Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 2012

1/13/12

New Hampshire Falls to the Redcoats

Continued From 1/9

  
    Doctor Hunter S Thompson wrote a little narrative entitled "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72" back in, naturally, 1972.  It was written as a series of Rolling Stone articles about the 1972 Presidential campaign and was later assembled as a book.  An outstanding piece of work, this book captured the campaign from the very center of the vortex, and relayed it in an abstract fashion which was equally a fascinating view of the machinations of a Presidential campaign and a snapshot of a time and place from which we are now very far removed (?).

     The 1972 campaign was a dark and fascinating event which pitted a strong grassroots underdog first against his own party establishment and then against the oppressive weight of the Nixon administration.  Nixon was a ravaging monster, whose narcissistic tendencies alone would cause him to destroy anything standing between himself and re-election.  At one point in the narrative, Dr. Thompson uncovers startling evidence that Nixon cut a deal with Democrat power brokers to sell his own party down the river in order to secure the '72 election.  In essence, Nixon agreed to set the stage for Ted Kennedy to capture the Presidency in '76 (and hold it for the next eight years), if the Democrat power brokers would ensure McGovern take a fall in '72.  The Democrats were all for it.  McGovern was a man willing to expose the rats in his own party and completely reshape the Democratic Party during his Presidency.  This obviously frightened the corrupt hacks usually clustered around the center of any political operation.  Apparently, four more years of Nixon was preferable to an honest man at the helm.

     Anyways, this left Dr. Thompson quite stunned.  In an attempt to understand why, the Doctor decided to employ a very unique method:

    

     "The game had already started, but there was no score.  I dumped my ale bottles in the Styrofoam cooler, then opened one and sat down to watch the action and brood on Nixon's treachery.  But first I concentrated on the game for a while.  It is hard to understand how somebody else thinks unless you can get on their wavelength, get in tune with their pattern, their pace, their connections......and since Nixon is a known football addict, I decided to get my head totally in the rhythm of this exhibition game between the Rams and Kansas City before attempting to jump into politics.

     "Very few people understand this kind of logic.  I learned it from a Brazilian scientist back in the Matto Grosso back in 1963.  He called it "Rhythm Logic," in English, because he said I would never be able to pronounce it in the original Jibaro.  I tried it once or twice, but the Jibaro language was too much for me - and it didn't make much difference anyway.  I seemed to have an instinct for Rhythm Logic, because I picked it up very quickly.  But I have never been able to explain, except in terms of music, and typewriters are totally useless when it comes to that kind of translation.

     "In any case, by the end of the first quarter I felt ready.  By means of intense concentration on every detail of the football game, I was able to "derail" my own inner brain waves and re-pattern them temporarily to the inner brain wave rhythms of a serious football fanatic.  The next step, then, was to bring my "borrowed" brain waves into focus on a subject quite different from football - such as presidential politics.

     "In the third and final step, I merely concentrated on a preselected problem involving presidential politics, and attempted to solve it subjectively . . . although the word "subjectively," at this point, had a very different true meaning.  Because I was no longer reasoning in the rhythms of my own inner brain waves, but in the rhythms of a football addict.

     "At this point, it became invariably clear to me that Richard Nixon had in fact sold the Republican Party down the tube in Miami."  -  Hunter S. Thompson 1972

     To be sure, Doctor Thompson's insight is greatly missed right now.  He would be more afraid and disgusted than ever, but, political junkie that he was, would have been sucked right into the "vortex" of the 2012 campaign.  In my amateur attempt to chronicle this event, I have found myself keeping Thompson's book handy at all times.  It is a wonderful source of insight and inspiration, a historical record of a similar event, and a how-to guide for finding the real story at the heart of such a monstrous spectacle.  A question has weighed heavily on my own mind of late, and after re-reading the little gem posted above, I decided to take the Doctor's advice.
     My question is simple.  Why would American voters fall for Mitt Romney?  This soon after the Bush Era, and even sooner after the Bush-inspired Tea Party "uprising," I would think Republicans would be more than willing to stay away from a vanilla Big Money puppet type who is the offspring of another Yankee Big Money puppet politician.  This is a complete recipe for disaster in the general election.
     I wasn't sure what I could do to get in the head of the voting public.  A football game wasn't going to cut it.  I needed to get right to the cerebrum of the average New Hampshire working stiff.  As I was contemplating the matter, a slightly malevolent sigh from my dog Sally reminded me of the fact that she was down to three or four kibbles and maybe two bits.  Knowing that it would be irresponsible of me to leave a hungry Rottweiler home with a couple of well fed toddlers the next day, I realized I was going to have to venture out into the bone chilling January darkness and purchase some dog food.
     And then it hit me like a lightning bolt.  Wal Mart!  What better way to find the common wavelength of the American voter than a late night trip down the aisles of Sam Walton's wonder of the modern world?  It crossed my mind almost instantly that the answer to Obama would be found there, but the Romney blunder was going to take some serious Rhythm Logic.  Focusing my mind on the task, I retrieved a small shopping list from my wife, threw on my winter coat, and prepared myself for the numbing first five minutes spent in a subarctic front seat waiting for the thermostat to open and bring relief from the unbearable chill.

     This was one of those nights which cause a person to seriously question the sanity of living in the upper Great Plains.  A biting north wind was gusting at up to 50 miles per hour, scooting tiny particles of dry snow sideways across the icy blacktop in intermittent bursts.  As I pulled into the Walmart parking lot, I was suddenly aware of the heavy handed presence of the Man.  Three Omaha police cruisers and two Nebraska State Patrol vehicles were briskly wrapping up some business in the abnormally empty parking lot.  I don't know exactly what happened, but I was in quite a hurry to get inside, and they were in quite a hurry to get to the warmth of the Quick Trip coffee machine around the corner, so we crossed paths without even a glance.
     Now, Walmart in the middle of the night, even on a bitterly cold night when only those who REALLY need something, are that bored, or are hopelessly intoxicated venture in, is a bustling place with a rhythm all it's own.  There are usually only one or two registers open, and they generally
possess an anxious line of people, six carts deep, wistfully looking back and forth between the multitude of late night Walmart employees on break and the long dim row of closed cash registers.  Before I even passed the restrooms (closed for cleaning - please use the facilities at the back of the store), I was fully conscious of how and why Barack Obama had been elected.

 Barack Obama, future U.S. President

     Among the first images transmitted to my brain upon entering the store and gravitating quickly towards the warm interior was a display of low cost beauty products.  In between lowbrow romance flicks on Blu Ray, huge tubs of cheese balls, and stacks of Chinese junk, these beauty products were packaged with the inference that you could become a supermodel or an anchorman for just $9.99.  Moving past the registers, which only three years ago were plastered with images of Barack Obama and his charming wife Michelle*, I worked my way past shelf upon shelf of energy boosters, vitamins, and weight loss supplements, past the Valentine's Day display (I'm not sure, but I think I saw Easter Baskets and marshmallow eggs around the corner), and right into the aisles of Christmas discount merchandise.
     Selling Barack Obama to the average American was not difficult.  Easily starstruck, a good media campaign and a few vague promises of "hope and change" were enough to send the mainstream public into an orgiastic voting frenzy.  Too many people expect something for nothing (demand it, in fact), consider photogenic quality and arrogant mouthiness the necessary traits of leadership, and, trusting suggestive propaganda, are easily herded in whatever direction the handful of corporations which owns every U.S. media outlet decides to send them.
     As I found this train of reasoning interrupted by the outrageous price of dog food (pre tax), I decided that I was being a little unfair.  There were other reasons for the Great Obama Wave of '08.  Eight years of Bush was probably the most notable.  Bush had always had a knack for inflaming the passions of nearly half of America's eligible voters.  Unfortunately for him, this was the half that hated him.  His supporters really never had much of a choice, and only supported him because he was not a Democrat.  Like Mitt Romney today, you would be hard pressed to find an actual Bush crusader anywhere, only a bunch of "better than" apologists.
      I was too young to remember Nixon, so I can honestly say that no political figure in my lifetime has stirred up such intense hatred from the opposition as George W. Bush.  Not Clinton, not Reagan, maybe Obama...........but GW really takes the cake.  At first it seemed merely partisan.  Any Republican could expect to be slighted by NPR, attacked by Saturday Night Live, and heckled by MSNBC.  Comedy Central sitcoms were something quite new however, and a good indicator that Bush was not in for an easy ride.  While September 11th slowed his critics and boosted his ratings temporarily, this boost was extremely short and quickly began to backlash.  Conservatives and Liberals alike began to question the heavy handed government response to 9/11 (after they voted FOR all these measures, of course), and the invasion of Iraq brought a massive series of nationwide protests and attacks on Bush were renewed more vigorously than ever.
     After he somehow defeated fellow Skull and Bonesman John Kerry to gain re-election, his Presidency completely degenerated to the level of an old fashioned robber baron.  Like a Mafia protection outfit or a Mitt Romney investment group, he began the wholesale and unabashedly visible liquidation of everything that generations of Americans had worked so hard to build.  Our country was flooded with illegal immigrants, our money was being sucked off to Saudi Arabia, China, and the foreign bank accounts of a large junta of thieves, swindlers, and other traitorous swine, and we were dumping trillions of dollars into questionable military adventures with no credible raison d'etre.  A large housing crisis was looming on the horizon, we were not even attempting to access the nearly 90% of our natural resources which sit in the ground untouched, the Constitution was being ripped to pieces, and our government was running up a credit card bill so high that it can't be displayed on a standard calculator!

     The final and possibly most devastating straw came on a cold dark evening near the very end of the Bush era.  A cast of characters which play enemies on TV and rarely seem to be able to accomplish anything together and in a hurry accomplished something in complete unity and in a very big hurry.  Barack Obama and John McCain dropped everything they were doing (badmouthing each other to get your vote) and rushed to Washington.  There they were joined by Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, G.W. Bush, and a rogues gallery of other American traitors to give a very large sum of your money to their masters.  This is how the Bush era ended.  Bigger government than Stalin could have ever dreamed of, higher debt than any nation had ever run up, a complete transformation of American law, and the ever more apparent question of which party was which.  By that point, even the most feeble minded Republican was beginning to seriously question what the Hell was going on and how the Hell were we going to fix it.  Unfortunately, the best answer they could come up with was John McCain.
     Obviously the Democrats were able to step right in and take advantage of the situation.  All it took was a man with a celebrity aura and a few vague promises and America ate it up.  It's amazing what a little fear and loathing can do to a person's outlook.  Many assumed, wrongly, that "hope" and "change" meant something a bit more technical.  They thought that this would mean an end to the "blood for oil", a restoration of our civil liberties, and a more restrained fiscal policy that would stave off the coming Depression.  Democrats have a historically poor track record on these issues, but Americans have a historically short memory, so Obama had no problem finding support and praise for his imaginary agenda.  He was elected by an overwhelming landslide, yet Americans knew nothing about him!  We knew he used to smoke crack, but we knew nothing about his education because all the records were sealed.  We knew he liked to run around with some very shady characters (and more than a few intelligence hacks), but we didn't even have proof that he was a U.S. citizen.  This man is the most shadowy, artificial figure in U.S. history, yet he was unquestioningly and overwhelmingly accepted as the President of a very troubled and dysfunctional nation.  Given the normal shadowy and artificial nature of corrupt politicians, this most extreme case was a blatant recipe for disaster.
     Milling over the fact that not all Americans were shallow and starstruck, but rather just a little too trusting of snake oil salesmen, I realized I had stalled out in the Sporting Goods department, where my cart had taken me while I was lost in thought.  "This will never do," I thought.  In order to really find the answer to my question, I had to follow the Doctor's prescription for Rhythm Logic to the letter.  Idly contemplating the Obama phenomenon would not cut it.  I had to get into some serious Walmart shopping and really feel the pain and pleasure of the American consumer!  As I was a little too nervous to see what fishing line and hooks were going to run me this year, I decided to head on over to the grocery section and put a dent in my wife's list.  It was going to take the entire list before I was completely in tune with the Walmart rhythm, and I could not afford to waste any more telekinetic energy on the likes of Barack Obama.
     Ignoring the malevolent stare from an obviously disgruntled night stocker, I worked my way around a stack of boxes laying on their side and headed down the less stifling main aisle past the electronics and shoes until I found myself surrounded by upright freezers and several more disgruntled (and cold) night stockers.  Painfully checking prices and filling my cart, I became intently focused on the business of shopping.  There is a certain protocol that must be followed when shopping Walmart in the witching hours.  Surly stockers, random pallets, intoxicated shoppers, and miscellaneous boxes must be navigated with great care, and proper right of way procedures must be followed.  "Don't give ground to these swine!", the Doctor might have said, although sometimes you must be a bit diplomatic or you will find yourself walking deep into the middle of aisles without your cart in order to retrieve essentials.

     Entering the meat aisle, I was sure of one thing.  The overwhelming security apparatus, the cops out front, the extremely high price of macaroni and cheese, and the idea of being in the belly of what many see as a predatory monopoly and agent of the Red Chinese made me wonder why anybody wouldn't strongly consider Ron Paul.  But that's not why I was here.  I still couldn't unlock the riddle of Mitt.  In a country where few know or care about our nation's history, and spend no time contemplating what it means, there is little reflective political thought running through the general population.  Politics for many is an obstacle to be listlessly endured between weather and sports.  Rules of self-governance and personal liberty are naively assumed to be safeguarded merely by their own existence.

     Those who do care about politics either are simple Bush or Obama rejectionists who put little thought into the matter beyond their menial dislikes, or are of the more knowledgeable and philosophical class which generally makes up the core of the two modern political parties.  These people often surround themselves with politics, which causes them to be unfortunately bombarded with propaganda.  The idea of the propagandists is to quickly herd these people into a box with the bait being intelligent and sometimes reasonable political views.  Once in the box, the walls are closed with inferences which do not necessarily reflect reality.  Those that become slowly trapped in these boxes (which seem very real and righteous) are also taught to immediately attack, hate, and, most importantly, fear any viewpoint which disrupts the reality of the walls of the box.  This creates a society in which little good is accomplished because the people in the boxes possess strong fear and loathing for anything foreign to their box.

     We all know politicians are crooks.  You would be hard pressed to find anyone willing to seriously argue this point.  However, we do not acknowledge this in the light of day.  These opinions are welcomed from late night comedians or truck stop bumper stickers, but we find ourselves passionately attaching ourselves to these crooks and not only defending them but extolling their virtues!  We have followed this insanity to such a distance that we find ourselves in a world where we feel as if we've won or lost merely by whether our champion has an "R" or a "D" in front of their name.  It doesn't matter what they do, only what they say and how much the other side hates them.  In this brave new century, however, two things have occurred which have begun to open the eyes of the masses.  George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama.  The end of the Bush Era ushered in a massive uprising in the Republican Party.  The Tea Party flared up, demanding the Republican establishment represent the common man and the ideals of the Revolution.  It seemed that enough people had seen through Bush and finally were demanding real change.  So why would throngs of people show up on Election Day to cast ballots for Mitt?  (Personally, I wrongly assumed that the familiarity of the people of New Hampshire with Mitt Romney would have worked against him!)
      Still standing in the meat aisle, no closer to enlightenment than I had been by the dog food, I noticed a man strolling by with a brand new Sony flat screen in his cart.  I looked around and saw three kids scurrying towards the register with a 12 pack, trying to avoid the 1 AM liquor cut off.  Then I noticed the young couple next to me, sleeping baby bundled up in the car seat, checking over their shopping list and comparing prices of various cuts of chicken.  They were obviously in need of every penny they had, and then some, but they were still performing the necessary business of shopping with the cheerful enthusiasm that humans display.  These people probably spent a lot of time thinking about inflation (whether they identified it as such or not), but most likely didn't give a rat's ass about the Republican primary.  There was little money in the bank accounts of these people I was seeing on this bitter night at Walmart, and the future looked very dim indeed, but these people, like me, were going about their business, somehow surviving, and still enjoying life.

Young Willard Mitt Romney, safely in France, protesting in favor of the Vietnam War draft

     And then it became clear.  People don't know that the modern United States of America is but a house of cards waiting to fall, and refuse to admit to themselves that there may be a problem.  They know times are hard, but they will not allow themselves to conceive of a future in which the prosperity of old is not restored.  They don't really understand why things are so bad, they don't really understand how to change it, and they continue to hold to tradition and blind optimism.  Hopefully this works, and they are right, but this idea is restraining many Americans from seeing clearly the path towards reformation and recovery.  It is preventing them from taking the necessary steps of preserving the American Dream.
     And so I understood at last how a desperate Republican electorate, turned off and fired up by eight years of Bush and steaming mad from three years of Obama, could repeat their mistakes of the past and elect a candidate exactly the same as the one who had caused much of their troubles in the first place.  They don't want to admit to themselves that we are in such desperate shape, but remain in the comfortable mental state where an "R" can save us from the "D"'s and bring back the prosperity of days past.  They are easily attracted to a slick political stereotype, as he is in their comfort zone and is acknowledged in mainstream soundbites as a clear front runner.  The shallow mantra of "anybody but Obama" is easily converted into votes for the guy with the mainstream endorsements and the money to run a big campaign.  The problem is, the Republican Party was too tainted by Bush in the eyes of mainstream America for a guy like Romney to come along and unseat the Obama/Clinton machine.
     Walking out of the store contemplating the $150 bill for what would have been $60 worth of groceries when G.W. Bush first took office, I hoped I was wrong.  I hoped that New Hampshire was an anomaly and that the rest of America would still wake up and resist what seems to be our fate.  On the way out the door I passed a trio of college kids huddled around the Red Box holding an animated discussion about whether to rent "Cowboys and Aliens" or "Apollo 18."  With a sigh, I zipped up my coat and trudged dejectedly back out to the frozen tundra and a cold ride home.

     As the Ron Paul supporters made a proud but dejected retreat from the state of New Hampshire, votes for Mitt Romney were still piling in.  Second place was good for the campaign and a sign of hope that the followers of other candidates were not blessed with that night, but the overwhelming majority of votes for Romney was downright depressing.  As many of the Ron Paul supporters who had been campaigning furiously in New Hampshire probably felt a kinship with Paul Revere, furiously galloping through the old colony bearing the message of freedom and a call to arms to the inhabitants of the "Live Free or Die" state, a loss of this magnitude felt like a desperate failure.  Many of the Ron Paul voters probably imagined themselves as fed up colonists, firing a musket ball at the King's armies while hiding in bushes and wearing tri-corner hats.

     There was a dark point in the middle of our great Revolution at which everything seemed hopeless.  Many parts of the Northern colonies were under British control, only a small percentage of the colonists were actively supporting the Rebels while an equal percentage at least - especially those with money and influence - were in open support of the Crown.  The Colonial Army was tattered, worn out, undersupplied, outmanned, and in a terribly poor state of health and morale.  The ragtag government in Virginia was of little assistance, overseas negotiations with France were going nowhere, and the support and faith of the sympathetic colonists was quickly decreasing.  It's never good to be on the side of the loser, particuliarly when the winner is going to be in a foul mood afterwards.
     While the Revolution in the North was hanging on solely by the iron will of George Washington, the military genius of his officers, and the stubborn guerilla resistance of the working class inhabitants of the New World, the fate of everything rested on a small band of Patriots lurking in the swamps of South Carolina.  If the aggressive British campaign in the South was successful, the North would be completely cut off militarily and economically, and would have little chance of surviving.  It was on this stage that the dramatic tide which eventually swept back North and gave birth to the greatest nation ever created was begun.

Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of South Carolina

     Francis Marion, a Southern planter known as the "Swamp Fox" led a group of courageous patriots in a David vs. Goliath scenario against the large and expensive British campaign to recapture the Southern colonies.  Operating from a secret island deep in the swamps, these brave patriots waged such a successful guerilla campaign that the British were eventually thoroughly routed from the Deep South.  By this time, Washington had regrouped, Congress and Benjamin Franklin had recruited the French navy, and the British had been drastically wounded by their unsuccessful South Carolina experience.  We today have these South Carolina freedom fighters to thank for standing up and defending freedom at a point when everything hung in the balance.
      On the reluctant march out of New Hampshire, the Ron Paul supporters could probably hear the faint clacking of spectral Redcoat boots marching on cobblestones and, off in the distance, see the Union Jack being raised over the Manchester Courthouse.  A lost battle to be sure, but hope for a sustained campaign was suddenly renewed.  Lifting their heads high, they headed off towards South Carolina, fabled birthing ground of Party Nominees and home of the saviors of our Revolution, with the bright flame of liberty burning in their eyes and a renewed appetite for battle with the oppressive agents of the Crown.

    
 To Be Continued...............  Wrapping Up New Hampshire, Huntsman Bites It, Gingrich Declares "Armageddon"       


*From celebrity magazines to "news" journals, Good Housekeeping to the National Enquirer, images and headlines proclaiming the Messiah, his implied promises, and his Nobel Peace Prize, were omnipresent and extremely dishonest.  You can fool all of the people most of the time - or however that saying goes - but you can't hold their attention for very long.  Barack Obama has since dropped from the foreground, and Angelina Jolie has returned to her rightful place in the direct line of sight of Walmart shoppers.  



Michelle Obama