So today I read Bush's remarks on the passing of Jesse Helms, and I wondered how anyone could say such wrongheaded things:
"Jesse Helms was a kind, decent, and humble man and a passionate defender of what he called "the Miracle of America." So it is fitting that this great patriot left us on the Fourth of July. He was once asked if he had any ambitions beyond the United States Senate. He replied: 'The only thing I am running for is the Kingdom of Heaven.' Today, Jesse Helms has finished the race, and we pray he finds comfort in the arms of the loving God he strove to serve throughout his life."
-- President Bush.
And now, tonight, the Washington Post has answered my question. I should have seen it right away.
Here is why the President decided to praise Jesse Helms in such total, false, and Biblical ways. He spoke in those terms to assist in his fundraising with the neaderthal base of the Republican party. Though John McCain is having trouble raising dough, the Post reports that Bush does phenomenally well, among the pampered and isolated rich.
He [Bush] has already clocked 31 political events this year, raising nearly $70 million for GOP candidates and the national and state parties, according to the Republican National Committee. The tally puts the president on track to meet or exceed the amount he raised before the midterm elections in 2006, according to GOP officials.
-- snip --
But Bush's fundraising prowess is not without its limits, in large part because of his stubbornly low approval ratings. All but four of Bush's fundraising events this year have been held inside closed dinners or behind the tall fences and manicured gardens of wealthy private homes, such as the ones in Jackson and Little Rock. And although several of the most lucrative fundraising events have been held in New York, Los Angeles and the District, a majority have been concentrated in Republican strongholds.
Now, just who is it that is giving Bush all that money behind those tall fences and manicured gardens? This question recalled to mind a truly enlightening 2007 article from the Independent, in which the reporter bravely boarded one of those Alaskan Cruises run by the National Review.
This is what isolated rich white Republicans think like. This is what Jesse Helms represented, and this is the financial base that keeps the Grand Old Party afloat.
I am standing waist-deep in the Pacific Ocean, both chilling and burning, indulging in the polite chit-chat beloved by vacationing Americans. A sweet elderly lady from Los Angeles is sitting on the rocks nearby, telling me dreamily about her son. "Is he your only child?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Do you have a child back in England?" she asks. No, I say. Her face darkens. "You'd better start," she says. "The Muslims are breeding. Soon, they'll have the whole of Europe."
I am getting used to these moments - when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into... what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."
The people who take these cruises, the people behind those tall fences and manicured gardens, are all that is left of fundraising for the Republican party. Whatever John McCain may say in public, this is what actually fuels his campaign. This is whom Bush is getting those checks from.
This is the Republican party, now: a few silver-spoon no-nothing white upper-class jerks who never leave their gated communities and who harbor opinions so outlandish and uneducated that reading them is like reading the minutes of a snake-handler's sermon.
To my left, I find a middle-aged Floridian with a neat beard. To my right are two elderly New Yorkers who look and sound like late-era Dorothy Parkers, minus the alcohol poisoning. They live on Park Avenue, they explain in precise Northern tones. "You must live near the UN building," the Floridian says to one of the New York ladies after the entree is served. Yes, she responds, shaking her head wearily. "They should suicide-bomb that place," he says. They all chuckle gently. How did that happen? How do you go from sweet to suicide-bomb in six seconds?
The conversation ebbs back to friendly chit-chat. So, you're a European, one of the Park Avenue ladies says, before offering witty commentaries on the cities she's visited. Her companion adds, "I went to Paris, and it was so lovely." Her face darkens: "But then you think - it's surrounded by Muslims." The first lady nods: "They're out there, and they're coming." Emboldened, the bearded Floridian wags a finger and says, "Down the line, we're not going to bail out the French again." He mimes picking up a phone and shouts into it, "I can't hear you, Jacques! What's that? The Muslims are doing what to you? I can't hear you!"
So Bush goes to meet these weird backward people in their homes, far from cameras. To hide the fact that the Republican party is really just this; just funded by this. These lonely, weird, wrongheaded losers. These rich jerks.
"Almost without exception, the Republican candidate sneaks Bush in, wants no cameras, no pictures," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "When you have to hide the president, you know you're in trouble."
Yes, they're in trouble, and they're going to lose. But still I hope it keeps some of the Republican campaign organizers up at night, knowing that they're being funded by Bush, and his trips to those paleolithic hideaways. Their party, whatever they say in public, is really depending on this and these people. They are the party of Never Never Land.
Paying homage to dead racist old windbags in order to furtively get money from living racist old windbags living behind manicured gardens. What a sad and pathetic political party the GOP is.