In the Conservative Movement, the Personal Is Apparently Political

Posted by Roy Edroso, Alicublog at 7:52 AM on November 5, 2009.

The following, removed from context, reads like excerpts of what a normal reporter might bring back from Election Night victory/defeat parties. So forget for a moment this is by Stephanie Guttman, one of the new skree-bots at The Corner:

In making his concession speech, Democratic governor Jon Corzine was consoling his followers when he said, “My mother is probably the only one that’s happy tonight. She’s a Republican. She’s 93 years old so, we’re not going to worry too much about that.”

 

The line got a big laugh.

When victorious Republican Chris Christie made his victory speech, he told the story of an elderly constituent he met on the campaign trail. “He said to me, ‘I’m 90 years old, and I’m going to vote for you. But you better do what you promise. Because if you don’t, I’m going to vote against you in another four years.’”

And now Guttman twists the lens filter to give you that scary polarized effect:

The line also got a big laugh, but it sounded more joyous, less sneering, and less subtly derisive.

Whu-huh...

Just a straw in the wind, but the Corzine remark mirrors a callousness, a coarse attitude about the “dispensability” of the aged, that one sees in the debate over health-care reform.

Not only do Democrats (even rich ones like Corzine who can afford to keep them in nice homes far away) want to kill their mothers -- they also tell mean, health-care-debate-like jokes about it.

It's what we call in the biz "working blue state."

You see all those liberal funnymen doing it: making cruel fun of fat people, dumb people, and people who suffer from that terrible condition where they're constantly slipping on banana peels.

You won't catch Ann Coulter using material like that! That's why she goes over so well with the church groups.

Also, Republican laughter is "joyous," whereas liberal laughter is "sneering." I don't know what sneering laughter sounds like -- maybe I should get a tape recorder and leave it running while I'm reading Confederate Yankee, and find out. Maybe we all sound like Muttley, and those audience reactions on The Daily Show are pre-recorded by joyous conservatives and piped in to make Stewart's liberal fans sound human.

I am very overworked, and it is both a blessing and a curse to have subjects that never get less crazy. When I started this blog they were saying a lot of insane things, but mostly about the war and patriotism. Then -- maybe it's just that I started noticing it -- they started to do this thing where everything, including painting, food, TV shows , sports teams, neighborhoods, etc. was judged either "conservative" or "not conservative."

Now they're making up ideologically specific ways of joking and laughing. It can't be healthy for either of us.

Tagged as: conservatives, corzine, christie

Roy Edroso is the proprietor of Alicublog.