A Tyranny by the Minority, Part 2: The Reign of the Cracker Babies:
You remember when there was supposed to be an epidemic of "crack babies"? They were babies whose mothers had smoked crack (or done coke) during pregnancy and would give birth to drug addicted bundles of joy. They were going to grow up to be sociopaths who would wreak havoc on the nation. Yeah, not so much.
However, what we are seeing now is the plague of the cracker babies. These are primarily white people who grew up insulated in communities that had fucked-up beliefs about God, guns, and America, who became resentful of people different than them who might have gotten help from the government, who watched Fox "news" since it started and listened to conservative talk radio before that, who have been pandered to and exploited by opportunists and snake oil salesmen who made them think that their stunted intellectual development is an asset. We are now in the grip of their electoral choices, which even includes some of their own (lookin' at you, Louis Gohmert, you god among cracker babies).
Let's just put it this way: When its new season premiered back in August, more people watched Duck Dynasty, a TV show about crazed, conservative, religious fundamentalists who happen to have gotten rich making a decent duck call, than watched the series finale of Breaking Bad. More people will watch the antics bearded backwoods tree carvers who barely speak anything we might acknowledge as "English" than will ever watch Mad Men, Homeland, or any of those shows that get TV critics all hard and wet.
Is this intellectual elitism? You fucking well bet it is. By pretending that the beliefs of yahoos, crackers, and cousin-fuckers are worthy of consideration in the public sphere, we have degraded the nation to the point that, well, fuck, they have successfully taken over one chamber of Congress by essentially threatening the leadership of the GOP with a banjo-accompanied ass raping while they giggle out their last couple of teeth.
These seeds were sowed back when Ronald Reagan cravenly allowed Jerry Falwell and other charlatans to have a seat at the table of power instead of treating them and their followers as pariahs whose goal was to upend the entire relationship between church and state. As on so many things, Reagan should be dug up and have his bones dressed in rags and paraded about so people can throw tomatoes and eggs at him.
We are a nation held hostage by idiots elected by idiots. While you can say, smugly, "Oh, but that's been true all throughout history," there's a hilarious fuckin' twist this time. These Tea Party fucknuts have no master. It's less Frankenstein's monster being let loose than it is nuclear bombs awaking Godzilla.
See, the teabaggers owe little to nothing to Wall Street or to big business. Oh, no. The pathetic truth about America is that the capitalists, not our pussy media, are the final check and balance to our political system: if they are displeased, they normally can fund the shit out of candidates to oppose those who have not done their bidding. But the anarchists we have now in the House don't give a happy monkey fuck about the backing of banking whores and portfolio pimps. You wanted deregulation, motherfuckers? Here ya go. If we default on the debt, the days of even milquetoast laws like Dodd-Frank will seem like salad days.
But you wanna know how awful the cracker babies are? Two quick examples from their ilk in Congress: Rep. Randy Neugebauer of Texas barked at a park ranger because she was doing her goddamn job, saying she should be "ashamed" for blocking access to the World War II memorial, closed because of Neugebauer. And Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina was asked if she would give up her salary during the shutdown, where millions of government workers are furloughed without pay or working without pay. She said, "I need my paycheck. That's the bottom line."
Somewhere, "God Bless America" is being played by a jug band.