A major American political party, shorn of all moderating influence, has finally, unalterably, gone insane. The striking thing is how many of the estimated 15,000 journalists who were with me in Tampa for the 2012 convention were missing this story of a lifetime\u2014one sixty years in the making.<\/p>\n
To be fair, the dramaturgy confused a lot of observers. After all, when I arrived inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum, the fellow onstage singing \u201cGod Bless the USA\u201d was such a big black teddy bear of a man\u2014and \u201cGod Bless the USA\u201d seems like such an ideologically neutral, innocuous, goose-pimply kind of tune\u2014that it would be easy to miss the blindingly reactionary stanza with which this anthem, featured at every last Republican and Tea Party rally, begins:<\/p>\n
If tomorrow all the things were gone I\u2019d worked for all my life,<\/p>\n
And I had to start again with just my children and my wife,<\/p>\n
I\u2019d thank my lucky stars to be living here today,<\/p>\n
Because the flag still stands for freedom, and they can\u2019t take that away.<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m proud to be an American, where at least I know I\u2019m free\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Think about that lyric. A man\u2019s security is wiped from the face of the earth. That passes without further comment: shit happens. In any other civilized nation, government protections\u2014decent unemployment insurance, national healthcare, good public education, childcare\u2014make such a thing unimaginable. But in America, Old Glory is the only consolation a patriarch needs. It\u2019s almost a privilege to be wiped out here.<\/p>\n
Mitt Romney\u2019s father, whom Mitt claims to revere, called this cult of rugged individualism a \u201cpolitical banner to cover up greed.\u201d President Obama made a mild feint toward a more robust vision of collective obligation in a speech in July, when he pointed out that \u201cif you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help\u201d: teachers taught you, infrastructure served you, firefighters protected you, government research gave you tools like the Internet. \u201cSome things we do better together,\u201d the president added, like building \u201cthe Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam.\u201d Obama also uttered the fateful line \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a business, you didn\u2019t build that.\u201d Republicans willfully misheard the \u201cthat\u201d to refer to the businesses themselves\u2014which meant Obama was crapping on every American entrepreneur who\u2019d ever lived. And upon that rickety claim, the 2012 convention built its entire rhetorical appeal. God bless the USA.<\/p>\n
Mia Love, a small-town mayor running for Congress from Utah, kicked it off: \u201cThis is the America we know,\u201d she said, jabbing her finger, \u201cbecause we built it.\u201d It got a solid thirty seconds of applause, as delegates waved their party-provided \u201cWe Built It\u201d signs. \u201cYes, we did,\u201d she punctuated, Obama style, letting another eight seconds of rapturous applause ride. Country singer Lane Turner sang a brand-new song written for the convention, \u201cI Built It.\u201d The titanic job creator Janine Turner\u2014a radio host who played Maggie on the TV show Northern Exposure, last on the air when today\u2019s 18-year-old voters were in diapers (for connoisseurs of D-list celebrity, a Republican convention is the place to be)\u2014cried, \u201cAnd President Obama, I\u2019m here to tell ya, government didn\u2019t build it. God and the American people built it!\u201d (That Palin-style \u201cya\u201d is in the remarks-as-prepared-for-delivery press release.) She said this in front of one of the set\u2019s recurring images, an inspiring earth-toned collage that included the government-built Gateway Arch.<\/p>\n
Yes, the entire theme was a lie, and that shouldn\u2019t pass unremarked. More extraordinary, however, is this: if you\u2019re not among the small percentage of Americans who own a business, or don\u2019t aspire to become one, you were invisible to the people on that podium in Tampa. That applies if you are a first responder, a social worker, a carpenter, an airline pilot, an artist, a lawyer\u2014even a soldier (Mitt Romney\u2019s acceptance speech never mentioned the word \u201cAfghanistan\u201d). But especially if you are a worker.<\/p>\n