Michele Bachmann's America

(Chan Lowe)

Chan Lowe's commentary:

Now, if George Santayana had been a real American instead of some foreign born, Harvard-educated elitist pinhead, his famous quotation would have read more like this: “Those who cannot remember the past can simply make it up as they go along.”

To say that Michele Bachmann doesn’t care when she is caught fudging a variety of issues is to not give her enough credit. Like Sarah Palin, she is actually proud to be exposed, for it makes her the butt of snarky attacks from elites, and victimization is an essential component of her equation. It reinforces her bond with her followers.

In an earlier posting, I indicated that Bachmann was eclipsing Palin as the darling of the Right. It isn’t just because we are growing weary of Sarah and her tweets and Faceburps; it’s also that Bachmann takes her fierce, willful ignorance one step further.

Unlike Palin, who can be dull and tedious, Bachmann has a vivid imagination. Not content with the yawning breadth of her lack of knowledge, she fills in the blanks on the fly, elevating the Founding Fathers from the status of mere mortals to pristine deities, and the Constitution from a trench-fought compromise to the Revealed Word of God, handed down intact. Her vision of Exceptional America is without blemish, lacking a grasp of the conflict out of which a great nation finally and painfully emerged.

Her pronouncements would be laughable except that they encourage and condone an overly simplistic approach to the untidy business of running a country. In Bachmann’s fantasyland, all things are possible because there are no shades of gray. Controversy is reduced to pointing out who is a patriotic American (those who agree with Bachmann and her followers), and who isn’t. It’s easy and satisfying, like instant mashed potatoes.

When so many of us are afraid, and the path out of our current predicament appears murky at best, simplistic thinking can be addictive.