FRANK RICH: "On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide"

[nostamj]

On 'Moral Values,' It's Blue in a Landslide

FAREWELL to Swift boats and "Shove it!," to Osama's tape and Saddam's missing weapons, to "security moms" and outsourced dads. They've all been sent to history's dustbin faster than Ralph Nader memorabilia was dumped on eBay. In their stead stands a single ambiguous phrase coined by an anonymous exit pollster: "Moral values." By near universal agreement the morning after, these two words tell the entire story of the election: it's the culture, stupid.

"It really is Michael Moore versus Mel Gibson," said Newt Gingrich. To Jon Stewart, Nov. 2 was the red states' revenge on "Will & Grace." William Safire, speaking on "Meet the Press," called the Janet Jackson fracas "the social-political event of the past year." Karl Rove was of the same mind: "I think it's people who are concerned about the coarseness of our culture, about what they see on the television sets, what they see in the movies ..."

And let's not even get started on the two most dreaded words in American comedy, regardless of your party affiliation: Whoopi Goldberg.

There's only one problem with the storyline proclaiming that the country swung to the right on cultural issues in 2004. Like so many other narratives that immediately calcify into our 24/7 media's conventional wisdom, it is fiction. Everything about the election results - and about American culture itself - confirms an inescapable reality: John Kerry's defeat notwithstanding, it's blue America, not red, that is inexorably winning the culture war, and by a landslide. Kerry voters who have been flagellating themselves since Election Day with a vengeance worthy of "The Passion of the Christ" should wake up and smell the Chardonnay.

The blue ascendancy is nearly as strong among Republicans as it is among Democrats. Those whose "moral values" are invested in cultural heroes like the accused loofah fetishist Bill O'Reilly and the self-gratifying drug consumer Rush Limbaugh are surely joking when they turn apoplectic over MTV. William Bennett's name is now as synonymous with Las Vegas as silicone. The Democrats' Ashton Kutcher is trumped by the Republicans' Britney Spears. Excess and vulgarity, as always, enjoy a vast, bipartisan constituency, and in a democracy no political party will ever stamp them out.

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[burythehatchet]

1. That's right Frank

Whoppi Goldberg making a pun out of chipy's name is horrid. Whereas, half of congress inspecting President Clinton's cumshots is somehow a great moral cause. Fuck you asshole.

[Itascapark]

5. Sorry, man

but I think you're way off on your take. Rich is on our side...really.

[nostamj]

6. indeed!

Rich has been hitting them out of the ball park for MONTHS.

his comment about WG was about insane overreaction to insance overreaction (and hypocrisy)

[burythehatchet]

9. Misread, my bad. I've been steaming about David Brooks all morning.

[Itascapark]

10. David Brooks is a little

pimp...I want to throw a rock through the TV every time he appears on PBS.

[snoochie]

2. The whore press strikes again

With all the lazy 'journalists' regurgitating the popular line, is anyone really listening to the truth? Does anyone care?

I need to check out the Daily Howler. Haven't read that in a while.

[coloradodem2005]

3. I don't entirely understand.

What the hell is so good about it.

[Itascapark]

4. This is

almost too good to believe. Wonderful post, thanks, and I'm passing it along.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

7. Great commentary, especially if you bother to read the whole piece

Rich makes the case that Americans favor blue culture to red culture, even in "red states"; and Bush's biggest media backers make a fortune off of the prurient interest that "value voters" say they despise.

I like the wrap-up the best:

If the Republican party's next round of leaders are all cool with blue culture, why should Democrats run after the red? Received Washington wisdom has it that the only Democrat who will ever be able to win a national election must be a cross between Gomer Pyle and Billy Sunday - a Scripture-quoting Sun Belt exurbanite whose loyalty to Nascar does not extend to Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was fined last month for saying a four-letter word on television.

According to this argument, the values voters the Democrats must pander to are people like Cary and Tara Leslie, archetypal Ohio evangelical "Bush votes come to life" apotheosized by The Washington Post right after Election Day. The Leslies swear by "moral absolutes," support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and mostly watch Fox News. Mr. Leslie has also watched his income drop from $55,000 to $35,000 since 2001, forcing himself, his wife and his three young children into the ranks of what he calls the "working poor." Maybe by 2008 some Democrat will figure out how to persuade him that it might be a higher moral value to worry about the future of his own family than some gay family he hasn't even met.

[Itascapark]

8. Yup...great sum-up

Bottom line, in a market ecom., moral abstraction gets trumped every time by comfort level.

[nostamj]

11. they ain't going to take away Jerry Springer

anytime soon.

but, watch for gays to be increasingly marginalized/maliagned in mainstream media and 'popular' culture

[Straight Shooter]

12. Lowest common denominator voters have lowest common denominator values

I want to divide them into extinction.