Republicanism in the real America

Of the scads of Republican scandals popping up all over the place, from the drug-fueled gay sexcapades of evangelical leader Ted Haggard, to the sleazy potentiality of cover-up in Nevada's Gibbons/Mazzeo assault investigation, to a lingering Foleygate -- ironically made so by the Haggard revelations -- to Tim Murphy's (R-Pa) evidence grabbing and congressional staffer abuse, to Don Sherwood's salacious dalliance with erotic asphyxiation (or so he thought), perhaps the one that best typifies all that is wrong not only with the Republican party, but with those American voters who support them, is the George Allen campaign. I say "campaign," exactly because the entire Allen campaign has been one long string of exposed ties to white supremacists, mindless racist gaffes, dumb remarks, desperate accusations, all of which have now been wrapped up with the big, pretty bow of assault and battery.



In George Allen and his campaign, we apprehend a representation of the the larger ills of the GOP. We see in Allen a faux-cowboy, good ol' boy routine adopted by a transplanted, privileged, racist idiot son of a celebrity father, one who has co-opted the Confederate flag and hangs nooses in his office while presenting himself to the American public as a representative of "the real America."

That fact that Allen is in the Senate is bad enough, but after all that has come out about the racist thug that is George Allen, the truly depressing aspect of all this is that the tobacco-spittin' jerk-off is not just in contention for his own senate seat, but that he will, in all likelihood, win the seat, despite this recent criminal behaviour of his campaign staffers. Hey, macacas, welcome to "the real America."