There’s a trending piece on Politico titled, “How Republicans Became the ‘Barstool’ Party”. In part a profile of podcaster Dave Portnoy and his “Barstool Sports” empire-ette, the author, Derek Robertson, writes, ” … the Barstool Republican now largely defines the Republican coalition because of his willingness to dispense with his party’s conventional policy wisdom on anything — the social safety net, drug laws, abortion access — as long as it means one thing: he doesn’t have to vote for some snooty Democrat, and, by proxy, the caste of lousy deans that props up the left’s politically-correct cultural regime.”
I think of myself as a connoisseur of barstool conversations. It’s an acquired taste to be sure. But from the Florida Keys to Forks, Washington and various rural outposts in between there’s something to be gleaned from what (mostly) men and women talk about over cheap beer in familiar hang-outs.
As presently populated, the Republican party is, as we all know, chockful of serious crazy. From sanctimonious evangelicals who have no problem cheering on a flagrantly unethical, thrice-married, porn-star-banging philanderer, to shameless racists and anti-Semites toting rifles and torches through American streets in the name of protecting northern European purity … as God intended it.
But, IMHO, the conceit of “Barstool Republican” injects something just as if not more useful than mere delusional religiosity and racism into attempts at understanding conservative politics, circa 2021.
On this side of the yawning chasm the realization settled in quite some time ago that the average Trumper doesn’t give two Lite damns about tax policy, or NATO or whether their obese, Depends-wearing, spray-tanned leader is really just a middle-man money launderer for Russian gangsters as long as he helps them “own the libs.”
The phenotype, “Barstool Republican” builds a handy definitional corral around pretty much every imaginable conservative sub-group. (The term “phenotype” refers to the observable physical properties of an organism; these include the organism’s appearance, development, and behavior.)
Portnoy’s appeal is a natural, direct line outgrowth of morning drive radio, as heard in virtually every large city in the USA. Think Tom Barnard here in the Twin Cities, or Howard Stern nationally. The ingredients of the appeal — to 18-54 year-old blue collar males primarily — are porn-y vulgarity, regular assertions of hard-won street wisdom and persistent criticism and attacks on the “over-protected”, which as practiced in morning drive usually means racial minorities and women too uptight to shake their booty for a cold beer.
I’m sorry I don’t have any numbers, but this is a crowd I see a lot of “out there” in Sarah Palin’s “Real America”, and one I dare anyone to tell me is smaller than mega-church zealots.
These folks, nursing their $3 tap brew at Middlegate Station in central Nevada or the No Name Pub on Big Pine Key, claim to “hate all politicians”, never suggest any interest in religion, share endless stories of the “assholes and idiots” who commanded them if they were in the military and belly ache constantly about the boss they have today … if they’re currently employed. Then you get to the wildly suspect information they trade about liberal “giveaways”, regulations and “la la land bullshit” about cleaning up the planet.
But as bad as all that is, nothing gets them singing the same chorus as when talk turns to “limp dick” liberals, their “bitch/bull dyke” women, and all the “asinine” rules “those morons” are trying to “shove down our throats.” Much as they hate politics, anyone who takes a slap at that crowd gets their vote … if they’re not busy hunting on election day.
There’s a reason “nihilism” is routinely bandied about when this type of value-free Republican is mentioned. But the thing is they do have values, just not much in the way of standing up for basic rights for … well, you know, the whole liberal litany of the oppressed. And that’s because they see themselves as the oppressed. Primarily by anyone in authority over them.
They are the hard-working/hard-playing straight guys who just want to be left alone to make whatever jokes they want about women, gays, Jews, blacks, Mexicans, Asians and whoever else is getting “special treatment” and who make them feel uncomfortable any time they’re around.
As I say, my suspicion is that Barstool Republicans, whether knocking them back in Oklahoma or out the 494 Strip, represent a far larger bloc of reliable Republican voter than the classic science-and-fact averse evangelical, the focus of so much liberal angst.
They are a crowd some Democrat somewhere, somehow, has to pull over to the light.
Unfortunately, lacking any pastor-like figures other than crude, in-it-for-the-money shock jocks, the Barstool kids might be even less reachable than the moony-eyed parishioners staring up from the pews at your local Abundant Life Dollars-for-Jesus palace.
Lots of them here in NE Wisconsin. Go in just about any bar, any night, and the same guys are on the same stools hitching about the Leebrals.
I don’t know about the gang over on that side of Wisconsin, but I’ve lost track of the number of times one (or more) or the barstool boys would try to impress a female by regaling her with tales of A: How drunk he was, and B: How fast his pickup was going.
Exactly. Today’s Republicans define themselves by what they aren’t; i,e,, they are NOT articulate, university-educated, socially conscious liberals. And who better to represent the “anything else” than the tangerine-faced cockwobble himself?
You said, “cockwobble.”
Disdain for and anger at authority is a huge part of what draws people to Trump and his camp followers, yes. Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t tread on me.
And isn’t that part of what we felt in the Sixties? Maybe somehow there could be a link there. A connection. I heard a woman who was vaccinated and whose husband is immunocompromised and is also vaccinated say she’s not letting her anti-vax sons see their father. But she says she understands the sons’ point of view — “we learned in the Sixties not to trust the government.”
Indeed. All governments lie, I.F. Stone taught us. Maybe some leader can make the connection and get people to see the benefits of government in their lives while acknowledging how fucked up government on all sides can be.
A CNN project looking at several people who stormed the Capitol showed one insurrectionist’s sister saying her brother and many who follow the wacko far right are looking for someone to blame for the problems — often created or exacerbated by themselves — in their lives. They look to blame those not like themselves. I’m not sure any bridges can be built to those people.
But we’d better find a way to connect with those who scorn authority. We’ve been there.
I’m sure you’ll agree that the scorn we felt for Dick Nixon, LBJ, Curtis LeMay, Bob Haldeman, J. Edgar Hoover, G. Gordon Liddy and all the authority figures of the Sixties/Seventies seems a bit different than grousing on perpetually about women trying to get equal pay and doing something about air pollution. One other thing I read about the 1/6 gang was the number of them with serious financial problems.
Definitely something to this. Lot of 60’s rebels grew up to be Republicans. Partially this was due to the War on Drugs. GOP has largely let this fall by the wayside, so people like Charlie Daniels and Ted Nugent feel more comfortable with the GOP (…just leave this long haired country boy alone…). But there has certainly been a perspective shift in terms of which party is trying to enforce conformity with social norms, which determines who the rebels are.
I know those folks well, and have no idea how to persuade them without forfeiting my soul, so am not interested in trying. I sure hope there are enough limp dicks and bitches out there to win some elections.
The “Limp Dick Bitch” coalition could use some effective marketing.
“Phenotype:” such a lousy-Dean word.
Seriously, this is a great piece -thanks!
My big question: why now? Cranky low-wattage selfishness has been with us forever so how come they emerged as a President-electing force just now? Are they humanoid cicadas; like the pod people chasing Donald Sutherland? Goldwater and Wallace had elements on their team (Pearlstein) but neither got very close to the end zone. Maybe a cumulative effect gathering force since 1954 (Meyer, Hochschild)?
One thing I left out — and is critically important — is the rank cynicism of Republican politicians curating a message to appeal directly to these value-free nihilists. Trump understood it instinctively. “It’s all about me.” “If it doesn’t make my life easier/If I can’t make a buck off it, I’m against it.” I’m guessing you too have often wondered how much actual personal time the Ted Cruz/Ron Johnson/Josh Hawley/Nikki Haley crowd spends with … the people they need most to win elections?
Another good point.
So the answer to my question of “why now?” might be:
1. a major political party unmoored from principle in favor of transactional whatever-sells (Ornstein, Charles P Pierce)
[plus]
2. an isolated, whip-em-up media environment (Yochai Benkler’s “Network Propaganda . . .”)
[equals]
3. nihilistic but selfish voting behavior.
Or am I putting words in your mouth?
No, I track with all that. Since the Lee Atwater/Newt Gingrich era the Reoublican party has steadily dispensed with any reluctance to appeal to the worst instincts of a nativist population, and hand in hand with intensely partisan, grievance-driven media has convinced that population that others … and not they themselves … are responsible for their unpleasant life predicaments. The effect is to have taken a largely apolitical group of occasional voters and turn them into reliable opponents of anyone and anything on the left. All that said, I think James Carville is on to something when he complains that Democrats have to take a serious look at how their uncritical embrace of all things “woke” will drive the barstool crowd even further away.
I’m currently in da UP hanging out with lots of in laws hearing language I haven’t heard people use since high school. Yup, pretty much all barstool Republicans. Thing is that most of them usually didn’t vote. Trump got them excited. They don’t seem to give a shit about Tom Cotton or Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley–frankly, they have no idea who any of these people are. But they all knew who Trump was, long before he was elected. And they liked that Trump was rich and famous despite breaking the rules. They liked that he was an asshole, just like them. All of them would screw Stormy Daniels if they could. And they’d cheat on their wives, if they weren’t scared shitless of their wives….
I expect that a whole lot of them won’t be voting in the next few elections, because they just don’t seem to care all that much. The day to day crap of jobs and family get in the way, and Washington DC is far away and doesn’t really affect them. What seems to motivate them most is envy, particularly envy of people close to them that they know. In this corner of the world, that means envy of Native American tribes. Envy of the fact that the tribes are getting money and distributing it to their members. This is “undeserved” money–they aren’t doing anything to earn it, other than being Indian. Doesn’t matter that this includes various members of their families (nieces and nephews, grandkids, even sons and daughters). If they aren’t the ones getting the cushy jobs or regular checks, it isn’t fair. Or maybe they just need something to bitch about….
Thanks Brian for illustrating this psychographic in your usual entertaining style. It describes my in-laws and other folks I chat up in MW Swissconsin sitting at bars. An aside, Thom Hartmann, a writer/radio pundit who I listen to locally on AM 950, routinely asks listeners (of the R persuasion) to cite any legislation Republican politicians have passed that helps working class people. Yea, I know various tax cuts over the years have trickled down a little. But they mostly benefited the 1% and were designed to “drown govt. in a bathtub.”