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.

THE VOICES RAGED! Egged on by the shrill boom of Rush Limbaugh’s righteousness, he and his imitators dominated the AM radio dial. His listeners, filled with his words, with his arguments, spoiled for a fight. And Maria, whose family had owned the local pizza for years, said to Ben: “Clinton goes around the country demanding blow-jobs from unsuspecting women.”

“Oh, come on!” Ben said, clutching his pizza box. He was no Clinton-defender. He wasn’t even “into” politics. But the idea Clinton went around the country demanding blowjobs was ridiculous.

“That’s what I heard,” Maria said. “Clinton goes around demanding blow jobs from women. He uses the Secret Service like a bunch of bouncers at a heavy metal concert.”

“Where did you hear this?”
“I have my sources.”
“Rush Limbaugh, huh?”
“Listen to how condescending you are.”
“Right wing radio hosts make stuff up, Maria.”

“So does the liberal media!” she said, vengeance blazing in her eyes. “The only difference is people like Rush and me don’t have fancy Ivy League degrees.”

“I don’t either.”
“So you’ll just have to forgive us regular people for not having the elite education.”

“I don’t have an Ivy League background, either.”
“You went to college.”
“Yeah but I—“

“Even if I don’t have a fancy college degree like you, I still have the right to free speech.”

“I’m not saying you don’t.”

“Oh, I hear you loud and clear. You’re saying toe the liberal media’s line or keep my mouth shut.”

“No, I’m not.” Ben said. Or am I? He wondered, stumbling slightly as he stepped out of the pizzashop’s door.

Sure, Ben reasoned, he’d been a liberal in college. Oh sure, Ben supposed in his heart of hearts he believed in what liberals supposedly believed in.

Justice, equality, freedom and all that stuff. But he’d just wanted to purchase his pizza in peace without being accused of being an elitist, especially because he’d just spent 8 hours in the company of the real elitists.

He turned the corner and headed back up to his apartment.

“Context”, Dennis decided. That was the word. “Context.” Dennis mumbled it and liked the impression it made on his ears. It made him sound, well, as if his readings in American military made him more intellectual. As if they weren’t just rehashings of Khe Sahn, and the Tet Offensive and Operation Linebacker II.

So it was context: that was what was missing between him and Huong. Context could bridge the impossible divide between his 290 lbs of angst and the mystery in Huong’s smile and her rich almond eyes.

People had nothing in common anymore.

They used to.

There was a time in America when a youngish man and a youngish woman would have been able to come together effortlessly at a dance. A time when a guy courted a girl and the conventions were understood. A time when a guy could show a girl his interest through manners.

Through chivalry. There were would have been a functioning society between them. Diverse and wholesome activities to engage in rather than going to country and western pick up bars, or worse, karaoke.

There would have been dances sponsored by clubs and churches. There would be county fairs. Many, many places to encounter each other. Naturally. Without strain. There was context; something we could agree on. Something we could all participate in. There would have been courting.

Whatever happened to an America where regular Americans like Dennis belonged? An America where if a guy liked a girl, he had a place and way to show her without making a fool of himself? It was the Sixties, he decided.

That’s when being cool became the decisive factor. There were cool types. And there were uncool types like himself. And who can you thank for the Sixties? Dennis thought.

The hippies. The fucking hippies and their shiftless offspring: the liberals. Those people broke American culture. There was a time when the country fit together like a big jigsaw puzzle. When everything made a kind of sense.

Now, nothing made a sense. And there wasn’t even one American culture anymore. Just a bunch of multi-cultural PC liberals and everyone else who’d been alienated by them. The PC liberals didn’t break the country into two. They broke it into a hundred different pieces.

Dennis had no idea what kind of life Huong lived. He couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t offend her with his assumptions. And if he couldn’t even take that chance what chance did he have with her?

Huong probably had a boyfriend already, anyway.

Yes, this country was really falling apart.

When a regular good-hearted guy like Dennis doesn’t approach a perfectly attractive and approachable girl like Huong for fear of being alienated for not being culturally PC, then the country really was on the skids, he decided.

Even if Dennis was fat, he meant well and would treat Huong like the princess she was. He knew he would. But he and she were locked in a world where they’d never get the chance for this to happen. They were locked in a PC, multi-cultural world where they never shared enough in common for their relationship to happen.

Thanks a lot liberals, Dennis thought. Thanks a lot, hippies for creating a world where people today can’t even relate to each other.