The Tyranny Of Marketing

You can pretty much just count this as another in a long line of self-promotional segements where Hannity talks about how fantastic Levin's book sales are and then attempts to lead into a serious discussion about how the country is going straight to hell.



The secret to Levin's book sales actually isn't a secret at all. Publishers often buy out massive quantities of book to give away. You can visiti virtually any conservative website and see ads on how to "get a copy free" of whatever ream of right-wing blather is currently out. When publishing houses do this, it moves the book up the best-seller charts faster than you can say "grass-roots-movement".

How else do you think people like Levin, O'Reilly, and Coulter can "sell" so many books when they all say the same thing?

But back to Levin's claim that Obama is destroying the US.

Almost as a correlary to Godwin's Law, Levin is ever eager to compare Obama to any and everyone "bad" in the world without the first shred of solid evidence. His evidence, however, is that Obama is using "foreign" meaures in order to govern and bring about change in America.

The very idea that something is "foreign" is always a frightening aspect to right-wing conservatives. The word itself opperates on multiple levels.

In one aspect, some that is "foreign" means that it is different, it upsets the staus quo - the very aspects of life and governance in America that conservatives are intent on clinging to until they draw their last breaths. It doesn't matter than many of these policies, these ideals, that they hold on to are outdated, or faulty, or simply prevent the country from progressing, because they create the illusion of safety - that the country is so perfect that nothing should be changes.

The other way in which "foreign" is such a buzz-word for conservatives that causes them to collectively soil themselves is their abject contempt ( bordering on hatred ) of people not born in America. No matter if the discussion is over immigration, the way another country approaches healthcare or their economic state, to even the way in which they manufacture cars to met specific emissions standards, conservatives take a nativist approach and will always - always - claim that nothing in American should be change simply because this is America.

It is this isolationist point of view that has caused the conservative movement to see itself on the verge of imploding over the last few years. They have already lost on many fronts and are now so disoriented that they are willing to say and do virtually anything in order to remain relevant within their own minds.