Obama, Putin, and The Right’s Daddy Issues
March 10, 2014

 
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Conservatives have “Daddy” issues. I’m not making a joke, I’m pointing out a demonstrative fact.

For the past week, Republicans have been quick to express their admiration, if not outright praise, for “Vladamir Putin: Man of Action” for the way he (supposedly) bested President Obama (supposedly, once again) by invading the Crimean peninsula without any apparent concern for how President Obama might react… apparently because (according to Genius Grant Award Winner Sarah Palin) Putin is a manly-man who “wrestles bears” vs “Mom jeans” wearing, “equivocating” (read: “thinks before acting”) President Obama. Republicans praised Putin as a bare-chested man of action. However, I imagine that if Putin had to run every decision past a rabidly obstructionist Congress the way Obama must, he probably wouldn’t appear quite so “decisive”. As The Daily Show pointed out last week, these are the same people that went ballistic barely one month ago when President Obama dared to suggest that he might act on his own if Congress didn’t (re: raising the minimum wage). They called Obama “a dictator” and attacked him for (falsely) threatening to ignore Congress and enact legislation on his own (using his Executive Authority to raise the Minimum Wage for Government Contractors is WELL within his Constitutional Powers.) Just this past week on Fox (where else?), Rudy Giuliani praised Putin as “what you call a [real] leader” adding (quote) “Putin decides what he wants to do and acts in a half a day.” If there is one thing we all learned from last weeks fetishism of Putin by the Right, it’s that their “ideal leader” is a neo-Communist dictator with a rubber-stamp Congress… which by no coincidence perfectly describes President Bush invading Iraq in 2003. He wanted to invade, and a GOP controlled Congress gave him the power to do it. And if you dared criticize The President of the United States, you “hated America” and were urged to “move to France”. If Obama threatens to act if Congress does not, he’s “a dictator”, but if Putin “makes a decision and acts in half a day”, he’s “a leader”. And praising a foreign enemy of freedom while ridiculing your own president makes you a patriot.

Living in a Red state as I do with Conservative family members, my first thought is always: “How would they explain this inconsistency?” And the conclusion I came to was that they would say “National security is different.” Because “war” is for “manly men”. “Manly men” invade countries on false pretenses, love guns, use force as a first resort (be it invading another country like Iraq or killing a black kid carrying Skittles and an Iced Tea), hunts (tranquilized) tigers, and just generally acts like a bully (unless of course they happen to be black, then they’re “thugs”.) Oh, and incidentally, they’re misogynists too (even the women). From the spokes-models over at Fox “news” to “Sarah Palin”, do you think ANY of these women would be as prominent in the Republican Party if they looked like Madalyn Albright? Have you ever seen so many Right-Wing homophobes openly fawning over all things masculine (most conspicuously, a shirtless former KGB agent?) And probably uncoincidentally, they all seem to suffer from a serious inferiority/paranoid/delusional complex. “The Media” is out to “get them“, to “silence” them, is on the side of their critics and is actively working against them. So they flock to Fox “news” where they receive the ego-stroking praise they didn’t receive from Mom or Dad as a child. “You’re right! They ARE out to get you! Everything you believe is absolutely correct! How smart of you! No, you’re not a racist, you’re just misunderstood! And those awful lazy poor people want to take your hard-earned money!” (and killing a child before it is born is an abomination, but cutting off food stamps or school lunches to that child AFTER it is born which could lead to malnutrition and even death is just “God’s Will.”)

People that think before acting and trust science over “their gut” are regarded as “weak”, and Bullies, by their very nature, love to pick on the weak. So they raz those who believe in sciencey things like “Global Warming” (it is stunning to watch a group of people as massive as Climate Change Deniers ridicule something they clearly don’t understand, like joking about “Global Warming”… but never “Climate Change”… during a historic freak Winter snow-storm) and look down their noses at people who attended college as “Elitists”.

Pick any prominent Republican leader and I’ll show you someone who had an authoritarian father. John McCain? His father was a Navy Admiral during World War II. Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz (which BTW is “Ted’s” REAL name. He’s a Jr), is a certifiable Right-Wing nut that was a fire & brimstone preacher who proclaims the same God who Commanded “Thou Shalt Not Kill” ordained the Death Penalty in Chapter One of The Bible, “thank[s] God for Glenn Beck”, and still wants to know where the Birth Certificate is. John Boehner (who recently conceded that it is indeed pronounced “boner”) is the son of a saloon-owner, and Sarah Palin’s dad? A Track coach. Or there are those Republicans who were traumatized by their fathers masculinity being attacked like George W. Bush’s dad being called a “wimp” or Mitt Romney’s father who was forced out of the presidential race after using the unfortunate phrase “brainwashed” about himself regarding his prior support for the Vietnam War. Is it any wonder that a group of people so obsessed with being seen as “manly” would also be full of homophobes? (And the less said about Mitch McConnell, currently fighting for his political life amidst charges of “weakness” in confronting Obama, walking onto the stage at CPAC holding a giant phallic symbol aloft over his head, the better.)

And if you think about it, who’s the most manly-man of all? God. The ultimate authoritarian figure. A judgmental eye-in-the-sky that watches your every move, who laid out his “Commandments” and threatens to banish anyone that doesn’t comply into the pit of Hell for all eternity. You can’t get any more authoritarian than that. And they’ve claimed him as their own.

Who’s your Daddy, Mr. GOP?
 


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March 10, 2014 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: General, National Security, Partisanship, Politics, Rants, Right-Wing Insanity, War

One Response

  1. Grant in Texas - March 10, 2014

    Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) called Putin a “bully” today on Andrea Mitchell’s show. That puts him at odds with many on the right who love themselves some bullies (look how Chris Christie improved his standing this year at CPAC). So “manliness” equals being a bully? Add wife-beater, child-beater, and other teabag “family values” to the mix and of course to be more “manly” carry a gun at all times.

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