A Salute To Conservatism

To all members of the conservative movement in America, I salute you.

Yes, all you demeaning ditto-heads, supply-side sophomores and tea-party terpsichores, I pay you due homage, and give you a well-earned tip of my feathered cap.

You fought well.

In fact, you fought surprisingly well, given that your clothes had no emperor to fight for. With an anti-traditional, non-Christian figurehead, you nevertheless drove your forces all the way to the very gates of government in the name of the very traditions and Christianity your Mormon leader secretly opposed, and insistently beat upon the gates with your battering ram for six solid months. Your siege was a fierce one. Perhaps the fiercest possible outside of outright violence. At times, the gates looked as though they might crack, but they held firm. And now, your leader has sounded the retreat. Bruised and battered, you limp home to lick your wounds and massage your pride.

You have nothing to be ashamed of. You left it all on the field of battle. You spent every drop of blood you had to give, and every dollar you had to spend.

You bought a monopoly of nearly all A.M. radio stations and used it to preach only one political side to blue-collar workers and daily commuters for more than twenty solid years. You have won two out of the last four presidential elections. You have constructed a 24-hour political commentary channel, and pitched it as straight news for much of that same time. You have rallied, marched, screamed yourself hoarse, come out in droves to vote, and given every last penny you had to give in your ceaseless campaign.

And what has it all gotten you? 49%.

Yes, 49%. In spite of passionate turnout on your part, lackluster enthusiasm on your opponents’ part, and efforts to block their right to vote at every turn, you still only achieved 49%. That is all your effort, shouting, never-ending hatred and trillions upon trillions of dollars have bought you.

And you will never, EVER be this strong again.

A.M. radio is giving way to the iPod and the cellphone. Daily commuters no longer have to lazily settle for the radio station that just happened to be on their dial while the sporting event was being broadcast. DVR technology continues to strip political ads of all their power. Podcasts and satellite radio continue to gain popularity, even as they become cheaper to access. The mask of Fox News has been removed. MSNBC counterweights its every move. Your monopoly is broken.

You thought you could win by breaking unions. But they're not dead, yet! And like a hydra, the Latino vote grew in to replace its strength. And this will allow the union head you chopped off to grow back, better, stronger, and with a decent brain this time.

Before this presidential term is out, three Supreme Court justices will be in their nineties. They will almost certainly be replaced with slightly left-leaning moderates, and so will put any hope of taking over the highest court in the land out of reach for at least two generations. Roe v. Wade is out of reach, forever. Citizens’ United is doomed.

You cannot buy your way to power, anymore.

Nor can you pray your way to power. Evangelicals are now only 49% of the population, and the trend line continues downward. Secular atheists and agnostics are now 20% of the population, and the trend line continues upward.

49%. That was your high-watermark, both in your vote, and in your overall influence. Thus, this election has been your Waterloo, your Pickett’s Charge, your last advance of the Light Brigade. You already feel the pull of your weakening influence. Your Christian heroes have fallen. All the champions to your cause were either philanderers or lunatics. So devoid of leadership have you been that you settled upon a Mormon, who couldn’t have been better designed for defeat had Democrats drawn him up on a blackboard, all because he was the only monogamous person left with any money.

And who is left now that he's gone? Dubya’s weakling kid brother, a crass, fat loudmouth from Jersey, a loser whose very name is synonymous with homosexual anal ooze, and maybe the beefcake ex-senator whose clock got cleaned by Elizabeth Warren. What a rag-tag group of misanthropic malcontents! Add to this the fact that the Alaskan Malamute is toothless, and the one-time veep candidate from Wisconsin is a malfunctioning robot with a bad Micky-Mouse haircut, and you have nobody left. The raft they cling to has no rudder, and no captain.

Oh, you may think that you will regroup, and "take back the nation" (as if you'd ever lost it), but this WAS your regroup. THIS was your counter-offensive. This was your last chance. And you blew it!

The holes in Milton Friedman’s supply-side economics have been exposed. Deregulation of banking is universally rejected, even on Fox News. The new free-market capitalism – not socialism, damn it, free market capitalism! – is a modern synthesis of only those economic ideas which have been proven to work. Elements of the New Deal, Clinton-esque fiscal responsibility, yes, even Reaganomics, are all part of Obama's plan. With a nucleus of free trade, banks will be fully regulated, and the lucky rich will have to part with a little bit more of their winnings from the rigged-roulette-wheel of life.

What's that, you say? Fiscal cliff? Relax, it will never happen. Boehner has to cave, and you all know it.

Oh, you conservatives will still be passionate, filled with vitriol and hate, but all it will ever get you from now on is, perhaps, a mid-term election or two. The presidency is lost to you for at least twelve years. Barack today, Hillary tomorrow, and you can bet that they both will groom a new candidate who will win easily for two terms after that.

You are mostly old. The Liberals are mostly young. And unlike your own naïve, hippie-youthful liberalism, which was based on little more than sex, pot, and opposition to the war in Vietnam, theirs is based on logic, compassion, and reason. You cannot brow-beat them the way you allowed your elders to brow-beat you. And their legacy will be much more meaningful than merely Viagra, Minoxodil and Androgel 1.62%.

If a given segment votes with a certain party three presidential races in a row, it is effectively set for life. The Millennium Generation has now voted for Kerry, and Obama twice. It's lost, forever. And the Latino vote has now voted the same way. So has the black vote. They are gone, permanently, and with them goes any chance you will ever get your majority status back. The "angry white male" has fallen!

Colorado and Washington have now joined the ranks of marijuana-legal states! You can bet that more will soon follow, as neighboring states will have no choice if they want to protect their interstate commerce. With that change will come even more hippie, granola-crunching liberalism.

It's so over. The Tea Party is done. We dumped your tea into the Boston Harbor. The culture war is finally at an end. We win!

Say hello to the New America! It is a land where freedom truly reigns. It is a land where you cannot dictate to homosexuals how they are to live their lives anymore, but it is also a land where your traditional heterosexual marriage is equally protected. It is a land where you cannot hijack the government to preach your religion anymore, but it is also a land where you may practice your Christian beliefs in peace and safety without hindrance. Say hello again to true religious freedom as the bricks of the wall separating Church and State are solidly replaced, for good this time! It is a land where marijuana will be completely legalized and assault weapons severely regulated, but it is also a land of sobriety where citizens can defend themselves with private firearms. And, of course, it is a land where the development of the fetal brain defines the onset of a being, not conception. As a direct result, stem cells will make life better, healthier, more youthful for all. No longer will we insist on funding tanks with nothing to roll over, planes with nothing to fly over, and missiles with nothing to aim at. Inner city schools will no longer need to be funded with bake-sales.

This is an America that both you and I can be proud to call home! Truly, completely, the Land of the Free! You conservatives nearly, stupidly, threw it all away. But you failed!

In your ineptitude, you accidentally saved us all! Conservatives, I salute you!


Eric

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