Ideology Must Fit On A Bumper Sticker So The Morons Will Chant It Like It Means Something

Here's the last few ¶ of a piece by David Sirota on "I Want My Country Back":

To underscore feelings of grievance and nostalgia, the slogan ends with a word deliberately implying both theft and resurrection. In tea party mythology, "back" means taking back a political system that was supposedly pilfered (even though it was taken via legitimate elections) and then going back to a time that seems ideal. As one tea party leader told The New York Times: "Things we had in the '50s were better."

To the tea party demographic, this certainly rings true. Yes, in apartheid America circa 1950, rich white males were more socially and economically privileged relative to other groups than they are even now. Of course, for those least likely to support the tea party -- read: minorities -- the '50s were, ahem, not so great, considering the decade's brutal intensification of Jim Crow.

But then, that's the marketing virtuosity of the "I Want My Country Back" slogan. A motto that would be called treasonous if uttered by throngs of blacks, Latinos or Native Americans has been deftly sculpted by conservatives into an accepted clarion call for white power. Cloaked in the proud patois of patriotism and protest, the refrain has become a dog whistle to a Caucasian population that feels threatened by impending demographic and public policy changes.

As a marketing masterpiece, the slogan would certainly impress the old Madison Avenue mavens. The trouble is that as a larger political ideology, its hateful and divisive message is encouraging ever more misguided madness.

The same things and worse happened in the '50s that are happening now. Difference is, we didn't hear about it like we do now. Ignorance is the bliss the teabaggers want.