The bigotry of Glee

bigot – a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially :  one who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance. —Merriam-Webster.com. Accessed January 14, 2015.

By definition, the writers of Glee, a comedy that airs on the Fox television network, and many liberal progressives, are bigots.

Glee is about a group of high school misfits from Lima, Ohio who find a home in the school's decidedly un-cool vocal music group, the glee club. The writers have assembled an outrageous mashup of archetypes, including: the diva Rachel, a Jewish American princess with two gay dads; the football star with heart, Finn, who joins the glee club to the chagrin of his teammates; Noah Puckerman ("Puck"), the juvenile delinquent; the wheelchair-bound Artie; the gay teens Kurt and Blaine; the strait-laced cheerleader Quinn; the African-American diva (and Rachel's frequent rival) Mercedes; and lesbian lovers Brittany and Santana.

With dozens of awards over six seasons (including Emmy and Golden Globe awards), often brilliant rapid-fire comedy, touching story lines, and terrific musical numbers that have spawned large album and digital download sales, a 3D concert movie and a live tour, Glee is as entertaining as it is controversial. Its teen and adult characters are hyper-sexualized, with gay, lesbian, transgender, and transvestite behavior (oh, and I almost forgot: hetero promiscuity) out and celebrated.

The not-unexpected irony of this very Hollywood production (filmed in L.A., not Ohio) is that one group of kids at the fictional McKinley High School is not treated kindly or even tolerated very much: conservatives. Conservative students are portrayed in ridiculous straw-man caricatures in several episodes.

Quinn, president of the Celibacy Club whose Glenn Beck-watching parents get lampooned in Season 1, ironically becomes pregnant. In the current season, the following scene pretty much sums up the liberal agenda of the show (the young adult main cast are all McKinley alumni now in the series storyline):

Puck walks in with Mercedes, Tina, Quinn and Sam to the Tea Party Patriot Club, calling them teabaggers. They put down muffins for them, Quinn explaining about their life in McKinley, saying how the Celibacy Club and the God Squad were popular. Mercedes asks if they're Christians, to which they reply they all are. Quinn once again says she only hung out with people just like her, Tina saying she [Quinn] changed for the better, after getting pregnant by Puck.

A member reveals that the TPPC is the most popular group in McKinley. Tina replies how horrible it is and questions what happens to America. The leader starts to reply, Mercedes listening to him, saying they’ve had the worst economic depression in history, stating that allowing equality in sexes and different ethnicities, has brought it upon them. Mercedes, looking horrified, repulsed by them, states how ignorant, homophobic and discriminating they are, to which the alumni agree. Puck, Tina and Mercedes walk out. Quinn walks up to them, taking away the muffins. Sam states how Quinn had sex with a Latina lesbian, from which he says he learnt [sic] in glee club, bumping into Quinn, causing her to laugh, as the TPPC go into chaos.

—Glee Wiki, accessed January 14, 2015, http://glee.wikia.com/wiki/Homecoming

In classic Revenge of the Nerds fashion, Glee humorously turns the lunchroom tables on the popular cliques at McKinley High School: the jocks, the cheerleaders, the popular kids, but it reserves a special vitriol for conservative Christians. Liberal bigotry starts as a cold slushy to the face on Glee, and graduates to misogynistic, ad hominem attacks on Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. Rather than telling a story about bringing people together, Glee and its liberal bedfellows just use far-right bigotry to justfy far-left bigotry.

Grassroots cultivated at caucus

Some folks showed up over an hour before our precinct caucus was called to order Tuesday night. Either they were excited to vote in the presidential straw poll, or they relied on a postcard they received with the incorrect time shown! By 7:00 pm, when state law dictates the caucus is to be called to order, our convener had misplaced his agenda which specifies several items that must be addressed, also per state law. The room where we met had no American flag, but fortunately our convener brought a desk-sized flag for just that contingency.

The rest of the caucus went much more smoothly!

Our voting in the presidential straw poll reflected the statewide totals: Rick Santorum, 23 votes; Ron Paul, 15; Mitt Romney, 10; Newt Gingrich, 4. If anyone wondered whether the Tea Party is still relevant in Minnesota (or Missouri or Colorado), there's your answer.

We had over fifty persons sign in, plus one observer. In non-presidential election year caucuses, attendance is sometimes so low that we can't elect our allotted number of delegates. No such problem this year: we elected a full roster of delegates and alternates, who will represent our precinct at the first post-redistricting BPOU (Senate district) convention in March.

The youngest attendee will turn 18 in time to vote in November. Several Vietnam veterans were there, as was a Russian immigrant who fled Communism—only to encounter, to his chagrin, ever-growing statism from both American political parties. I recognized many from previous years, but as always there were also many first-time caucus goers.

Judging by the conversations, the top issues that brought folks out on Tuesday night seemed to be election integrity, the national economy, the right to life, and right-to-work. We had so many sign up to be election judges that we had to use a couple of pages from a yellow legal pad when the printed sign-up sheets were full.

In addition to the presidential candidates, several local candidates had letters, literature, or signs at our caucus: Congressman Erik Paulsen, Rep. Sarah Anderson, state Senate candidate Norann Dillon, and Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek.

Resolutions to the party platform were mercifully few this year. My resolution to greatly streamline the platform failed on a close vote that required a division of the house. A resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to make Minnesota a right-to-work state also failed on a close voice vote. While I recognize the need for a party platform, I find the current platform too long and detailed, and the resolutions part of the convention agenda a marathon exercise in contentious hair-splitting.

Our biggest challenges will be, as always, fundraising and volunteer recruiting, and forming a new BPOU after the redistricting maps are released (by February 21). It seemed on Tuesday that there is enough dissatisfaction with President Obama and the economy, and positive energy from the Tea Party, to keep the grassroots fed and energized through the next nine months of conventions and campaigns.

Trump: it's not political, it's business

Donald Trump may or may not run for president, and he may or may not be electable, but I sure enjoyed many of his scripted remarks and off-script asides at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. The government is not a business, but who better than Donald Trump to bring a battle-tested, commonsense approach to running the largest enterprise in the world?

America today is missing quality leadership, and foreign countries have quickly realized this. It is for this reason that the United States is becoming the laughing stock of the world. Whether we like it or don’t like it, that’s what’s happening. I deal with people from China, I deal with people from Mexico; they cannot believe what they are getting away with.

I have said on numerous occasions that countries like China, like India, South Korea, Mexico, and the OPEC nations view our leaders as weak and ineffective and have repeatedly taken advantage of them to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. When they talk about raising your taxes, I think: raise the taxes on some of these countries that are taking advantage of the United States.

I’ve said on numerous occasions that we should watch China, and OPEC, because -- by the way, worse than China, worse than everyone: OPEC; they are truly ripping us...Coming over here today one of the people in the car said, “Oh my gosh, look at that, four dollars and fifty-four cents a gallon for gas.” It’s going to go much higher, folks, get used to it, because we have nobody that calls up OPEC -- and they’re only there because of us; we protect them! -- and says, “That price better get lower, and it better get lower fast.”

I can tell you this: if I run, and if I win, this country will be respected again...Just very briefly, I am pro-life, I am against gun control, and I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country. If I decide to run, I will not be raising taxes. We’ll be taking in hundreds of millions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us. We’ll be creating vast numbers of productive jobs, and we’ll rebuild our country so that we can be proud. Our country will be great again.

The forgotten man

In a thought-provoking podcast interview, Walter Hudson (Fightin' Words blog) interviews Don Allen, an African-American North Minneapolis activist who feels that the Republican Party of Minnesota has for too long written off his neighborhood, and other DFL strongholds, like so much bad debt.

Why doesn't the RPM have more boots on the ground in North Minneapolis, the University of Minnesota, or Lucky Rosenbloom's Dale Street neighborhood? (Rosenbloom should be one of Hudson's next one-hour interviews.) According to Allen, some folks in the urban core think that funding distributed by the city, state, and federal governments (and spent by school districts) should be more accountable and transparent (ahem, are you listening, Pat Anderson?), and that concerns about light rail transit's impact on neighborhoods are falling on deaf DFL ears.

Allen thinks that conservative solutions to urban ills should be heard and discussed within his community. He has invited Republican officials to stop by his town hall meetings at the Sunnyside Cafe, but so far they have been no-shows. Allen wants Republican leadership, not just well-meaning twentysomething "outreach" coordinators, to begin cultivating relationships in his neighborhood.

It will take more activists like Allen and candidates like Eva Ng, who ran for mayor of Saint Paul last year; Barry Hickethier, who is challenging Sen. Larry Pogemeiller (DFL-Minneapolis) in SD59; and Joel Demos, who is challenging Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN5); running year after year, to plant conservative ideas and grow a GOP presence in the cities.

As Hudson suggests, it will likely take more like a decade than an election cycle to change voting habits, and the RPM has some tough return-on-investment decisions to make with limited resources. But with that hopey-changey thing not working out so well, what better time than 2010 to get started?

On caucus day, ten truths for conservative candidates

When you are sitting in your precinct caucus room tonight amongst fifteen or twenty of your neighbors, and the candidates for the state House and Senate races drop by to ask for your vote at your upcoming BPOU convention, try to determine whether they truly believe these time-tested truths:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
10. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

—William John Henry Boetcker (1873–1962)

If not, either you went to the DFL caucus by mistake (this happened to me in 1992!), or you need to call or e-mail your BPOU leadership on Wednesday morning and ask for conservative replacements, or do some soul searching and run yourself, as a Republican or an independent. Current Republican and DFL leadership is transforming Minnesota into a cold Cuba, and we must elect a Legislature and Governor who will do something about it.

John Kerry: Palin, Tea Party are threats

"If you think this movement is more circus sideshow than actual threat, you'd be mistaken. Republican candidates are falling all over each other to get [Sarah] Palin's endorsement, and the tea party movement is responding. Money is pouring in.

"Either we match the passion and activism of these new forces in the Republican Party, or they'll be choosing who's sitting in the Senate, steering our country's course...And the loss of even one or two would flip crucial votes in their favor and doom President Obama's agenda [author's emphasis]...The best chance we've had in generations to make positive change will have ended." —Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), in a recent Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee fundraising letter

Because she is not currently holding or running for elected office (while having not ruled out the possibility), Gov. Palin is free to speak her mind and help conservatives get elected across the country. From now and into 2010 is the perfect time to leverage Palin's rising popularity and influence. Help "doom President Obama's agenda." Donate to SarahPAC.