During the 1960s, the most influential of theseSvengalis were the executives working in Madison Avenue advertising firms. Bycontrast, 2010's most effective mad men come from Main Street and are literallyangry menspecifically, the tea party crowd that is, according to new polls,more wealthy, more white, more male, more Republican and more motivated byracial resentment than the general population. And though their jeans andbaseball caps are less stylish than Don Draper's suits and fedoras, theseanti-government activists deserve recognition: They have crafted a motto assuccinctly expressive and manipulative as the best Sterling Cooper innovation.
"I WantMy Country Back"this ubiquitous tea party mantra belongs next toNike's "Just Do It" on Ad Age's list of the most transcendent idioms.In just five words, it perfectly captures the era’s conservative backlash. Takea moment to ponder the slogan's phrase-by-phrase etymology:
"IWant"Humanity's most atavistic exclamation of selfishnessand thus anappropriate introduction for a tea party mottothis caveman grunt may end upbeing the epitaph on the nation's tombstone. America once flourished by valuingwhat "we"as in We the Peopleneed (food, shelter, infrastructure,etc.). Conversely, today's America teeters thanks to a Reagan-infused zeitgeistthat reoriented us to worship whatever I the Person wants. High-income taxbreaks, smog-belching SUVs, cavernous McMansions carved into pristinewildernessit doesn't matter how frivolous the individual craving or howdetached it is from necessity. What matters is that the "I" nowassumes an entitled right to any desire irrespective of its affront to theallegedly Marxist "we."
"MyCountry"In his quintessentially American ditty, Woody Guthrie said,"This land was made for you andme." It made sense. In a democracy, the country is We the People'si.e.,everybody's. If, over time, our diversifying complexion and changing attitudecreates political shifts, that's OKbecause it's not "my country" or"your country"; it's all of ours. Apparently, though, this principleis no longer sacred. Following two elections that saw conservative ideologyrejected, tea party activists have resorted to declaring that there can only beone kind of countrytheirs.
"Back"Tounderscore feelings of grievance and nostalgia, the slogan ends with a worddeliberately implying both theft and resurrection. In tea party mythology,"back" means taking back a political system that was supposedlypilfered (even though it was taken via legitimate elections) and then goingback to a time that seems ideal. As one tea party leader told The New York Times: "Things we hadin the '50s were better."
To the tea party demographic, this certainly ringstrue. Yes, in apartheid America circa 1950, rich white males were more sociallyand economically privileged relative to other groups than they are even now. Ofcourse, for those least likely to support the tea partyread: minoritiesthe'50s were, ahem, not so great, considering the decade’s brutal intensificationof Jim Crow.
But then, that's the marketing virtuosity of the"I Want My Country Back" slogan. A motto that would be calledtreasonous if uttered by throngs of blacks, Latinos or Native Americans hasbeen deftly sculpted by conservatives into an accepted clarion call for whitepower. Cloaked in the proud patois of patriotism and protest, the refrain hasbecome a dog whistle to a Caucasian population that feels threatened byimpending demographic and public policy changes.
As a marketing masterpiece, the slogan wouldcertainly impress the old Madison Avenue mavens. The trouble is that as alarger political ideology, its hateful and divisive message is encouraging evermore misguided madness.
David Sirotais the author of the best-selling books "Hostile Takeover" and"The Uprising." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado andblogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.comor follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
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