November 21, 2004

ANDREW SULLIVAN explains Bush's triumph to Blue Staters who don't understand -- and don't much like -- Red-blooded, Red State Americans. Quotable:
The new conventional wisdom is that the election results were .. [an] endorsement for George W. Bush's clear, reassuring cultural presence in a troubled time .. here's another cultural explanation. A large part of the pro-Bush vote .. was a vote against the left elite and the cultural attitudes it represents .. It was a vote not so much for Bush .. but against the post 9/11 left, against Michael Moore and political correctness and Susan Sontag and CBS News ..

Two recent movies brought this home to me. "The Incredibles" is anything but a left-liberal movie. .. The Incredibles are a family of super-heroes who are forced into early retirement because their feats had incurred too much collateral damage. The lawsuits filed by aggrieved and pesky crimps on super-heriocs had made the Incredibles a liability. So they were required to go into hiding, to restrain their unique powers, to conceal their genetically-given talents. The fundamental moral of the movie is that this restraint is wrong, and needs to be overcome. Letting the talented earn the proud rewards of their labor, and the fruits of their destiny, harms no one and actually helps those in the greatest need .. it is pro-talent and pro-opportunity. It is in favor of the urge to get out there and achieve things without apology.

Or take .. "Team America: World Police." [by Matt Stone and Trey Parker of "South Park" fame, a comedy which] has little truck with liberal political correctness, Hollywood piety, trial lawyer insanity, hate crime hooey, and all the other shibboleths of the good government left. The same is true of "Team America." .. Stone and Parker never lose sight of the fact that Kim Jong Il is worse [than America]; or that real enemies are out there; or that America is better than many other whiny world powers, paralyzed by fear and inertia and hypocrisy ..

The truth is: there is a conservative majority in this country .. because the Republicans have .. been able to corner the market on the themes of achievement, individualism, energy, action. And they have also won over those who disdain the politics of resentment, whining and permanent criticism. If James Dobson represents one wing of contemporary Republicanism, Arnold Schwarzenegger represents the other .. [many] voters .. voted red last time because the pious, do-good, elite whining of Gore and Teresa and Hillary seemd so alien to many Americans' entrepreneurial, anti-p.c. and irreverent popular culture. There's a reason Schwarzenegger couldn't be a Democrat [and] why he's a red-tinted governor of one of the bluest states in the country.

Posted by Greg Ransom | TrackBack