Sixty minutes of great football, some good and mostly decent commercials, the equivalent of eighty million dollars in free publicity for Madonna and one two minute chrysler commercial. That one two minute long, twelve million dollar Chrysler commercial has caused quite the stir, it offended Karl Rove.
Former Deputy Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush was offended by the so called "Chicago style thug politics" that Clint Eastwood and Chrysler portray in the two minute super bowl ad. Showing a revitalized Detroit, the American Automobile industry rising like the Phoenix from a united effort, not a faux free market solution has offended the mouthpiece who not only helped create the economic conditions that led to the financial meltdown, but the social atmosphere where blaming those whose labor capital, not financial capital helped build America. Chicago style thug politics had nothing to do with the revival of the US Auto industry, Americans coming together as a whole, labor, management and Government succeeded, and when two of those three are successful, conservatives everywhere are offended.
The conservative model that Karl Rove espouses, is in my opinion the the true chicago thug style model; that thug being the market based idolatry of the Chicago economic thought. Turning the worker into as much a replaceable part as a pin or a screw has created great wealth for the few whose access to capital is greater than the labor they can provide. After the Chicago style legalized criminality of marketplace idolatry helped bring America back to the brink of the 1929 abyss, all we get from the right is more supply side amnesia.
Tossing logic, and reason to special interests, the Republicans have portrayed the middle class as the perpetrator, who with the help of an overreaching Government forced the banks to make subprime loans, forced corporations to give into demands of unions forcing jobs to be sent overseas. Those who made money hand over fist selling the American dream are not to be blamed, just the poor sap who bought the pitch. The supply sided mind frame is up in arms, terrified to carry the cross of a society they abandoned in search of greater wealth.
If anyone should be offended at the current state of America, it should be the American people. While Democrats are scurrying around trying to reclaim the mandate of the working people, Republicans are demanding a purer ideological atmosphere that puts corporate freedom over individuals, turns the middle class into a second class of citizenry, drives historic prejudices, and merges corporate and state interests with all the belligerent nationalism one can handle. Chrysler offends Karl Rove because it shows what happens when we come together as a people, where the special interest is America, not business. Detroit has shown us what we can accomplish together. As former Speaker Tip O’Neil once said “Democracy can’t work if it’s every person for himself or herself”.