Houston, February 19, 2006
This morning I stumbled into the kitchen just before "Mace the Nation" to see Tom DeLay's smiling face on TV. Right away a grainy black and white photo of George Soros came up, while the whispering announcer told us how evil liberal baby-killers were being funded by a damn feriner. Then back to Tom, looking better than his mug shot, while the announcer said that DeLay is protecting Texas Conservative Values.
Were this a creative writing class I'd say I vomited and went back to bed, but I only groaned and poured a cup of coffee.
For the 22 years I've been living in Houston, Tom DeLay has been a nauseating reminder of the narrow-minded backward ignorance of some of this area's white middle-class residents. When DeLay first ran for Congress, or maybe the second time, I witnessed local political candidates debating on public TV. DeLay would take a question, state how he would fight against abortions or another conservative anathema, then turn to the camera with a smile and say, "Because that's what the people of Texas want."
Gag.
It's hard to tell in this state whether people are gullible enough to believe that DeLay knows what they want or if the political machine is so corrupt that the people's desires are irrelevant. Maybe both. But it was eye-opening for me that these patronizing tactics work. Later I saw even more obvious examples with Willie Horton, which Michael Dukakis discounted with an astonished "Nobody can take this seriously" attitude. Apparently they could, and they did.
The majority of the residents DeLay represents live in the aptly-named lily-white suburb of Sugarland. They are stressed-out upper-middle-class commuters who work long hours trying to protect their jobs from outsourcing so they and their spouses can continue to make payments on their oversized homes and put gas in the tank of their SUV's, all of which have oval white "W '04" stickers on the rear glass. They take the Southwest Freeway to work and back, sit in traffic alone on the way home, listen to conservative talk radio or FM music - no liberal commie pinko NPR listeners here - call their young children on their cell phones and ask if they are safe by themselves and will have on their soccer uniforms and be ready to hit the door when Mommy pulls in the driveway. Nevermind Daddy - he can't help. He's working late and will grab some food on the way home. These residents don't have time to analyze the lies of Tom DeLay or the merits of George Soros. They're wondering if they can fix food before bedtime. They joined the GOP while in college because it was the right thing to do, and voted for DeLay because they did in the last election.
(A huge number of DeLay's constituents live in a planned community called "First Colony" which they like because they live near lots of people like themselves, taxes are low, and schools, churches and grocery stores are nearby. I wonder if the "plan" of this community was to strap people to a mortgage for 15 years, work them to death, and tell them this is the American Republican Dream.)
Will George Soros be an effective enemy of the people for DeLay's district? Will district 22 touch-screen voting machines register votes for DeLay that were intended for a Democratic opponent? Is this scenario played out all over the country under different names?
You betcha.