stood for, how they came across. WIDELY understood as exactly what they were: crackpots, nutcases, out-of-step, ridiculous, not worth taking seriously for one instant.
NOW, however, they've all been allowed to come out of the closet and they've gotten respectability. They're no longer regarded in the media as little more than some berzerko at whom you just rolled your eyeballs and shook your head. They're no longer just the comic foils you laugh at and dismiss. Now, we bow and scrape to them and make room for them on the air and take them completely seriously as though they deserved a seat at the grown-ups table, instead of at the kiddie table, or in the monkey house with the baboons who threw their own shit at each other. The whole social and cultural scene has changed with regard to where these semi-deranged idiots are taken seriously and are able to exert tremendous influence and do tremendous damage.
I put a lot of the blame on ronald reagan. HE made it respectable to have a Neanderthal worldview - AND soon enough, unfortunately, to force it down the rest of our throats. They all rode into respectability and into the Establishment on his coattails. He made it okay, in many cases EXTREMELY okay (pardon the pun) and even "all-American" and "patriotic" to think that way, talk that way, and hold those views, and insist that those views should be the primary ones that carry the day and dominate. Around that time, too, I remember "Family Ties," where Michael J. Fox's Alex Keaton character was the odd-man-out, the conservative reagan-lover fish-out-of-water character in a family of liberals with ex-hippie parents. But Michael J. Fox had such an appeal and played his character so well that he, too, helped rehabilitate the nutcase reactionary, bring that whole social construct in out of the cold, and give it respectability - if nothing else, a "legitimate" place at the table. And because of reagan, the whole religious nutcase crowd was able to wriggle out from their hiding places under the rocks and in the shadows, and stand in the sunlight with their friendly charismatic president and ALSO share in his mantle of credibility and respectability.
And I suspect that with the rise of hate radio that began to flower in the reagan era, these views about which those of us in an earlier generation felt suspicious and distrustful, and viewed as objects of derision and CERTAINLY never to be taken seriously, allowed people with those views to come out from the shadows and stand in the sunlight and claim "their" territory. No longer objects of ridicule, no longer spouting idiocy that nice people were embarrassed to hear, because now they had famous radio and TV people and even a whole White House crowd from the top down, making it okay to think the way they did, and embrace the kinds of worldviews they did. Suddenly they had a voice, too. Suddenly they had cover. Suddenly they had respectability and nobody was laughing at them anymore or subjecting them to mass ridicule. And they boasted some of the biggest voices in the game. Soon enough, it was MOST of the biggest voices in the game.
And the teabaggers are their heirs, their beneficiaries, and their sons and daughters. They grew up in an atmosphere in which it WASN'T shameful any longer to think the way they think and say the things they say. They were no longer regarded as the clowns and idiots and fools and unhinged nutcases and Neanderthals and Bronze-Age "thinkers" that they actually are. They could be proud of their shit - that they were now able to fling a lot farther around the public square. Hell, they grew up worshiping a president who was the biggest flinger of monkey shit on the American cultural landscape.
DAMN that was a horrible time. Horrifying. To watch the slow-motion lobotomy of America begin, develop, gain ground, and eventually dominate.
HORRIBLE. What on earth got into us????
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