The Fantasy Years

WITH FREEDOM UNLEASHED, the Dittoheads could read whatever news source they liked and take every breathless word of it as gospel, whether it had anything to do with reality or not. They could take everything they were told at face value as long as they knew it wasn’t liberal. And they could dismiss every bit of news from the liberal media because it wasn’t told to them by Rush Limbaugh. And if the facts conflicted with their worldview, well, there was a term for that, too. The facts were “political correct.” And the Dittoheads weren’t buying them. Any of them:

“Rush is right about one thing: liberals get furious if you don’t agree with them” said a voice in Dallas.

“You should have seen my wife’s friend when I told her feminism was just a plot to allow ugly women access to mainstream society,” said another.

“You should have seen my nephew in college when I told him that Clinton killed someone.”

“Or my wife’s feminist friend when I told her abortion should be outlawed!”
“Or that Hillary is a dyke.”
“And that abortion should be illegal especially in cases of rape and incest!”
“And that Chelsea is ugly!” said a voice in Colorado.
“And Janet Reno is another lesbo!” from a voice in Maine.
“And Vince Foster did not die by his own hand!” a voice in Virginia exclaimed.
“But Clinton uses Secret Service agents like roadies!” said a voice in Georgia.
“And yet those liberals get mad when you tell them!”
“They can’t bear the truth!”

This was proof! The liberals’ response to these ideas was proof the liberals were wrong. And what did Rush fans get out of the liberals being wrong? What did they get out of digesting and regurgitating Rush’s all over anyone willing to listen? Fun.

They got to have fun because it was fun having opinions. It was fun for people to be experts about politics from information they got on the radio. It was particularly fun to know something, to believe something in a life that had gone pointless, in a wide open country that had grown fat and directionless, a country that had become unmoored and enemy-less.

“Welfare pays people to stay poor.”

“No it doesn’t!” the liberal voice in upstate, New York said.

“Welfare pays people to say poor. If it doesn’t then why are there still poor people?”

“What?”

“If liberals created welfare to supposedly help poor people because liberals are all-so-morally superior how come the poor never got richer?”

The liberal was stumped – silent with vexation — and the Dittohead smiled triumphantly. The fact that they had no comeback was proof that he was wrong.

So was the conversation in Center City, Philadelphia,
“Hate to break it to you, Clinton has no moral authority.”
“Not to you.”
“Here’s a man who had state troopers round up women he wanted to have sex with.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s in the press. Everyone knows it. But that’s how it is with your liberals: Everything is permissible.”
“That’s not true.”
“Sure it is. Liberals don’t believe in the rule of law.”
“Yes, we do.”
“Not these days. Not according to my sources. Liberals want to do whatever feels good. Hate to break it to you, that’s how liberals are.”

And the liberal, steaming with anger could only deny it. And denying it only proved to the Dittohead that what he believed of liberals was true because if it weren’t true, why would the liberal be so upset?

Liberals tore their hair out after these conversations. They beat their fists into their hands as they walked away. They gritted their teeth.

They shook their heads in vigorous disapproval but when they did, they were only talking to themselves because liberals had no mass form of entertainment to unify them with the same message. So their retorts came as dismissive waves and bitter hisses between individuals, in their own words, in the privacy of small groups.

Liking Rush Limbaugh was some kind of social disorder, they’d conclude, like people who wore camouflage in their daily life, or domestic abuse, or how hate crimes surged in times of high unemployment.

Like that Because beyond disparaging the Dittoheads in their totality, it was no fun for liberals to dwell on how the Dittoheads always had a readymade comeback for anything a liberal could say.

“People who listen to Rush Limbaugh don’t know what they’re saying… They’re angry, ill informed people…”

“You can’t have a serious political discussion with them,” and so they didn’t have to be taken seriously. Because they weren’t well enough informed to know what they were talking about. And so they weren’t to be dignified by being taken seriously.

Liberals, however, failed to note one detail of the Dittoheads in their hurry to dismiss them: Dittoheads voted. In high numbers.

Don certainly didn’t trust white liberals. He didn’t trust white moderates, either. He didn’t trust white moderate presidents, either. Oh, no. He didn’t trust the white senators or the white congressmen.

He didn’t trust the white Supreme Court judges or Clarence Thomas either. But then again, Don didn’t trust white bailiffs and white law school deans. He certainly didn’t trust policemen whether they were white or black. He didn’t trust the way they looked at him. He didn’t even trust the way they dressed these days.

Cops had always been threatening but they used to dress like they belonged on city streets, in parks, in the civilian world.

Don noticed that more and more cops dressed for combat. If cops were going to dress for confrontation, their most likely victims of excessive force, police brutality, wrongful arrest and misidentification should dress for the confrontation too.

Like the Black Panthers did.

Don’s Uncle Ken had been in the Black Panthers. He had a picture of his Uncle Ken when he was a Panther. That’s how the family story went. Uncle Ken had been a Black Panther back in the Sixties out in California, where he lived.

Don had seen the picture. Just the way they dressed struck fear into the hearts of white people. Stuck fear, like how those cops dressed for combat did today.

And what did white people fear in the Black Panthers? Probably that they wanted just what anyone else wanted in this racist society. They wanted to live. And they wanted their own dignity.