The term boomer has been thrown around a lot lately. As it turns out, anyone can be a boomer. You don’t actually have to be part of that generation. Anyone is capable of eating up mainstream, corporate talking points and thinking that they’re on the cutting edge. This is the essence of being a boomer.
Politicians are very good at playing to this impulse. Look at some recent political ads. These people are great at co-opting real, spirited grassroots movements and hollowing them out from the inside. Every movement eventually becomes a grift. This is a truism no matter what the movement is. Look at the America First Policy Institute. What sounds like an institutional home for America First policies has been hollowed out from the inside.
The populist movement that got Donald Trump elected in 2016 has been co-opted since Trump became the Republican nominee. Opportunistic politicians hitched their wagons to MAGA in order to show the base that they were now interested in representing the people, rather than those writing the fattest checks to their super-PACs.
Even boomer-cons understand that Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and other vocal anti-Trump Republicans will side with the “Uniparty”, but there are plenty of MAGA-signaling Republicans who do the same. They’re just smarter about it.
This is something that I failed to notice early on. Maybe I didn’t want to notice it. Anyone who watches too much Hannity probably has a hard time with this concept. Sorry, Mom.
If you know any conservative voters, there’s a good chance that they supported the Trump agenda. It is important that we explain that just because a politician has an R by their name, and they say things that sound good, doesn’t mean that they are any different from any other Uniparty, globalist, corporate shill. I am currently explaining to my boomer parents that Kevin McCarthy is not that different from Nancy Pelosi, minus the plastic surgery.
How to spot the Con Inc. grift
Anti-cancel culture virtue signaling
Conservatives have complained, and rightly so, that GOP leadership has failed to conserve much of anything. A fast food chain that believes in traditional marriage is constantly under attack from woke zealots. But rest assured, beltway Republicans are on it! You just have to give them money first.
In addition to this, there was also a lot of GOP virtue signaling about freedom for Cuba several weeks ago while Cubans protested their oppressive regime. The usual suspects took to Twitter to show solidarity with Cubans and against communism. However, they’re relatively silent when tech oligarchs silence dissenting voices.
When you see the pattern, it’s hard to unsee.
Fighting “socialism” and “big government”
I am certainly no fan of the idea of socialism and would love the government to shrink by orders of magnitude, but to suggest that socialism is a real problem that America faces is missing the point.
Socialism is a convenient anchor word for GOP campaigns and fundraising. Labeling something “socialist” has some utility. People are afraid of socialism, so threatening about its rise can be a good strategy. There are open socialists in Congress, and we can all acknowledge that their policies would be a disaster.
However, this is often used to deflect from crony capitalism, the broken monetary system, or as an excuse to not intervene in the private sector (i.e. regulating big tech, banning private companies from imposing vaccine mandates).
Haley is the epitome of a political opportunist. She says the right things about American exceptionalism and extols conservative values. She shills for Trump when it’s convenient, but will backpedal like an all-pro cornerback when she’s pressured by the swamp. However, her real passion lies in continuing to oil the gears of the military-industrial complex.
Side note: everything I wrote about Haley also applies to Dan Crenshaw, but Crenshaw has cool ads!
Plenty of GOP leaders say the right things, but don’t often follow up on them. Many are part of the Uniparty. They cheer and echo when Trump says “build the wall!”, but they really hate when their big money donors miss out on all of that cheap labor. They rag on Biden’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal, not because it was a disaster, but because they still want troops on the ground, and because it’s convenient. Many of them go right along with business as usual.
But again, you can feel reassured that Kevin McCarthy, Dan Crenshaw, Nikki Haley and others will end cancel culture and socialism once and for all. Just write that check, boomer.
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