Wingcnuts


 


The American conservative looks to the Eisenhower Era as the Golden Age. America was the only industrial power with its factories left standing after World War II, and American business ran the world. Everybody was prosperous, had a big car and a nice house in the suburbs, a wife with shining new kitchen appliances and well-behaved kids--and everybody went to church on Sundays. Sure, there was Communism, but the grand old US of A was united against that threat, and our shining economy and unshakeable freedoms made even the Russians and the Chinese want to be us. Why, we even had Rock 'n' Roll! (of the wholesome sock-hop kind, not the druggy hippy kind) Who could ask for more?

But there's one part of that picture that's currently causing trouble. (I'm not talking about what's been pushed out of the picture--you know, Negroes, McCarthy, Jews, and all those things liberals will go on about--but something smack dab in the middle of the picture.) And that's the smiling if stern, white-coated and horn-rimmed scientist. He was an important part of this Wonderful Life, giving us jet planes and atomic power, and antibiotics and X-Rays, and was very soon going to take us into Outer Space! And it was Science, working together with Industry and the Military and the Government, that put us so far ahead of the Commies. And that was it: everybody working together, talking to each other seriously and substantively, that was taking us together into the future.

This is the template on which the Right has laid all of their attacks for the last thirty years, and it's responsible for their effectiveness. Liberals, you see, hated all of that! Listen to them talk! They hate the suburbs! They hate big cars! They hate Ike! They hate church on Sunday! They hate the Military! They hate Industry! And you see what happened--we let them get in charge and they ruined everything!

It's a powerful image, and while many folks are immune (those who remember the ugly side of the 50's, and young people, for whom the Golden Age was the Clinton Administration), it lent a resonance to the whole campaign. Smiling businessmen, smiling soldiers, smiling scientists--all looking like Ike.

But the mirror cracks from side to side now, folks. The problem with all the body-blows that the Republicans have been taking--rampant corruption, a disastrous and dishonorable war, the crumbling of middle class life economically--damage the reality, but don't ruin the template. The problem is that now the Republicans, in desperate reaction, are going after one of the figures in that template--the Scientist. All the other disasters of the Bush II Administration may dispose of the current crop of Republicans--those who can't run fast enough from the collapsing House of Usher, at any rate--but this strike could damage the whole Republican Party, and the whole Right.

And for that, we have Al Gore to thank.

They've been pushed by other factors, to be sure: the fact that scientists are saying loudly and firmly that we're in danger, and we should do something about it. And the things that should be done could be bad for some (but not all) of the Powers in the Republican Party. Of course the disconnect isn't new: it goes back as far as Earth Day. But that was handled well, by people who understood the power of the template. Richard Nixon (who, mirabile dictu, keeps looking smarter and smarter compared to these jokers) founded the EPA, and the Right quickly focused on the hippies, Earth Mothers, Birkenstockers and bearded recumbent-bicycling vegan hemp-shirted activists instead of the scientists--and, let's be fair, listened to the scientists to some extent. Progress has been made.

But now they're speaking up, and their message is dire. Things must change. If we don't have a crunch we'll get a crash. And let's be fair once again: while restructuring away from fossil fuels is being met with heavy hands on boardroom tables in the oil industry and its satrapies, bigger hands are making bigger thumps in a bigger industry--a much bigger industry: Insurance, who have benn paying dreadfully high disaster payoffs in the last few years. And overarching it all is the big axe:--what the scientists are saying is probably true. Perhaps, say some, it might be time to quietly listen, implement, and change--without, of course, making it look like we caved in to pressure? Maybe we really should do something...

And then Mr. Inconvenient Truth comes along.

It's both a colossal provocation and a colossal opportunity in their eyes. Of course, they hate Al Gore with a passionate intensity. He's a progressive with a capital P and and that stands for Pol and that means trouble in River City. He's not just a public figure who both interviews and argues well, he's a potential Presidential candidate. He'll get the headlines, the movie will be watched, and by his presence he's made global warming A Liberal Issue.

But the opportunity is there: attack Al Gore! Mr. Love Story, Mr. Earth Tones, Mr. Invented-the-Internet--Mr. Sore Loser! Mr. Perfect Diversionary Target.

And in so doing they do exactly, I think, what His Adequacy wanted.

Because Mr. Gore, unlike other spokespeople, unlike most prominent activists, disappears, pulling back behind the movie. The movie is a substitute for a speech, not the opportunity for more. Going after Al, they find themselves unable to focus on Mr. Love Canal-Union Lullabye-Evil Christmas Cards (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go ask Bob Somerby .) (Jonah Goldberg, in his own hacktacular way, launched a blistering attack on Al Gore's reminiscences on a teenage summer in France, as part of this flank attack.) Instead, they found themselves attacking the movie, attacking the science, attacking the scientists, and attacking that smiling figure that looks like Ike in the lab coat on the template.

The Republicans had already imperiled their relations with the scientific community on evolution, but that after all, isn't really the Republicans, that's our slightly tetched brother-in-law, the Christian Right. You understand, don't you? But now it's the main front, the corporate front, telling the scientific community, not 'you're Godless' (which most would agree with) but 'you're liars'.

The Eisenhower Dream is a vision in which Science and Church don't collide, where we're both the most religious country in the world and the most scientifically advanced, and we're heart-swellingly proud of both. And the Right has Photoshopped together the Godless College Liberals discussing Sartre and saying God is Dead with the hippies attacking weapons research, showing that Liberals hate BOTH Science and Religion. And the promise of the Eisenhower Dream is that, under the Right, you'll have both full churches filled with smiling families AND iPods, Plasma TV's, and the knowledge that we're ahead of everybody in Science.

But now the Republican Party is engaged in a full-bore attack on the scientific community. And they're attacking the scientific community exactly where it will anger them the most: You're wrong. You're inaccurate. Your work is shoddy and sloppy. You haven't thought this out properly. And, best of all, Shut Up.

They can't afford this: faced with the choice of having America become more Godless, or having America become a second rate country scientifically, there's no contest. The vast majority of Americans may dislike the former, but view the latter with something like dread. The only reason attacks on science are tolerated by the populace is the unconscious assumption that Science can take it. To actually make people afraid that we'll become an inferior country, a scientific backwater, where the big advances are things we read about happening elsewhere?

That's death for the Republican Party for a generation.

And over and above this, it's the spectacle of the Right sneering at the melting glaciers, the drowning polar bears, the thawing permafrost, the rising water levels, attacking global warming the way they fight the War in Iraq: by smearing their critics, by shouting loudly over the radio, sitting in their air-conditioned rooms and denying there's a problem.

In this they're the 21st Century versions of King Cnut, declaring war on the sea (for all you wondering if my post title was a typo--more than a bit pedantic, but I like it, so screw y'all). To see them proudly going up and down along the eroding beach, brandishing their swords at the surf and shouting "Al Gore is a Liar!" would be funny--if it weren't for the fact that, this time, the war is real.

Posted: Monday - June 26, 2006 at 04:12 PM        

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