by Warren Longwell

Created on: August 31, 2010   Last Updated: September 01, 2010

Last week my wife and I saw a 1984 Ford pickup truck with a hunting rifle in the back window and a bumper sticker that read, Palin-Beck 2012. My wife asked me if I thought that such a ticket had any chance of becoming a reality. I told her that I would answer that question after the Beck-Palin pep rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, August 28th, and several days after that event I told my wife I was convinced that Palin and Beck could well become the future of the Republican political leadership. For white conservatives, it’s hard to disagree with their message of restoring the honor of the United States, which basically is just euphemistic wording for a call to recapture the America of the 1950s when they were freely allowed to trounce on Negros and communists.

There’s one small problem. Anyone who isn’t black-skinned or communist would love to go back to those prosperous and optimistic days before Vietnam and Watergate when everyone could find a well-paying job and immigration wasn’t a dirty word. But those days are gone forever. The well-paying jobs in the United States went to Mexico, and Mexico (or at least a big part of it) came to the United States. Somewhere between the 1965 escalation in Vietnam and the criminally unlawful invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States of America lost its virginity. And virginity never can be regained. It is just wishful thinking to look at a drug-addicted, middle-age whore and think that she can go back to her adolescence of sweet innocence.

At the rally in Washington D.C. on August 28th, Glenn Beck wasted no time in bringing God on board to help solidify his cause, and while he didn’t specify which God, it was a sure bet that he meant the one who goes by the name of Jesus Christ. This isn’t the first time that these two forces, the white Christian conservatives and the Lord and Savior of All Mankind, have teamed up to restore the honor of the United States. In the past, their cooperative efforts involved the wearing of white robes and hooded masks and the burning of crosses. The cross burning was to let everyone know that Jesus was OK with the whole “honor restoration” thing.

It’s just a little curious to me that these people choose to restore America’s honor at the very time when the nation elects the first black man to the Presidency. Where was their concern about honor during the Bush administration when the entire world considered the United States of America to be something of a “scumbag” country? Oh wait. Now I remember. Bush was white and Christian.

The Palin-Beck crowd seems to think that flag waving patriotism and ubiquitous Christianity can carry America back to greatness, and with 30% of young Americans lacking a high school education, and about 14% of all Americans unemployed, a gullible and frustrated pool of eager believers is certainly there to receive the Palin-Beck message. Only time will tell if there are enough of these people to win a major election for a populist ticket like Palin-Beck, but at this point I wouldn’t bet against it.

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