The Indestructible Base of George W. Bush
by Becky Burgwin
If you're undecided and decide to be a Bush supporter only after watching the debates"well I'm sorry. You're not the sharpest tool in the shed and it's possible you are confusing the job of leader of the free world with flippin' burgers at McDonalds and you're not too picky about who you hire.
The base of George W. Bush is an entity all its own. It has five or more heads: not unlike the legendary Hydra that Hercules killed in the 2nd Cent. BCE. But remember, Herc had mythical strength. We apparently don't and, in my opinion, we shouldn't even try. Why? Because it's not possible.
Amusingly, though unoriginally, we'll call the first head of George Bush's Hydra the BFB's or Billionaires for Bush. The BFB's are a true-blue block of voters. What makes them so unique is that they happen to have a very clear idea of exactly what it is that a man can buy with 1 billion dollars that he can't buy with 750 million. And they will go to extraordinary lengths to make sure that whatever that item of material necessity is, they will get it. You never see these people in stores or on the bus. In fact, we weren't really sure they existed until we found the remains of a Roman Orgy on the Greek Island of Carpathos and in the remains was the battered shell of a Tyco Stuntsters Tantrum R/C. Since that important discovery many former CEO's previously disguised as good ole boys have been exposed as leading double lives. While shmoozing their employees and convincing them to buy more and more stock in their companies, they were secretly hoarding the material goods which can only be bought by billionaires and are not even known to exist by the world at large.
There is another head of the Hydra, which we'll call The Top 1% Tax Cut or Bust group or the TTCB. This group includes some people who, even though they make excellent salaries, are patriotically willing to help their fellow countrymen by pocketing funds formerly earmarked for such classic examples of government waste as Head Start, Social Security, and public education. In order to give up their country clubs, their landscapers, their hummers and their 10,000 square foot homes on the 3rd fairway, they're going to need a little more than the promise of peace on earth and good will toward men. The reason the TTCB's are so unable to be destroyed is that they have become super-strong scratching and cloying their way to the top because they know there is something they can't buy even with their millions and it's driving them insane.
The third head of the Hydra is a group I call The Kill or Be Killed group or KBK. The KBK is made up of NRA supporters who believe that the right to bear assault weapons was constitutionally guaranteed by a group of men who fought the war they had just won with manual loading muskets. To KBK's the Iraq war is a living, breathing video game where they get to rappel out of Black Hawk helicopters and shoot the enemy in the streets. They are glad that the war on terror is being fought on someone else's home turf but are ready, willing and able to fight it right here at home if need be and they're not going to let some pansy-assed Senator tell them what kind of weaponry they can or cannot use. They're not big on readin' newspapers or watchin' the evening news. They get their facts from Rush and since they can't take AK47's to 'em, yet, they'll just hafta vote these liberal pussies out of office.
The forth head I call The Tithes Before Treatment crowd or TBT. The TBT are religious fanatics who think it's a sin to sway back and forth when you're singing or have nude statues with bosoms in plain view where sex-starved men can leer at them and have unclean thoughts. Instead of calling some Jewish doctor to take care of their sick children, they'll be giving their money to the church of Jesus Christ Our Lord. They know full well who George W. Bush is getting his marching orders from and just who to blame for the sorry state of the world today. Pat Robertson's been telling them to be patient. Their time will come.
"Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. Wholesale abuse and discrimination and the worst bigotry directed toward any group in America today. More terrible than anything suffered by any minority in history."--Pat Robertson, 1993 interview with Molly Ivins. Wow. Who knew?
And finally, we have The Kiss Ass So I Can Be the Next President crowd. (I'll spare you the anacronym.) This group actually currently has only one member and that's Senator John McCain. Anyone who was even a little on the fence at this point in the American election process, and maybe thinks the trashing of John Kerry's stint in Viet Nam is a little more sleaze than they'd bargained for, should be pretty darn convinced that Bush is the right guy now that a gen-u-ine war hero like John McCain is backing him.
So there you have it. The five headed Hydra known as the base of George W. Bush. The thing about all of these groups is that nothing this president does that's a little slimy, a tad illegal, or just the teeniest bit bigoted is going to sway these folks. Not in a million years. Which, by the way, we don't have because the Rapture will be here before you know it.
The Republicans can openly destroy voter registration ballots"not a peep. They can lie during the debates and be exposed the next day"doesn't matter. Their convention can be an angry hate-fest and they can invade a country and kill tens of thousands of innocent people and the race is still too close to call.
There is one very important thing though. Their numbers are finite. This is crucial. None of these people are going anywhere. If nothing has swayed them by now, they're indestructible. And lord knows no one's quitting the Kerry camp and joining the Bush brigade. And if you were undecided and decided to be a Bush supporter only after watching the debates"well I'm sorry. You're not the sharpest tool in the shed and it's possible you are confusing the job of leader of the free world with flippin' burgers at McDonalds and you're not too picky about who you hire.
It's obvious that the Democrats have to get out the vote. Forget about the more-psycho- than-Hitler Ralph Nader. We won in 2000 and we can do it again.
The smart money's on Kerry but this year, more than any other time in our country's history, we need to pull the Democratic lever and vote straight Democrat. First of all, it's easier. There's a lot less room for error if all you have to do is pull the lever, punch one chad or tap the screen and vote for every Democrat on the ticket.
Don't kid yourselves. If we don't take back the House and Senate, we're still screwed or should I say hammered. Remember that sickening feeling you felt in the pit of your stomach on the morning of Nov. 6th, 2002 when it began to dawn on you that Republicans are now in control of both houses of Congress and there's a lunatic living in the White House? That's the kind of feeling that tends to wake a person up and make them think"f*ck!!!
Here's the good news"WE WOKE UP. We can do this. Call someone. Give someone a ride to the polls. Organize your precincts to have attorneys at the polls to take a statement from every voter who was not allowed to vote because of some technicality. Find out who they would have voted for. Write it down. Call the FEC or your local TV stations or your newspapers and report it. And please, please, please, please, please remember to pull the Democratic lever. Oh"and pray.
Ms. Burgwin's writings have appeared in Time, Newsweek, New York Magazine, Counterpunch, Alternet and OpEdNews as well as several other online Op Ed sites. She is on the Board of Aid Afghanistan and one of the contributors to the Peace Project in Assisi, Italy. Send questions, comments, and critiques to rburgwin@aol.com. Read more of her articles at Becky Burgwin Archive
