Dittohead

H/T to Driftglass for combining the monster with the rock band so well

Not to date myself but this song was my first exposure to Rush Limbaugh's thinking. I was a little too young to understand irony and satire at the time despite being a fan of George Carlin and Monty Python. In a way, interpreting the lyrics the way I did is decent evidence that intelligent people can fall victim to authoritarian propaganda. I was basically scared that this was prophetic, that violent criminals would overrun the country and the cops would not be able to stop it. I guess even today, well-meaning people get it wrong. This song is not meant to be taken literally, it is satirizing what came out of Limbaugh's mouth a couple of hours a day about the criminal justice system and how his dittohead followers interpreted the news. Yes, there was a crime wave that peaked in the early nineties and TV news sensationalized travesties of justice so that the impression of many Americans was that crime was out-of-control well beyond the great downward trajectory of violent crime rates. Limbaugh got mileage out of this frame for decades, doughfacedonny's inaugural speech about American Carnage directly parrots the story sold to credulous white, rural boomers by Limbaugh and the right wing noise machine for a long time.

   

Men die all the time, but the evil they do can have an impact long after they go to hell. Limbaugh may not have been that relevant in the age of doughfacedonny's fascism but he honed and programmed an entire generation of right-wing authoritarian followers to the point that they reflexively spout his rhetoric, loudly, at every opportunity. I can only hope that a tiny fraction of the suffering Limbaugh's venom has caused our society, our democracy, the idea of America and a more perfect union is revisited upon it's opportunistic progenitor during his cancer treatment. To use a tried and true Limbaugh tactic of inoculation, I know I should not speak ill of other people when they are suffering. But why not? Dittoheads cheered when Ted Kennedy died, they used 9/11 as a cudgel to attack and demean anyone who dared question republicans, increasingly irrelevant Ann Coulter tried to capture some Limbaugh magic by saying 9/11 widows were self-obsessed millionaires and "enjoying their husbands' deaths" because it made them celebrities, Limbaugh has a long list of racist remarks on the air and laughed after calling President Clinton's daughter a dog. Why would anyone expect you to treat someone with respect if that individual spent a career gleefully shredding that very concept. When they go low, you should stomp on them. Being above that is why 63 million dittoheads supported the chief dittohead for president and have suffered no repercussions for it.

Rush Limbaugh is the epitome of every rotten baby boomer characteristic there is. Draft-dodger, college dropout, drug addict, lazy, opinionated while knowing nothing, and bully are a few descriptors for these boomers. They abused the system their parents and grandparents fought and suffered to build, took no responsibility for their poor choices because that system always bailed them out, were never stimulated or forced to learn more but always acted like an authority on every subject, and now have been busy ripping up that system to enrich themselves while consigning their children and grandchildren to a hot, chaotic, and impoverished future. Limbaugh was a failure in broadcasting until events aligned in such a way that he could take advantage of those vices to reap untold wealth and power by lying and flattering the prejudices of people just like him. If AM radio had not reinvented itself as a profitable propaganda machine that could fly under the radar of the rest of society, Limbaugh would be suffering late stage cancer in obscurity and may have garnered some sympathy. Doughfacedonny would still be a bridge and tunnel guy if Limbaugh hadn't made millions priming the rubes to hate their country, democracy, and the rule of law.

And that my friends is telling it like it is.