Dana Blankenhorn

Not Yet Begun To Fight

Think of this as Volume 14, Number 36 of A-Clue.com, the online newsletter I've written since 1997. Enjoy.

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As I noted last week, proof that this is a crisis Presidency is obvious in the polls. (Hey, Tea Party. Two can play this game.)

No crisis President is popular at this point in their term. Lincoln wasn't -- we were losing the war. FDR wasn't -- there was serious doubt as to whether democracy would survive. Nixon certainly wasn't -- "We're all Nixon's niggers now," said George Carlin, and the crowd roared.

Why is this? It's because politics are driven by myths and values, by assumptions of right and wrong. A crisis President, by definition, is elected in rejection of these assumptions, and gradually creates what I call a new Thesis, a new set of myths and values that will define power in coming decades.

So it is today. Every poll I see shows the President and his party are unpopular. They all show Republicans winning. But they don't see the Republicans as popular, because they're not.

The truth behind Beckapalooza

Some critics called it Whitestock, but that's not the story here. Most Republican meetings are overwhelmingly white. Despite demographic trends, this also remains the reality of America.

No, there's a deeper truth about this gathering that should give mainstream Republicans pause. That is its cause.

As Beck himself noted, he thought about making this an economic call, but he instead made a social call. His shows and his stands over the last six months have all emphasized social issues, the most divisive on the agenda. Even the claim to be "reclaiming Civil Rights" was a tell in this regard.

But it wasn't a black-white tell. It was a movement tell. Beck is not of the Tea Party. He's of the Taliban party.

This should not be a surprise, but with his earlier emphasis on economic issues it will be to some observers. It shouldn't be a surprise because Beck has always been aligned with the American Taliban. Mormonism is less about belief than about actions, less about what you say than about what you do. Conformity was bred deep into Glenn Beck, and conformity is what those who followed him to Washington are most interested in.

Fact is, black and brown and Indian and Muslim and gay and young and secular Americans don't fit into Glenn Beck's America. There is no place for them there. There is no place for the majority of Americans in Glenn Beck's America, unless we wish to deny our nature.