Future Noir

March 24, 2012 1:40 PM

Rick Santorum's Dystopia of the Year 2014
posted by Artw (123 comments total)

Apparently, a second Obama term will bring us Soviet-looking numbers on wall clocks.
posted by Trurl at 1:44 PM on March 24, 2012

The Hunger Games is gonne be DOPE
posted by farishta at 1:44 PM on March 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

Sooner or later the secret donor list will come out and The Onion will be at the top.
posted by desjardins at 1:44 PM on March 24, 2012 [48 favorites]

As Krusty would say, "what the hell was that?"
posted by Roentgen at 1:46 PM on March 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

I am Rick Santorum and I approve this message.
posted by - at 1:47 PM on March 24, 2012

Rick Santorum Would Like You to Know He Is Going Insane
posted by Artw at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2012

So the only brown people in 2014 are either terrorists or the President of the United States.
posted by Fizz at 1:51 PM on March 24, 2012 [13 favorites]

If Rick prays any harder he'll probably break the bones in his hands.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:53 PM on March 24, 2012

It's amazing that a moderate, center-of-the-road president, a president who has been a tirelessly optimistic advocate of bipartisanship and cooperation since he first took the national stage by giving the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 ("There is no red America. There is no blue America. There is only America."), a president who has advocated no radical policies, a president who's major legislative accomplishment was to pass a modest universal health care law, not much different than one proposed by Republicans over a decade earlier, a president that has shown more concern for continuity than change, has generated so much hysterical fear and loathing among those who appear to believe he embodies pure evil in all its various forms, from communism to fascism to anti-religious bigotry and appeasement in the face of foreign enemies. Has there ever been a president who was the subject of such wild, fevered, monstrous fantasies?

Gee, I wonder why that is? I wonder what sets him apart from all past presidents and makes the most outlandish accusation against him seem plausible to those who fear him? It's a mystery.
posted by Max Udargo at 1:53 PM on March 24, 2012 [295 favorites]

I too would be pissed if my letter of obamanation included lorem ipsum instead of actual text.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:53 PM on March 24, 2012 [10 favorites]

I live how scary that's not. "Welcome to a world where waiting room times have risen, by SIX PERCENT! A world where families must come to grips with the fact that their fence, NEEDS REPAINTED."
posted by salvia at 1:53 PM on March 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

If you go to Youtube and look at the stats on the video right now : "186 likes, 2,233 dislikes"
posted by crunchland at 1:54 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

So the only brown people in 2014 are either terrorists or the President of the United States.

You say that as if it is not objectively true. I am gathering you are not a visitor from Santorumania.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:59 PM on March 24, 2012

I'm a bit confused. If you watch this video, everyone who is falling off the cliff is seemingly white. There's that one kind of Mexican looking guy but mostly it's white people jumping off a cliff.

And now we have a future 2014 where only white people and terrorists are left on the planet. It seems kind of at odds. If all the white people are dying, shouldn't there be more brown people around? But then this recent dystopia has only a few white people and then terrorists and then the President of the United States.

Which future is better? 1984 or 2014? Either way it sucks to be brown.

And white.
posted by Fizz at 2:00 PM on March 24, 2012

Yes, this shit is utterly unhinged, and it's frightening that this loon actually has a shot at becoming President.

Even more frightening is that there are surprisingly large numbers of people in this country who unflaggingly believe this nightmare vision is, in fact, the path the country is rolling down right now. This shit is real to them. If Obama wins in November, I really do fear just how more insane these people are going to become.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:04 PM on March 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

It's a shame he's such a dope because otherwise I'd assume he's running an avant-garde presidential campaign as an artistic statement. Public art, darlings.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 2:04 PM on March 24, 2012 [10 favorites]

Oh, oh, oh.... I think I get it now. Eventually those people stop. That one lady holds up a tv and the guy takes off his grey sweat-shirt and just like that, lemming-death is stopped. So the survivors of the lemming-death are the ones who are smoking in 2014.

It all makes sense now.

Still sucks to be brown.

And white.
posted by Fizz at 2:05 PM on March 24, 2012

It's a hell of an ad.

The image of the empty merry-go-round looks very specifically like a reference to something else. Ring any bells for anyone else? I thought it was the infamous Daisy ad (which created the precedent for this kind of sci-fi attack ad), but it's not.
posted by Nelson at 2:06 PM on March 24, 2012

Watching the whole ad, the visuals kind of had an early-music-video-throw-everything-out-there-and-see-what-resonates kind of vibe. Maybe you could use "Sunglasses at Night" as a soundtrack....
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:08 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I assume all the smoking is a way of saying "yeah, we still let you smoke. not like those HIPPIE COMMIE BASTARD LIBERALS WHO MADE THOSE NOSMOKING POLICIES!" because the times our nation was AWESOME are also the times EVERYONE SMOKED.
posted by rmd1023 at 2:10 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Gee, I wonder why that is? I wonder what sets him apart from all past presidents and makes the most outlandish accusation against him seem plausible to those who fear him?

Uh, he happens to be President at the time when the other party's extended campaign of embracing the bat-shit insane has gone past a deflection point and is now in a hyperbolic orbit?

I mean sure, the people who are making the outlandish accusations have their underwear well knotted re: Obama's skin color and want you to know they think you should too, but there's a 50-odd person list out there of people Bill and Hillary Clinton are supposed to have personally whacked. With Obama, they've at least toned it down to a faceless bureaucracy doing the whacking.

I'm pretty sure that if the Democrats decided to run someone other than Obama who was slightly WASPier than Henry VIII you'd still be seeing this kind of shit from now until November. Because of the race thing it's going to be more loathsome shit, but for all practical purposes the loathsome meter has been buried in the red since the mid-nineties.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 2:11 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

Has there ever been a president who was the subject of such wild, fevered, monstrous fantasies?

Not that racism isn't adding the madness, but I'm old enough to remember Bill Clinton being regularly excoriated for all kinds of inanity. He was literally accused of murder, which is one charge I'm almost surprised hasn't come up yet for Obama.
posted by Sticherbeast at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2012 [15 favorites]

Watching the whole ad, the visuals kind of had an early-music-video-throw-everything-out-there-and-see-what-resonates kind of vibe.

I'm still waiting on that Blackhole sun to come and , you know, wash away the rain.
posted by The Whelk at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2012 [19 favorites]

The image of the empty merry-go-round looks very specifically like a reference to something else.

It's a cliche visual trope for destruction.

In its archetypal form, it's accompanied by an echoey version of two girls singing "Ring Around The Rosie".
posted by Trurl at 2:18 PM on March 24, 2012 [18 favorites]

Watching the whole ad, the visuals kind of had an early-music-video-throw-everything-out-there-and-see-what-resonates kind of vibe.

Needs more Hitler.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:21 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Merry Go Round broken down? Quite a looney selection for a bunch of drunken reprobates.
posted by The Whelk at 2:21 PM on March 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

The image of the empty merry-go-round looks very specifically like a reference to something else

It looks a lot like the merry go round from Sarah Connor's nightmare in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Maybe that's it?
posted by aubilenon at 2:25 PM on March 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

You know, once Santorum admitted to jerking off while looking at his own hand, I knew we had crossed over into CrazyTown. Sanity, don't let the sun set on you here.
posted by chronkite at 2:25 PM on March 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

There was a tabloid headline I noticed at the grocery store: Obama ordered reporter's death!!! With a pic of Breitbart, of course. Wonder if this conspiracy meme has taken off at places like the Free Republic? But it is surprising there hasn't been any murderous conspiracy theories take off among the faithful.

But completely agree with Kid Charlemagne. They would be doing this to any Democrat, regardless of race, gender, religion, or creed. You saw what they did to boring, incredibly centrist white politicians like Gore and Kerry.

I'm a big fan of historical what-if's. So my favorite one lately is what would happen if Ms. Clinton had won everything in '08. I'm thinking the Republican insanity would rise, filtered with heavy sexism, and they would have started the War on Women earlier than scheduled, thus giving Ms. Clinton and the Democrats majorities in the 2010 elections.
posted by honestcoyote at 2:26 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

You know, once Santorum admitted to jerking off while looking at his own hand, I knew we had crossed over into CrazyTown.

---

“The devil pulled me into lust. I would stare at screens, magazines, my hand…but now I’m free. I’m free of the devil’s grip.”

The devil's grip on his soul? Or the devil's grip on...

Never mind. I don't want to know.
posted by Trurl at 2:29 PM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

The Santorum ad was unintentionally, hysterically, funny when seen from the UK — the gas price? $9 and rising? Petrol has been well over $9/gallon here for years now, and civilization hasn't collapsed (and before you say "Brits don't drive", you should know that we average around 80% of the miles of your typical American, and on lower mean incomes).

Still. Where are the Demon Sheep? I think the Santorum campaign still has some way to go before it plumbs the depths of Republican deep crazy that Carly Fiorina hit when she ran in CA a couple of years ago ...
posted by cstross at 2:29 PM on March 24, 2012 [11 favorites]

Sticherbeast: "He was literally accused of murder, which is one charge I'm almost surprised hasn't come up yet for Obama."

Well...
posted by brundlefly at 2:30 PM on March 24, 2012

It is sad and disgusting that in oder to get votes a candidate is actively trying to capitalize on the vulnerability and fear many people already feel living on the edge thanks to policies these same candidates actually support (more tax cuts for the rich, more cuts in safety net programs, etc. etc.). The cause of the psychosis we see more and more of is no mystery.
posted by chrismc at 2:31 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

He was literally accused of murder, which is one charge I'm almost surprised hasn't come up yet for Obama.

You haven't done enough Googling, I'm afraid. There is, in fact, a murder story making the rounds among the loonier fringes of the right. The one I'm most familiar of has Obama operatives murdering an aide because said aide was going to spill the beans about Obama's drug addicition.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:33 PM on March 24, 2012

“The devil pulled me into lust. I would stare at screens, magazines, my hand…but now I’m free. I’m free of the devil’s grip.”

Funny shit, but before we get too carried away...
posted by naoko at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Obamatown is going to be awesome.
posted by humanfont at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

No that's the newest masturbation craze! The Devil's Grip! That's when you pleasure yourself with on hand while staring at the other. All the cool republicans are doing it, if only so they have something to give up later when they run for office.
posted by chronkite at 2:36 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

In order of appearance: Scary crows. Empty small-town streets. Semi-abandoned motel. Darkened residential street. Mysterious and ripped wall poster. S. Main St. with (gasp) A TALL BUILDING. Empty child-sized sneaker, abandoned. Bottom half of a woman's face, shh finger held to red lips. Augh! An eye! Closing down sign. White couple standing behind their kitchen's butcher block. Lonely Dorothea Lange-like little white girl sitting on a bench under a scary old picture of a girl in a white dress, which is then shown in closeup. Deserted insitutional hallway, in "Matrix"-style green. Man pointing gas pump at head. Snuffed candle. Old white lady on her sofa, staring into the distance. Rural white guy, outside, leaning on long-handled tool. Middle Eastern crowd scene. Three decrepit TVs, showing image of man burning a flag. Ahmedinijad. Wall St. sign. Man collecting his meager possessions from his desk. Lorem ipsum termination notice. White man. White House. Jail.

WELCOME TO OBAMAVILLE.

Loosely translated as: "Got fear? Great! Need some? We got it! Feel free to indulge in your most anxious, paranoid, xenophobic fantasies from now until November! I'm Rick Santorum, and I approve of this message!"
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:37 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

@Kid Charlemagne and Sticherbeast:

I'm old enough to remember the Clinton era too, and it wasn't the same. The problem they had with Clinton was trying to manufacture a problem to have with Clinton. The economy rebounded from a recession right before he took the oath of office, and the rest of the 90s saw an economic boom. And Clinton's "triangulating" meant that he was the most conservative Democratic president in modern times. The Republican leadership hated him for the same reason they hate Obama, because he played for the other team and won, but when it was time to manufacture issues to destroy him, they had nothing political or ideological to work with.

So they attacked Clinton's Achilles' Heel, which happened to be at the other end of his leg, and they exploited sex scandals and pretended they were high crimes and misdemeanors. Other people tried to tie him and his wife to various scandals and deaths. This was just political desperation mixed with the new FOX News tabloid sensibility.

But these attacks against Obama aren't personal. They're not attacking him, but what he represents in their minds. And what he represents is an America where a president could have the middle name "Hussein." To a significant portion of America, that idea of America is not something to celebrate because of its inclusiveness and acceptance of diversity, but something to fear because it is alien, foreign, and un-American.

I think you'd be surprised how many Americans think the word "American" means "white Christian." Santorum certainly thinks so. Sure, blacks and browns can be honorary Americans, if they behave themselves and show proper gratitude, but this country was built by white Christians. We are a white Christian nation, and for people like Santorum, Obama represents an existential threat to the American way of life.

Obama is an invader, a foreigner, and they want their country back. How explicit do they have to be?
posted by Max Udargo at 2:44 PM on March 24, 2012 [61 favorites]

What's really risible is the part where they interpose Obama's face for a single frame with Ahmendinejad's, while the announcer says 'America's Sworn Enemies!'
posted by Cycloptichorn at 2:47 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

So much of what the video describes sounds exactly like our situation at the end of the W administration.
posted by Foosnark at 2:50 PM on March 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

It's not that bad, you guys, they just used the wrong soundtrack by accident.
posted by dixiecupdrinking at 2:54 PM on March 24, 2012 [8 favorites]

You know, if you've given up on making reasoned appeals to the electorate in favor of jump cut juxtapositions of your opponent with negative stimuli, you've told us everything we need to hear about your fitness for elected office.

This is still a democracy, not a fucking Kubrick film.
posted by R. Schlock at 2:56 PM on March 24, 2012 [14 favorites]

Has there ever been a president who was the subject of such wild, fevered, monstrous fantasies?

Not that racism isn't adding the madness, but I'm old enough to remember Bill Clinton being regularly excoriated for all kinds of inanity. He was literally accused of murder, which is one charge I'm almost surprised hasn't come up yet for Obama.

Yeah, there just wasn't an internet to give whackjobs a platform. But there was plenty of insanity around the country over Bill and Hill. They also loved mocking him for being a redneck, ironically.

I'm old enough to remember the Clinton era too, and it wasn't the same. The problem they had with Clinton was trying to manufacture a problem to have with Clinton. The economy rebounded from a recession right before he took the oath of office, and the rest of the 90s saw an economic boom.

You're only thinking of the mainstream stuff, though. There was a republican 'underground' with talk radio and stuff like that. They hated his guts too. But what you didn't have was the internet. That's what's really letting this stuff come to the fore.

During the Clinton era crazies would have stayed isolated, their theories their own. With all these message boards people can get together, come up with more coherent narratives and influence each other.

The difference of course is that the major politicians are embracing the crazy. I mean, trump embraced birtherism while flirting with a campaign. How much more crazy can you get?

And a big part of that has to be the feedback system with the internet.

Anyway, crazy stuff.
posted by delmoi at 3:03 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

oh god that was a brilliant trailer for a B-movie

like every crap horror movie trope rolled into one big ball of FEAR DARK scariness BOOM empty PLAYGROUND with extra the brown people are coming. All that's missing are zombies slavering for human flesh!

oh wait it's not a movie? it's a campaign ad, you say?

welp
posted by zennish at 3:04 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Things have actually gotten better since Clinton. Santorum is a wack-job who has already lost his own party's primary.

Sure there are "birthers" and idiots but they're a lunatic fringe. The US Congress investigated Clinton over Whitewater and impeached him for getting a BJ. The actual Congress!
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:09 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I haven't encountered this word santorumania before, GenjiandProust. Is that like 2girls1cup except frothy?
posted by jeffburdges at 3:09 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

It's not that bad, you guys, they just used the wrong soundtrack by accident.

Well, yeah, they had to make the change after Springsteen refused permission for them to use "Death to My Hometown."
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:19 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

". . . freedom of religion is under attack. . . "

Um. I think he confused his own campaign with "Obamaville."
posted by New England Cultist at 3:28 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Also, Smoking Man.
posted by New England Cultist at 3:29 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sure there are "birthers" and idiots but they're a lunatic fringe. The US Congress investigated Clinton over Whitewater and impeached him for getting a BJ.

They're not a lunatic fringe, and they have powerful friends in Congress.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:33 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

BOOGITY BOOGITY BOO SOSHULIST MOOZLUM GONNA EAT UR BABBY

It's reached the point where I can no longer distinguish actual GOP rhetoric from parodies of actual GOP rhetoric.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:38 PM on March 24, 2012 [10 favorites]

I finally understand Rick Santorum. He escaped from a JT Chick comic.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:42 PM on March 24, 2012 [12 favorites]

I think the kindest thing for everyone would be to anaesthetize Santorum and his ilk and plug them into a Matrix where Obama really is a socialist fascist atheist Muslim communist Kenyan new-world-order-creating gun-hating terrorist UN-puppet antichrist who sells condoms and abortion pills to your kids while brainwashing them into thinking vegetables and exercise are healthy, forces birth control pills down your wife's throat on the taxpayer's dime, euthanizes your grandparents, encourages illegals to take all the good janitorial/agricultural/dishwashing jobs from Americans, forces you to buy health insurance AND prevents you from buying health insurance, destroys your family by letting gays get married, intensifies the historical oppression of white Christian hetero men, destroys the economy with his communist plan to redistribute the wealth to the big banks, and offers Iran free access to our nuclear arsenal.

I think it would be like heaven for them.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:42 PM on March 24, 2012 [9 favorites]

Watching this commercial makes me realize how prescient and underrated Richard Kelly's Southland Tales really was.
posted by jonp72 at 3:43 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

He was literally accused of murder, which is one charge I'm almost surprised hasn't come up yet for Obama.

You know what's worse than murder? Gay murder.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 3:44 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

McKinley was hated and assassinated (Ambrose Bierce wrote a editorial poem that was published in the papers wishing for his death a few months previously)

Carter was burned in effigy in the streets

Of course the madness of the Clinton investigation

I like Obama overall, but frankly if Democrats are going to get smeared with this bullshit anyways it's too bad more radical progressives can't win and actually shift the window back a bit.
posted by edgeways at 3:44 PM on March 24, 2012 [6 favorites]

I was waiting for someone to come running and throw a sledgehammer through a giant TV with Obama's image on it.
posted by Splunge at 4:04 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

In order of appearance: Scary crows.

Fuck that guy, crows are AWESOME.
posted by emjaybee at 4:06 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

Fuck that guy, crows are AWESOME.

Yeah, and I think it was the true turning point when Santorum turned his back on the Corvid vote. On the other hand, it's pretty likely that the Republican crows would have voted for Gingrich, just for the cackling.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:12 PM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Rick Santorum is a fucking walking dystopia.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 4:19 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Every time Santorum says something crazy, this poor baby bear sneezes.

Won't someone think of the poor baby bear?
posted by 4ster at 4:20 PM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Okay, now I totally want to re-cut it using film scenes. We could have The Matrix for the marching suits, Brazil for the pile of CRT TVs... others?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 4:23 PM on March 24, 2012

Silent Hillary.
posted by SPrintF at 4:26 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Salvor Hardin: "I think the kindest thing for everyone would be to anaesthetize Santorum and his ilk and plug them into a Matrix where Obama really is a socialist fascist atheist Muslim communist Kenyan new-world-order-creating gun-hating terrorist UN-puppet antichrist who sells condoms and abortion pills to your kids while brainwashing them into thinking vegetables and exercise are healthy, forces birth control pills down your wife's throat on the taxpayer's dime, euthanizes your grandparents, encourages illegals to take all the good janitorial/agricultural/dishwashing jobs from Americans, forces you to buy health insurance AND prevents you from buying health insurance, destroys your family by letting gays get married, intensifies the historical oppression of white Christian hetero men, destroys the economy with his communist plan to redistribute the wealth to the big banks, and offers Iran free access to our nuclear arsenal.

I think it would be like heaven for them."

Better yet, anesthetize me and plug me into the USA I pictured right as Obama won the election.
posted by Splunge at 4:33 PM on March 24, 2012 [5 favorites]

You know, if you've given up on making reasoned appeals to the electorate in favor of jump cut juxtapositions of your opponent with negative stimuli, you've told us everything we need to hear about your fitness for elected office.

You mean the way 24 years ago that George H.W. Bush and Lee Atwater gave up reasoned appeals to the electorate in favor of grainy negative-stimuli images of Willie Horton and other furloughed brown-skinned prisoners going through revolving doors -- and still won the presidency in a landslide?
posted by blucevalo at 4:35 PM on March 24, 2012

cstross: "Petrol has been well over $9/gallon here for years now, and civilization hasn't collapsed (and before you say "Brits don't drive", you should know that we average around 80% of the miles of your typical American, and on lower mean incomes). "

Yeah, well. Maybe there's a reason you're not number one anymore. U-S-A! U-S-A!

(Am I doing it right?)
posted by symbioid at 4:40 PM on March 24, 2012

Also, that's the new game from Zynga, right? I mean FFS, they even have the two-color title going for it!
posted by symbioid at 4:42 PM on March 24, 2012

Memo
TO:The Voters of America:
FROM: The Rest of The World

Please don't vote for Mr Santorum as your next President.

Kind Regards,
posted by vac2003 at 4:52 PM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

Pretty sure it's gonna be Obama Vs the Rombot.
posted by Artw at 4:56 PM on March 24, 2012

vac2003: "Memo
TO:The Voters of America:
FROM: The Rest of The World

Please don't vote for Mr Santorum as your next President.

Kind Regards,"

To: The Rest Of The World
Fr: Americans Who Are Not Total Idiots

No fucking problem.

High five!
Warmest regards,
posted by Splunge at 5:03 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

"Shit People Say When They Are Running For President Of The US"

Let's just hope it doesn't become "Shit People Say When They Are The President Of The US"
posted by lampshade at 5:11 PM on March 24, 2012

Just when I thought M.Night Shyamalan couldn't fall any further.
posted by resplendentoops at 5:12 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

NPR is reporting subliminal cuts of Obama in the Ahmedinajad shots.
posted by mwhybark at 5:24 PM on March 24, 2012

Gods, social conservatism is an affliction.
posted by clvrmnky at 5:37 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

I like the idea of a customized Matrix for Santorum and his ilk. But it really needs to give them wish fulfillment instead. Put them in the Republican utopia, in an imagined America where they've gotten everything they wanted. But, the catch is, they would have to live there as working class individuals.

Let them see what it's like for the regular folks when there's no labor protections, none of those pesky environmental regulations, feel the anger of facing your tax bill when you know the rich and the corporations are paying absolutely nothing, realizing there's no medicare or social security for your old age. Let's imagine Rick Santorum reincarnated in some random midwestern town.

Your wife has a tubal pregnancy and the doctors can't or won't do anything about it, because the only solution is abortion. They will be kind enough to keep an eye on her and make sure she won't bleed to death but only if you can come up with the money, which you can't because your old job fucked you over and there's no union or Labor Department to help out and no lawyer will bother with you since the labor laws were gutted years ago. And forget about trying to find help with the medical bills from the government. They'll be happy to talk to you about "Personal responsibility" and "Freedom" and then send you on your way. Your church is sympathetic to your dilemma and they raise 200 dollars to help you out, but it's not nearly enough even for the pain medications.

So you try to relax with a glass of water, hoping the local gas drilling operation has eased off on the cancer-causing agents they've been pumping into the local water table. You can only hope and guess since the laws regulating the drilling and the laws requiring accurate water quality reports have been repealed. Sure you could buy water from the local Wal-Mart but you don't trust them anymore after a can of their "Great Value" branded biscuits made everyone in your family sick and almost killed your oldest child. Wal-Mart is now free of any arduous FDA regulations and they're free to maximize their profits without having any safety checks. So the "Pure Water" they sell is probably just from the same corrupted tap as yours. There's no reason for them to go out of their way to give you some that's actually clean.

You walk outside trying to clear your head. You're not sure how to make the rent next month. Since workplaces can now act in any way they see fit because of religious convictions, your Baptist manager decided to fire you because you're a Catholic. You guess it's ok they got to act on their beliefs, but there's no money coming in anymore, especially since unemployment insurance doesn't exit for most workers these days. You've heard the local McDonalds is hiring and, since they're a multinational corporation they usually don't discriminate on a religious basis, but you might have problems being a black man in a mostly white town. They might decide having a black worker is bad for business. With the repeal of most of the civil rights laws as applied to private business, there's not much anyone could do to stop them. And with the minimum wage laws repealed, even if you could get the job, you'd have to work six days a week, 12 hours a day just to cover rent. But you wouldn't expect to get anything extra from such long hours since rules governing overtime pay have also been repealed.

You think of "personal responsibility" and realize you might not be in this position if you had just gone to college. But there's no financial aid anymore and anyways, back in those days, your mother was sick and you had to take care of her because she didn't have insurance, and your girlfriend was pregnant (contraceptives are quite hard to get now; almost impossible since the local stores in your town decided to honor "community standards" and refused to stock them) so there's no way you could have put in the long hours at work to pay for the long hours at school and also pay to take care of your family.

But, as you walk through the smog choked streets of your hometown, you see the Ten Commandments firmly and proudly sitting in front of your local courthouse. You know that no one will ever again demand their removal. A tear comes to your eye as you realize all this suffering was worth it. The United States is the greatest place on Earth and the freedom is on the march. God is with us.
posted by honestcoyote at 5:38 PM on March 24, 2012 [107 favorites]

Needs more dead fish.
posted by madamjujujive at 5:38 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

Shit is.
Fuckin ridiculous.
posted by cashman at 5:40 PM on March 24, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, there just wasn't an internet to give whackjobs a platform.

I seem to recall that USENET groups like alt.conspiracy were full of wingnuts talking about the Clinton administration's murder spree and how they bumped off David Koresh because he knew too much/as a ritual sacrifice to the dark lord Satan and such.
posted by acb at 5:45 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Yeah, there just wasn't an internet to give whackjobs a platform. But there was plenty of insanity around the country over Bill and Hill.

Oh yes there was. I ran a rural ISP and we proxied the Starr report on release so we didn't melt our multi-T1 connection to the outside world. And our modems were hopping with people bouncing off that proxy link, too.

It seems whackjobs are early adopters when it comes to technology to propagate The Truth.
posted by dglynn at 5:52 PM on March 24, 2012

Santorum polls at around 40% vs. Obama.

That means that ~120 million people think he'd be a good president.

You can't compromise when one side says "You are evil." That's not discourse, you can't debate that.

I can't even begin to bridge that gulf. They just need to secede and everyone can get on with their lives, or approximation thereof.
posted by Lord_Pall at 6:26 PM on March 24, 2012 [4 favorites]

I expected a Jeremiah Wright-like preacher marrying a leather daddy to both a 10-year-old boy and a turtle, in front of an altar with an upside-down cross. I guess that would be too subtle.
posted by Blue Meanie at 6:26 PM on March 24, 2012 [7 favorites]

imagine Santorum-town.
posted by RockyChrysler at 6:35 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

HonestCoyote, the poor right-wingers I know personally (only a couple) absolutely fucking loathe themselves. They'd probably feel the world you describe is their reward for being "losers", and only just.
posted by maxwelton at 6:43 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

American Politics

It's a sad day when policy is dependent on SF writers and a slick advertising crew.

*lolwut? Are these Americans serious? Really?

Are you all children?

Serious question:

1) Hollywood is de facto the American Pravda (Spasibo!). You've 100 years of in-your-face propaganda about the American dream / life / way.

2) Your politicians are essentially actors anyhow (from "pimp viewpoint to get votes" to "present cool image to get votes", all through spending $mil on advisors to get there ~ or did you really think Clinton + Sax was genuine, or Bush + aircraft carrier... etc etc)

3) Money determines the Presidential and Congress and Senate and even local gov. positions now. Need a reference? Er ~ go find it. S/He who spends most, gets power. Provable.

And yet... you're still all riled up about the "Blue and the Red".


Jesus wept. Here's a tip: take both campaign brochures, really dig in, get to the economics (works for most "Western Democracies" btw) -- look at the real spending pledges.


100-200 billion in a budget where you're spending a trillion is not that much of a policy shift, for the record. The current UK 'spread' is about 8% between Labour and the Conservatives. Same for most EU countries.


Hint: when someone running a business I own says that their "radical plan" is about 8% shift in spending, I yawn, and know they're merely shifting stationary around. Oh, unless they're American:

Then they're firing.
posted by Jernau Morat Gurgeh at 6:59 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

Aye, Maxwelton. I currently live in a relatively poor rural county which votes 75% for Republicans. Without Federal regulations and financial assistance, this place would be a wasteland. And yet, when you talk to them you find they resent every last dollar they're given and every last regulation which gives them things like clean water, electricity, and phone service.

The government is taking away their freedom. It must be stopped. Thank God the Republicans are here to stop this form of intrusion in our lives.
posted by honestcoyote at 7:10 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

The things they make you go through to get any federal assistance are pretty humiliating. I'd resent them, too.
posted by LogicalDash at 7:13 PM on March 24, 2012

Santorum has always reminded me of The Smiler from Transmetropolitan (contains spoilers for those who haven't read).

Actually, googling around, turns out I'm not the only one who thought that..
posted by formless at 7:20 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

their underwear well knotted re: Obama's skin color and want you to know they think you should too

VS being so simple that the letter R vs D after the name turns them from "Ra Ra!" to "Grr Grr!".

Someone of some notoriety said "There is not a dime's bit of difference" at one point.
posted by rough ashlar at 7:49 PM on March 24, 2012

Needs to finish with a giant close-up of Santorum slowly, gradually smiling.
posted by chortly at 7:56 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

mwhybark: "NPR is reporting subliminal cuts of Obama in the Ahmedinajad shots."

No shit. It wasn't so subliminal. I saw it. And I'm sure that others saw it as well. It's subliminal for sub...

Naw too easy. Nevermind.
posted by Splunge at 8:08 PM on March 24, 2012 [1 favorite]

The things they make you go through to get any federal assistance are pretty humiliating. I'd resent them, too.

They don't humiliate you for farm subsidies or road funding.

The thought I had watching that bizarre vision was that it seemed designed to appeal to the older people that had seen communities they know turn into those paint peeling empty spaces. No adults except the elderly(children move for work).

But that has been happening for years. And we all know why. So do they. They know this brave new globalized world is changing everything.

And all those people vote Republican, believing that the Republicans are against change, when Republicans are obviously for changes that make markets the ultimate arbiters of everything.

So, who is this ad supposed to appeal to that is not Republican voting already? Or is this an audition for "will loudly exclaim anything in opposition to Obama, unlike Romney" position in the Republican primary?

I suppose I expected Obamaville to be portrayed as an urban hellhole, with military men dancing shirtless in gay pride parades and surly blacks rioting for their welfare checks.
posted by dglynn at 8:16 PM on March 24, 2012

Money determines the Presidential and Congress and Senate and even local gov. positions now. Need a reference? Er ~ go find it. S/He who spends most, gets power. Provable.

It's much more complex than that. There is not a simple 1:1 correlation between spending the most money and winning elections. Campaign spending has very different effects for incumbents and challengers, for example, and in the case of the House of Representatives, districting has a huge effect as well.

Here are some references for you: Kenneth Benoit & Michael Marsh, The Campaign Value of Incumbency: A New Solution to the Puzzle of Less Effective Incumbent Spending, 52 Am. J. Pol. Sci. 874 (2008); Chris W. Bonneau, The Effects of Campaign Spending in State Supreme Court Elections, 60 Pol. Res. Q. 489 (2007).

From Benoit & Marsh: "The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that the candidate who spent the most money won in 93% of House of Representatives races and 67% of Senate districts in the 2006 U.S. Congressional elections." But "while expenditure is positively related to votes won, this effect is far more strongly, or even exclusively, enjoyed by challengers rather than by incumbents."

Bonneau found the same results in state judicial elections: "Similar to both national and state legislative elections, the amount of spending by the incumbent does not increase her percentage of the vote. Simply put, the incumbent cannot increase her or his percentage of the vote by spending more money."
posted by jedicus at 8:48 PM on March 24, 2012 [3 favorites]

I wonder what sets him apart from all past presidents and makes the most outlandish accusation against him seem plausible to those who fear him?

Regrettably, there were hauntingly similar outlandish accusations against the most recently assassinated U.S. President.
posted by NetizenKen at 10:16 PM on March 24, 2012

Better yet, anesthetize me and plug me into the USA I pictured right as Obama won the election.

The one where 47% of the voting electorate who thought it'd be a good idea to put Sarah fucking Palin a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world vanished in a puff of smoke?

That's where we're at. I know. It's fucking nauseating. But there it is.

But don't take it from me: take it from rough ashlar. "There is not a dime's bit of difference," you know.
posted by joe lisboa at 10:37 PM on March 24, 2012

NPR is reporting subliminal cuts of Obama in the Ahmedinajad shots. -- Don't worry. The near-consensus among research psychologists is that subliminal messages do not produce a powerful, enduring effect on behavior; and that laboratory research reveals little effect beyond a subtle, fleeting effect on thinking.
posted by crunchland at 3:41 AM on March 25, 2012

Honestcoyote...After all that horror, I can assure you the right (and FOX News et.al.) will still find some way to hang it all on the necks of what passes for "the liberals". Of course, by that time, anything to the left of Santorum himself will be considered socialist.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:45 AM on March 25, 2012

Nathan Poe really was not expecting such a shining example to come so quickly.
posted by AndrewKemendo at 5:53 AM on March 25, 2012

All this just supports my theory that there's a communicable form of insanity going around. Wash your hands people.
posted by The Whelk at 7:14 AM on March 25, 2012

Once again, we shouldn't attribute to malice (or any kind of deep or even reasonably competent understanding of the electorate) what can be explained by stupidity (or sheer desperation). Remember the weird ads that Herman Cain's campaign came up with when he got his bump in the polls and they were desperate to keep the Cainmentum going? This and the Apple ads mashup are of a piece with those.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:32 AM on March 25, 2012

...Wastin away again in BarackObamaville
Searching for my lost conservative gestalt
Some people claim that there's a Kenyan to blame
But I know
it's the liberals' fault...
posted by Renoroc at 7:51 AM on March 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

I suppose I expected Obamaville to be portrayed as an urban hellhole, with military men dancing shirtless in gay pride parades and surly blacks rioting for their welfare checks.

Me too! Or, like, a bunch of teenage girls standing in line for "taxpayer-sponsored abortions", sinister-looking leather-daddy couples adopting winsome, WASPy children, a classroom full of 3rd graders learning about Islam...

Maybe Rick Santorum just really, really liked Silent Hill. The vibe of the trailer is weirdly similar. "An ordinary town... transformed by evil!" Plus a whole bunch of ladies die, and we know he's all about that.
posted by Nibbly Fang at 9:54 AM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

But, as you walk through the smog choked streets of your hometown, you see the Ten Commandments firmly and proudly sitting in front of your local courthouse. You know that no one will ever again demand their removal. A tear comes to your eye as you realize all this suffering was worth it. The United States is the greatest place on Earth and the freedom is on the march. God is with us.

You unsaved heathen. What part of "But it's God's will!" do you not understand?

I suppose I expected Obamaville to be portrayed as an urban hellhole, with military men dancing shirtless in gay pride parades and surly blacks rioting for their welfare checks.

You forgot the part where high school and college coeds clutching packages of mandated birth control pills are having wanton orgies in the middle of the streets, right in front of the free abortion clinics. Oh, and a lot of them don't look like they're "American", if ya know what I mean.
posted by fuse theorem at 11:08 AM on March 25, 2012

There once was a man named Santorum
Who came to a national forum
He expressed views,
on the national news
Now there's more that's agin him than for him

There once was a fellow named Rick
An entireley unlikable prick
Because the seperation,
of church and state in our nation
is something that makes him sick.

A frothy and slippery mixture
was named for a Republican fixture
When he finally comes out
There can be no doubt
That some guy will say "wipe off your dick sir."


Yet another Republican hack
Is running because he's not black
He cant stand the fact that Obama's
Not messing with your baby mamas
Or cares what you do in the sack.
posted by timsteil at 11:22 AM on March 25, 2012 [5 favorites]

A frothy and slippery mixture --- that's one of the real tragedies of the Santorum 2012 campaign. He's been in the news so much, managed to expunge the popular definition of his name from google searches.
posted by crunchland at 11:29 AM on March 25, 2012

That's probably the real reason he's running this looney-bin campaign. He's guaranteed to lose, but he's solved his "google problem".
posted by hippybear at 11:37 AM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

I forget where I read it, but someone posited that Santorum was staying in the race to purposely make Romney lose to Obama, hence setting himself up as the first choice for nominee in 2016.
posted by timsteil at 11:46 AM on March 25, 2012

Wait, what if we tell Rick he's already won the election? I mean he clearly has no problem believing complete nonsense, just make a cardboard oval office and let him sit there telling fireside radio chats on how shorts are making us weak against the Jews or something and just hire a few actors to keep his distracted for a few years.
posted by The Whelk at 11:49 AM on March 25, 2012 [7 favorites]

There's a really interesting Inception-meets-Truman-Show screenplay buried someplace in that comment, The Whelk.
posted by hippybear at 11:51 AM on March 25, 2012

Rick Santorum Ad Draws Extremely Subtle Link Between Ahmadinejad and Obama

"My theory: This is Umbrage Bait, with the goal of bringing the Obama campaign into a discussion of how, no, it's totally unfair to compare him to Iran's quasi-elected president. An easy Santorum campaign riposte would be that the ad doesn't compare them -- the flash-flash is meant to show how Obama let the situation go pear-shaped."
posted by homunculus at 1:15 PM on March 25, 2012

Thorzdad: Conservatism cannot fail; it can only be failed. You're right. Even if they got everything they wanted and were able to create their utopia, liberals would remain an inevitable scapegoat for the horrors that would follow.
posted by honestcoyote at 3:20 PM on March 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

The batshit is strong with this one.
posted by prepmonkey at 8:24 PM on March 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Whereas...
posted by obscurator at 6:59 AM on March 26, 2012

1,042 likes, 12,671 dislikes
posted by crunchland at 10:15 AM on March 26, 2012

Rick Santorum, tough guy.
posted by crunchland at 10:17 AM on March 26, 2012

Awkward!
posted by Big_B at 10:34 AM on March 26, 2012

You know what, I think Rick is telling the truth here. I don't think he has anything resembling persistent memory. Every moment is new and exciting, unburdened by the demands of keeping your story straight or remembering events more than 12 hours past. His mind is spotless and eternal.
posted by The Whelk at 10:39 AM on March 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Rick may have had his equiv. of the "Dean Scream:" Tantorum.
posted by drezdn at 10:53 AM on March 26, 2012

Santorum cracks himself up.
posted by crunchland at 6:02 PM on March 26, 2012

Rick Santorum says he's against welfare for 'blah' people, not 'black' people
posted by Artw at 10:41 PM on March 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

Did Santorum almost call Obama the N word?
posted by Big_B at 3:18 PM on March 30, 2012

If anyone is still looking in this thread through recent activity, the link Big B just posted really has to be seen to be believed.

Everyone I've shown it to has screamed upon viewing it.
posted by winna at 10:52 AM on March 31, 2012

TBH that it hasn't filled a news cycle probably shows that he is yesterday's news.
posted by Artw at 10:55 AM on March 31, 2012