GOP’s “Duck Dynasty” problem: Why Phil Robertson was a hugely important political story (Unreal)

Salon ^ | January 3, 2014 | Brian Beutler

[2ndDivisionVet]

I was on vacation for the last two weeks of December, and off the grid for most of that time. Upon my return, I found I’d missed a bunch of dumb stories, along with some real news that will ultimately prove fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The final Obamacare delays of 2013, along with the December enrollment figures, are at home in the latter category. The revelation that my friend Matt Yglesias invented a fake baby to get Amazon’s Mom discount was more typical of the former.

There’s actually wide agreement among my peers who cover national politics that the last half of December was a news dead zone, which journalists endured by building totems out of trivia, and compiling top 10 lists.

I mostly agree with this assessment, but part ways with those who dismiss the importance of the “Duck Dynasty” dust-up.

McKay Coppins ✔ @mckaycoppins

How grateful I am this holiday season that I was mostly on vacation during the Duck Dynasty debate. Indeed, I am richly blessed.

8:53 PM - 27 Dec 2013 from Hull, MA, United States

On the contrary, if there’s one story I wish I’d been on hand to watch unfold in real time, it’s the “Duck Dynasty” debate. If you write about politics for a living, and you were bored by the “Duck Dynasty” story, or wrote it off like you might write off a gaffe or some other creation of the outrage industry, you’re in the wrong line of work. Phil Robertson’s comments about gay and black people and social welfare — and the way they pierced public consciousness — explain more about our country’s political culture than almost anything else that happened all year.

For the uninitiated, Robertson is the super-rich but conspicuously déclassé inventor of a life-like call for duck hunters. “Duck Dynasty” is a reality show that purports to expose the tension between his family’s wealth and its poor, rural roots. Like if the Clampetts had decided to stick around the hills of Bug Tussle after Uncle Jed’s fortuitous misfire, rather than move to Beverly Hills.

On the off chance that you were also in another country last month or spent December arguing with your family about Obamacare, these are Robertson’s most explosive comments.

“I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field…. They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’ — not a word! … Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

And then on homosexuality: “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men …. Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God. Don’t deceive yourself. It’s not right …. We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell. That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus — whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”

It was later revealed that Robertson also once said gay people are “full of murder, envy, strife, hatred. They are insolent, arrogant, God-haters. They are heartless, they are faithless, they are senseless, they are ruthless. They invent ways of doing evil.”

These sentiments are ugly and wrong for reasons other writers (see Josh Barro and Ta Nehisi Coates) explained at length as the controversy was unfolding. As such, A&E, the network that produces “Duck Dynasty,” suspended Robertson indefinitely and, in so doing, teed up one fairly boring entertainment industry story, and one fascinating political firestorm.

Robertson’s comments don’t fly in most of America. If Robertson were, say, running for Senate in Missouri as a Republican, the GOP would have disowned him immediately. But Robertson isn’t a politician. He’s not a mouthpiece for a political party that needs to maintain a national brand identity. Rather, his remarks reflect the views of an American cultural subset the GOP depends on for its survival. His suspension made him a tribune of modern conservatism. Thus, conservative Republicans (not just opportunists like Sarah Palin, but party standard-bearers) felt impelled to rally to his side without actually echoing anything Robertson said.

“If you believe in free speech or religious liberty, you should be deeply dismayed over the treatment of Phil Robertson,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “Phil expressed his personal views and his own religious faith; for that, he was suspended from his job. In a free society, anyone is free to disagree with him — but the mainstream media should not behave as the thought police censoring the views with which they disagree.”

“The politically correct crowd is tolerant of all viewpoints, except those they disagree with,” said Gov. Bobby Jindal, R-La. “I don’t agree with quite a bit of stuff I read in magazine interviews or see on TV. In fact, come to think of it, I find a good bit of it offensive. But I also acknowledge that this is a free country and everyone is entitled to express their views.”

Republicans are getting extremely good at defending the right’s cultural revanchism on fictitious Constitutional grounds rather than on the merits. In addition to Robertson, they also support private companies fighting a government requirement that employee healthcare compensation include contraceptive coverage — not because they have a problem with birth control mind you but because something something religious freedom.

But of course by focusing so narrowly on birth control, these Republicans prove too much. If certain religious objectors should be exempt from the contraception mandate then other religious objectors should be allowed to ignore other laws that supposedly conflict with their beliefs. And that obviously would invite chaos.

The fact is a ton of conservatives — and a lot of Republican politicians — don’t like birth control, and certainly don’t want to subsidize other people’s contraception. But saying so and explaining why are not good public communications strategies — as Rush Limbaugh learned in 2012. So they disguise their real views beneath flimsy Constitutional arguments.

Phil Robertson’s Republican defenders are doing the same thing, on much weaker logical ground, to champion wildly more impolitic views: that homosexuality is an evil sin, and that things in the South were great for black people before social welfare programs came along. You won’t hear a lot of Republicans saying these things so plainly. But a lot of Republicans believe them. Republicans want to amend the Constitution to prohibit gay marriage across the country. And of all the social spending programs in the country they’re itching to cut or dismantle, the ones that disproportionately benefit poor minorities top the list. It’s no coincidence that Republicans are much more timid and cagey when it comes to slashing programs like Medicare and Social Security that benefit people who look like Phil Robertson but didn’t happen to strike it rich.

The GOP’s key dilemma right now is that it has to be a party for people like Robertson without letting people like Robertson speak for them. Which is why the party retrogressed to its old agenda so quickly after the 2012 election, and why it can’t eliminate its Todd Akin problem simply by putting Republicans through finishing school.

[bmwcyle]

Hi I'm stupid.

[Graybeard58]

�I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I�m with the blacks, because we�re white trash. We�re going across the field�. They�re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, �I tell you what: These doggone white people� � not a word! � Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.�

Ditto for me, almost exactly word for word. I'm 68 and from the south, I believe Phil may be a couple of years younger but we had identical experiences.

[Arm_Bears]

The “leaders” were wimps even when we had majorities.

[2ndDivisionVet]

He’s 67.

[2ndDivisionVet]

We’re still in the majority, barely.

[Edward Teach]

"I am increasingly convinced that the writers at Salon take LSD before sitting down to write these pieces."

Their readers definitely ought to as well before reading that farcical drivel.

[exit82]

The GOP has at least two Duck Dynasty-related problems from where I sit: 1) Most of the GOP “leaders” in DC were resolutely silent when it came to supporting Mr. Phil (still are, as a matter of fact); and, 2) These same GOP “leaders” have declared war on the people who did support Mr. Phil and who, by the way, the GOP needs if it expects to win a national election ever again.Well said, and worth repeating.

And these GOP-E-ers are going to push amnesty in the Spring, which will be the death knell of the GOP and of America.

Can a second American Revolution be far behind?

[CharlesWayneCT]

Wow, so many wrong things. Like that it is conservatives who oppose birth control, as if the Catholics in this country don’t vote half the time for democrats.

Or that there aren’t already a lot of laws that we provide religious exceptions for.

Like, did Brian never read about “conscientious objectors”? Or notice tax breaks for charitable giving? Or how the Amish are treated by Obamacare? Or how Muslims have special rights for stuff?

[FredZarguna]

[if] religious objectors should be allowed to ignore other laws that supposedly conflict with their beliefs. And that obviously would invite chaos.

Like most of the writers at Salon and other left-wing blogs, the author invites the ridicule of educated people by talking about Constitutional issues when he clearly knows nothing about them.

This question has been dealt with numerous times over the history of the Republic. So many times, in fact, that the Supreme Court has a specific test it requires the Federal Judiciary to apply in cases that involve the conflict between Constitutionally valid statutes and strong Constitutional principles.

The standard is called "Strict Scrutiny." Under Strict Scrutiny, if a Federal court accepts the validity of a Constitutional argument against a law, the sole recourse of the Federal Solicitor is to prove that the state has a compelling national interest in waiving the Constitutional protection.

If the author actually bothered to research the topics he comments on, he would know that.

It will be very difficult for the government to show that there is a compelling state interest in the government contraceptive mandate since: a) birth control is easily and cheaply available outside of medical insurance b) the employee can easily find employment somewhere else without compelling her employer to violate his conscience and c) the government itself has no compelling public health, public safety, prosecutorial, or national security interest in providing contraception.

Again, the author would have known these arguments if he were something other than a brainless commentator talking to other brainless members of his tribe.

[A_Former_Democrat]

“Sad news, folks. Brian Beutler, the Washington correspondent for the Media Consortium and a frequent contributer to this site and this blog, was shot three times yesterday in a failed mugging in Northwest Washington DC. Brian is in the hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. Brian’s editor, Adele Stan, wrote this after visiting Brian in the hospital:

Funny thing about being a journalist: your job is to write about people and mayhem and trauma, but let any of those touch you directly, and it becomes a different game.”

[2ndDivisionVet]

Link?

[Graybeard58]

I believe the queers got so upset with Phil because he used graphic, accurate but not obscene language to describe what they do to each other and they’d rather have the uninformed, naive person believe that they are all about “hugs” and “warm” feelings for others of their own sex, rather than words like “penis” and “anus” to describe their perversions.

[A_Former_Democrat]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2008/07/blogger-brian-beutler-shot-expected-make-full-recovery

[Zeppo]

I found I’d missed a bunch of dumb stories, along with some real news that will ultimately prove fairly unimportant in the grand scheme of things. The final Obamacare delays of 2013, along with the December enrollment figures, are at home in the latter category.

Another case of a lefty "whistling past the graveyard."

He instinctually understands (painfully well, at a gut level) that Obamacare has been an unparalleled disaster to movement leftism that will keep on paying benefits to Conservatives for years to come, but as a devoted leftist he can not possibly bear staring the truth in the face, so he invents fairy tales to keep him and his fellow travelers content and 'gruntled'.

[A_Former_Democrat]

These “journ-O-lists” especially the young ones, don’t know squat about the Constitution. To them it’s just selective enforcement (they’d scream about “Freedom of press” or speech when it fits the agenda) . . .

Or the ends justifying the means (abortion = “privacy”)

[Delmarksman]

Since no one has said it yet...
Phil Robertson for President.

I for one, and everyone that I know would vote for him over ANY in the current establishment.

[Jim Robinson]

You have a problem with FR?

[GSWarrior]

The loony left and its enablers in the media are bent on making this part of a referendum against Republican candidates this November.

[Jedidah]

Those offended by Phil’s remarks about homosexuality are, in truth, unwilling to accept that he is merely quoting from scripture.

Romans 1: 24-32 —

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

[Farnsworth]

I have a problem with censorship.
I created an alternate tile and one of your users pitched a tantrum. I have seen other articles with customized titles, so I figured it was OK. If it isn’t, then I expect my suspension to be equally applied. If not, then yes, I do have a problem with FR.
I have been on MANY liberal sites and I didn’t expect such a minor thing to get some peoples panties in a wad.
FR is one of the few places conservatives can go without getting a train pulled on them by liberals. It’s nice to have a forum for similar and like minded people to go, thats the great and rare thing about FR.