Toby Keith, Democratsays:-

I don’t know, but I expect the wealthy to write a check ’cause it’s as bad as it’s ever been. It would be unpatriotic not to try to save the country. I’m sure people will bitch about it, but if it meant we get to operate in this country and live here another day, then so be it.

One way or another, before it’s over they’re gonna have to come and take big money from the earners and big corporations to save the country. I’m sure that everybody that has a patriotic cell in their system will say, ‘If it’s gotta be done, it’s gotta be done.’ I’d rather live here and not have as much money than live anywhere else and have twice as much.

Yes, that’s right, that Toby Keith. In the morass surrounding 9/11 and all the kerfuffle about flag pins and stepping up to the plate and patriotism, faux and otherwise, it’s easy to forget that Keith is a Democrat. That he supported Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq (like a lot of other Democrats serving in public office … like Hillary Clinton. That he voted for Bush in 2004.

But the boy came home in 2008. The prodigal son returned.

In view of the fact that an elected Democratic official from the Ventura County Democratic party in California, a man, who, himself, was born in Texas, has – in his self-appointed capacity as Democratic-political-pundit-who-knows-all (and knows nothing) – completely wiped the South and the rural Midwest from the map of relevance when it comes to the Democratic party.

That’s it. Kaput. Not only are we unreachable, we’re near-as-damn-it untouchable, pariahs in the worst sense of the word, an embarrassment to the country. AConfederacy of dunces.

Ne’mind the fact that every Democratic President elected in the 20th Century, except Roosevelt and Kennedy, was a Southerner; and the two Yankees who served, at various times, had Southerners as their serving Vice-Presidents. Hell, Jeff Davis’s descendent and Robert E Lee’s lateral descendent is now serving as POTUS, after having served as Senator from Lincoln’s own state. If that isn’t putting a nail in the coffin of the Civil War, then nothing can.

But the fact is that Toby Keith – Toby-fucking-Keith – who calls himself a Democrat, says exactly what the President has been saying repeatedly, day after day, for the past couple of weeks and beyond that.

That ain’t making hay and it ain’t whistlin’ Dixie. No less than Forbes magazine recently listed Keith as the highest-earning country-western performer. So the Warren Buffett of country music, a Democrat, is saying he, and others like him, should be paying more taxes. Because not to do so, dang it, is just plain damned unpatriotic.

You know, like Toby, I’m a Democrat from the South. I know the media and the Coastal sophisticates who effect to control the Democratic party – you know, those who think of the rest of the country as “flyover country” or “shitkicking Deliveranceland” – don’t think there are many of us left down here.

Well, as we say in the South, they don’t know jack shit. So maybe it’s time they learned.

I imagine Toby was raised the way I was, which was to believe that there were only three things a body could trust in life – God, your mamma and the Democratic Party. I’ll just be satisfied with two out of three. Leave God alone, but that’s just me.

Now Toby Keith’s the sort of person who, if he said what he said above, people of a certain tranche and demographic would sit up and take notice.

The South and the rural Midwest are there for the taking for the Democrats. The old base they threw out with the baby and the bathwater forty years ago, have been on one continuous con by the Republican Party, who couldn’t really give a rat’s ass about these people in any way, shape or form, except to get them to vote against their interests.

If the Democrats can use big Hollywood names on a regular basis, maybe it’s time we learned to use those high-profiled show business voices who sound like ordinary people and who can show these folk that Democrats are just like them and that you don’t just have to put on a uniform and grab a rifle to show your patriotism. Patriotism is paying taxes to keep the country moving too.

Look to country. Look to your Toby Keiths, your Tim McGraws and Faith Hills, your Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwoods, your Alan Jackson, who tweeted his excitement two weeks ago to be performing for the President and meeting him. Democrats all, who can get the Democratic message across in words the common man can understand and to which he can relate.

Use country.

Funny thing. As the late Joe Bageant, a great Southern Progressive, often said. If you come into the South, the South embraces you. More and more African Americans are moving South – either returning after many years living in the North or relocating for the first time. The rather snotty historian, Rick Perlstein, visited Americus, Georgia, and was actually stunned that African Americans and whites intermingled freely in bars and social settings throughout the area. Moreso than in his Chicago. Ignorance showing much?

Maybe someone would be wise to suggest such a tactic to Debbie Wasserman Schultz. If the medium is the message, then I can’t think of better messangers than these folks.

And there’s no better message for the President to convey than what Toby Keith conveys in his latest song, “Made in America.” That’s what the message is all about.

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kesmarn
Admin

And then you have “icons” like this guy. What do you do with him?

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/10/03/espn-cuts-hank-williams-from-monday-night-football-over-obama-hitler-remark/

EDIT: Posted this when I got home and then saw that you had also, b’ito. It did seem to be something relevant here as well, though.

bito
Member

Not a problem k’es, none at all. Even Gretchen even seemed to be taken a little aback by his remarks.
(been busy fighting my ‘puter and email.)

kesmarn
Admin

Yes, b’ito, she had the simple sense to “disavow” the comments even though her two cohorts sat there looking like typical FOX mannequins, as always. Williams didn’t look too “healthy” either, I have to say… especially when he said “with the country this condition is in…!” Somebody bring this man a cup of coffee!

jjgravitas
Member
jjgravitas

More than anything I would like to see the South break from its Republican dominance. Perhaps I misunderstood, but I have to disagree with your opinion that Democrats abandoned the South 40 years ago. 40 years ago was the age of the struggle for civil rights and an end to racial discrimination. Blacks had begun to stand up for themselves and demand equal treatment. The South’s responded in the form of lynching and murder. President Johnson (a Texan, and a Democrat) passed civil rights legislation. The South felt betrayed by Johnson and responded by switching parties, becoming overwhelmingly republican. That might have a lot to do with why we are so polarized today. Racism might not have disappeared but it has certainly transformed. Instead of racial persecution, today we have economic persecution. The rich move our jobs overseas, leaving us with nothing.
I was born in Texas and was raised in the Crescent City. I have lived in the D.C. area since my mid-teens. I don’t miss the South.
I’m glad to hear there are still a lot of Democrats down there and I encourage you to stand up for yourselves. Best of luck!

agrippa
Member
agrippa

Basically, the South left the Democratic Party over Civil Rights. The other issue was Vietnam. The Democratic Prty has not been the same since.

Emerald1943
Member

Hey jj! I am a proud card-carrying Democrat from a southern state, North Carolina…which, I might add, went BLUE for the President! I remember when I was much younger, my grandparents were registered Democrats so that they could vote in the Dem primary. There were no repub primaries in those days. Lots of people were in the same boat. However, there is no doubt about people switching parties after the Civil Rights law was signed.

We Dems are standing strong and fighting every step of the way. The last mid-terms didn’t do us much good with a repub takeover of the state legislature, but we do have a strong Dem governor, Bev Purdue, who is not hesitant to use her veto pen.

As for the rest of the south, they will need all the luck they can get if the Dems are going to have any success.

lynettema
Member
lynettema

I hear that NC has Art Pope and his billions buying up all sorts of elections in your state. I read an article in the NYT that said Democrats will have a very difficult time against him. That he is going after Purdue and the presidency in ’12. He sounds as dangerous as the Koch bros.

KQµårk 死神
Member

Marion I think the real point is that Democrats are a coalition of voters that’s why the big tent party nomenclature fits well. That means there are people in the Democratic Party with quite different views. We need to stop fragging people who are Democrats or who lean Democratic starting now. It’s just counter productive because the next election is an election 10X as important as 2008 because we need to keep the progress that has been made and fend of going back 100+ years.

Personally I’m a Democrat because if you include all Democrats, the party encompass nearly 100% of my views far more than even the label Progressive encompasses to be honest. Where as the ideological GOP represents less and less of my views seemingly on a daily basis.

I understand there are more ideological progressives who are gone from the Democratic Party perhaps forever but it’s time to bring everyone we can back into the fold we can.

You are right about one key thing. Democrats need to use the issues people care about to reach out to and make the case to middle America, including the South, more.

bito
Member

KQ, it would be hard to agree with you more.
I have lived, worked and been active in Union and Dem. activities in many states and regions. A conservative Dem from the Northeast is a “flaming Librul” in the South. I have had conservative Dems as Reps and my Rep now is a dreaded “Blue Dog.” I would rather have them, when they vote for Dem proposals 75%-80% of the time as opposed to the alternative of an R voting 75%-80% for their (R) proposals.

True as Will Rodgers said: I don’t belong to an organized party, I’m a Democrat” but with ‘prag-progs’ yelling at ’emo-progs’ and both of them yelling at ‘blue dogs’, how do we expect to elect Dems?

Dems may be the the “big tent” party, but with this very important election in 2012, we need to get in that tent and start sharing our popcorn and stop bickering about the person next to us got more melted butter. Not if we want to see any progress and face more regression.

A few lines I remember as a youngster from my parents:

“What have the R’s ever done for the workers?”
” I always vote for the best person, they just happen to be all Dems.”
” He may be an idiot, but he’s our idiot.”

This intra party quibbling has to end soon!

SueInCa
Member

Bito
I agree with you, the bickering has to stop. When push comes to shove, vote Dem. That is what my dad always told us. I only have one sister who is a closet Dem because her husband is a Republican and she tends to do what he says, but the rest of us are all Dems, to be sure different types of Dems. My brother and I are the liberals, my two sisters are more conservative and the other one is a closet dem, but when push comes to shove and the curtain is pulled in that voting booth, we all vote Democrat.

I was thinking about it the other day and I tried to imagine myself as a Republican, it would not register at all. I just knew it would never happen so no use trying to visualize it.

KillgoreTrout
Member

Absolutely right. I hate all these faux patriots who spout off about how “American,” they are and in the next breath, whine about paying their fair share of taxes. It makes my sick to my stomach! I’m not a big fan of pop-country music, but Kieth is absolutely correct. Paying taxes strengthens our country in many ways. Sometimes I’d like to see these cretins get their way and then have to live in walled fortresses with no food, drug and enviromental regulations. To live in fear in their castles. To always be surrounded by security teams because they fear going out in public with the possibilty of them being mobbed by starving and sick people.
I really would never actually want to see that happen, but that’s the kind of world they would end up with if they had their way.

This sentence puzzles me..”Hell, Jeff Davis’s descendent and Robert E Lee’s lateral descendent is now serving as POTUS, after having served as Senator from Lincoln’s own state.” ?

choicelady
Member

Yeah – apparently Obama has odd family ties…