We might as well be Martians or insects to them.
Posted on 01/02/2014 6:05:04 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
When cable network A&E suspended then reversed-suspended Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, popping off a pop culture tirade that muted national concern for the millions that lost unemployment benefits over the weekend, conservatives got the perfect holiday gift: a bonus Culture War narrative for 2014.
In Duck Dynasty, Republican strategists find gold. With the GOP anxiously battling skeptical grassroots conservatives, worry mounts that the usually active base voters who don’t forget about Congressional midterms won’t turn out. As the trials and tribulations of the Affordable Care Act put Democrats’ Senate majority within striking distance of Republican electoral guns, party messaging magicians will pull every trick they can find to keep red voters fired up. The polling margins are still thin, but right now it’s looking good for Republicans given where they were in October during the government shutdown. Thanks to that trusty Healthcare.gov website – and the somewhat shitty pretentiousness of Americans who weren’t predisposed to give President Obama any elbow room for error anyway – the latest CNN/ORC poll gives the GOP a five point edge over Democrats.
Dismissive Democrats can spit, huff and spin all they want about how the election is 11 months away. But their Republican counterparts are leaving nothing to chance. That means giving restless, mostly white conservatives their very own and very white redneck version of Trayvon Martin, too. Although during this particular round no one really gets hurt – other than the bruised egos of A&E executives who had to capitulate and the painful grimace of various black and LGBT community activists who went in retreat.
Being that the Florida shooting left a sour taste with anxious conservatives who viewed the tragedy as an extension of black people’s unfair monopoly on the political martyr game, Phil Robertson’s First Amendment victimization offered the refreshing retort they’d been searching for.
We’ve been watching the build-ups to such well-scripted political side shows throughout 2013 – from uncompromising Tea Partiers willing to throw dynamite on the global economy to the whiny windbag indignation of conservative cartoons like Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rand Paul (R-KY), Sarah Palin and others. The problem is that while Congressional pissing contests and filibusters might get the rank-and-file all rednecked into a tizzy, it’s not enough to get the general public to sign on. You can’t maneuver the public conversation into a proclamation of Obama-induced reverse racism if the game is baseball.
Hence, the Phil Robertson episode presents an opening for an all-out blitz. It becomes a convenient front line for a very vicious culture messaging war that will dominate the entire 2014 Congressional midterm cycle.
Most reasonable folks might hope for a reasoned and much more productive debate about job growth and how to combat wage inequality. But leave it to conservative creek beavers to gnaw at the edges of the public forum, keeping us all entranced with bullsh*t bloviating sans bills on the kitchen table.
This gets into the real reason A&E reversed its decision: it’s the highest rated show on cable because of that half of the country aligned with the Robertson cultural paradigm. Sure: 55% on average might tolerate homosexuality – but, that’s not settling the issue when 45% don’t, according to Pew Research. That’s a pretty massive number of Americans, more than likely that chunk of the electorate which feels Duck Dynasty is the reprieve they need from a world that’s crumbling all around them.
Should A&E lose that half, they lose a show that pays their bills. Polling firm YouGov found that Duck Dynasty has a 97% reach in the public space, along with a 94% positivity score compared against a very low 37% negativity score. Branding jackpot. That includes the 31% who describe themselves as “born again Christians” and the 46% who view religion as “very important” in their life. And when you get prominent GOP politicians chiming in, you don’t want that kind of static for sure.
In the meantime, while conservative strategists busily go about brewing the perfect political storm, Robertson brilliantly stages a comeback to ensure fresh seasons of redneck hokum ad nauseum. What started off as crazy ended up gaining huge return and audience share … plus a likely contract renewal to keep the bearded empire going. If you didn’t watch Duck Dynasty before, you’re probably going to watch it now just to see what they say and do next. That’s just enough to keep the political brush fires burning through November.
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CHARLES D. ELLISON is a veteran political strategist and Chief Political Correspondent for UPTOWN Magazine. He is also a frequent contributor to The Root and a Chief Political Correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune. He can be reached via Twitter @charlesdellison.
We might as well be Martians or insects to them.
LOL. Are you fecesing me? Republican "strategists" hate Duck Dynasty and their fans just as much as GLAAD does.
(Translation of article) - "Jump into that Briar patch, Republicans! Don't talk about Obamacare or jobs!"
I’m pretty sure if I could understand what the author was talking about, I would disagree with him. He’s way too deep (or something) for a simple man like me to understand him.
Ellison’s an example of a man frustrated by not having married a 15 or 16 year old girl who can pick his ducks.
The author is a moron, but I don’t think sex with a minor is the answer.
I wish I had the ability to write the ultimate counter argument to ‘wealth inequality’ like this:
Do Something!!!!
Charles on his CELL Yall...and hes RIGHT DOWN the STREET form the CAPITAL too.
looks like a used car salesmen on his frst job...and given his sensitivity... insight and skill as a writer....he’d be far better suited to selling HOOPTIES in the hood.
Not any more!...lol
The age for marrying with parental consent is 16 in an overwhelming majority of the United States. It is 12 in Massachusetts!
We are all ‘Phil’!!!
“CHARLES D. ELLISON is a veteran political strategist”
I guess that explains why he’s fulla crap
I was 2 weeks away from 16. I was not mature enough to know better.
That is digusting, if that is true, Massataxes should be nuked from orbit
And what he probably doesn’t know is how many blacks actually watch and like the show.
And the ones over 50 know exactly what he meant.
States allow it if the groom is within X number of years in age and the parents sign off on it. Been that way for centuries. Both of my grandmothers were 14 at their weddings.
That is disgusting though. 12? 14?
These are children.
“States allow it”
Oh well that changes everything. lolz
Try not to judge past generations by the standards of today. Big families were needed on the farms, infant mortality was much higher than today, so a woman had to get started having babies about a day after puberty. We don’t have those conditions now, so we don’t usually have young teen girls marrying young men these days. If something happened to society where we needed large families for labor again, I assure you we’d go back to it quickly.
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