2008
Either way you look at it, we’re all going to hell
Most mornings, as I drive in to work, I listen to CBC’s The Current. This morning, they were discussing the fierce loyalty American Evangelicals have to the Republican party. One of their guests went on a particularly fantastic rant about how it’s God will for Christians to vote Republican, and Christians who vote Democrat are going against the Bible (and are, therefore, not real Christians). Obama isn’t really a Christian, he said. He may say he’s a Christian, but he aims to single-handedly undermine religion in America. Also, he wants to kill your babies. Literally. He wants to hold an abortion-o-thon, and everyone’s invited.
A polarised opinion, to be sure. At least he stopped short of calling Obama the Anti-Christ.
Well, he stopped short of calling Obama the Anti-Christ. Luckily, there are other Republicans willing to pick up his slack. Namely, McCain himself. That’s right: in a new ad by and for McCain’s campaign, he directly implies that you shouldn’t vote for Obama because he is the Anti-Christ.
The only rational response is stunned silence.
I guess it’s only proper, since the only reason Evangelicals vote for McCain is because he is, clearly, Jesus.
Otherwhere:
- Remind Me, by Royksopp. I saw this video a couple years ago, and I’ve always said that this is the closest thing to actually seeing inside my own brain.
- Elizabeth Turnbull is my new hero, and she should be yours, too.
Tristan Sandulak, 2008 08 23
The ad “directly” implies that Obama has too high a view of himself, and uses religious language as rhetorical support for a vision which, naturally, his opponents believe is impractical.
The ad might “indirectly” imply many things, since the point of a character attack in political campaigning is to create a negative emotive response in its viewers. It is telling that it was Obama sympathizers who brought out the accusation that McCain was figuring Obama as an anti-Christ. If it had indeed been the Republican strategy to do so, and if they are indeed composed largely of the kind of evangelical right-wingers who would take such a claim very seriously and very literally, there would have been free conversation of such a possibility and they would have been the first to capitalize on such a claim. Of course, since it has not merit except in terms of counter-rhetoric, that hasn’t happened.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care for McCain any more than I care for Obama, and I’m not defending his ads. From my vantage point, it would be more interesting to see Obama as president, probably more prudent to see McCain, but either way, I’m mostly apathetic, and frankly, uninformed on the details of a wide range of their political views. But buying whole-heartedly into caricaturizing counter-rhetoric (especially when the ads are already hilarious for their dramatic format and what they truly do say “directly”) seems as silly to me as buying whole-heartedly into the original rhetoric that spawned it.
It’s been a long time since I wrote here. Probably will be a long time again. Here’s to our usual format of inflammatory post / inflamed response! Cheers.