There is a vast political swell among some ill-informed conservatives that the great mid-term elections will come and a tide of goodness (spelled R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N) will sweep over the grand land, often puerilely referred to as “American exceptionalism,” for everyone.

Everyone but conservatives, however. Yes, that’s what I meant.  Conservatives are republicans. Republicans are Republicans. They aren’t goodness or even good. They love lobbyists and their wars and printed money as much as their “loyal” opposition loves it. Conservatives are the few. Republicans and Democrats are the many.

They both live politically on the blood lust of “presentism” –look it up—but don’t reach for public teachers in any educational offering for it. Without it, the past is not, indeed, prologue.

Anyway,

Democrats probably are (d)emocrats, but are too unread, ill-bred and corrupt politically and academically to know they are. That is, they are indeed a mob but don’t realize it. They are truly a political land of The Lord of the Flies. Any given member could hoist the pig head on a stick.

So, conservatives, particularly Southerners who have not sold their souls to Republican yahoos or Democrat socialist/communists watch as the braggadocious Republicans, the Fox Channel-type pseudo-historians (presentism clods themselves) ballyhoo about great Republican red waves into the land of “a new beginning.” The other “media” conglomerates, meanwhile try to reach new minds with some new nonsense about some old nonsense or some new degeneracy that appeals to them. That was, of course, the social trail for the boys in The Lord of the Flies—nonsense to nonsense. And they did degenerate.

Meanwhile, conservatives, mostly Southerners (https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/our-solemn-task-as-southerners/ ) though many are not, are saddled with the great onerous of slavery; the “original sin” of America, they say. Of course, what they mean is the South’s great sin.

For many, this fabled “sin” is one of the great nonsense traps lain out by both political parties. Though the Democrats have a firm grip on nonsense, the Republicans tag along trying to draw votes from the publicly educated draught of mindless mush they help create. They play with fire. These are the same Republicans that bought the South and conservatism with Barry Goldwater, then sold it to Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan had a chance to buy it back but his check bounced when he allowed Mel Bradford to be bounced.

Perhaps the saddest echo as a result of Republicans playing with fire is often seen in church. Too often, many of the grand “march-across- the- stage” pastors attempt subtle (Democrats are openly political in church) ahistorical speeches that are either downright lies or just downright uneducated concepts.

Right here in Houston, a pastor from one of the largest megachurch congregations danced across the stage a couple of years ago with his pitiful little nonsense that slave owners, like abortionists, could murder. James Henry Thornwell, this guy ain’t. But he still packs them in despite his “historical” nonsense.

People like this ought to be ashamed to speak in public, let alone fawn fecklessly over the Gospels. Though I would withhold my stone, albeit moving my letter.

But the political markers for the South are marked by the “media” as to stay with the Republicans (red state, red state, red state). They are conservative, they say. They can lead you to a new “exceptionalism.” The South always has been exceptional. Republicans have never been so. They are politicians—as was their father-Abraham. Father of our nation, destroyer of our republic. Destruction is never exceptional, except at places like Hiroshima

Yes, follow through with Republican conservative guys, of course, like the rubes of Republican retort: Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Trey (got my Fox gig) Gowdy, or for those Democrat-Republicans such as Romney, Murkowski, Cheney, et al.

Golly, it gives me goosebumps thinking about all that “conservative” gray matter.

Perhaps Jesus Christ had Republicans in mind when he said “There will be wars and rumors of wars.”

Now, this is something that that mega-church slave expert mentioned above could get his sermon teeth into. And he could still slide across his personal stage. If he cares.

So, there may be a red wave or a Republican wave but there will not be a conservative wave. There aren’t enough to make a wave (or waves).

Like George Wallace from many years back, Donald Trump is a single guy wavemaker. And Trump is a heck of a lot of fun to watch when he calls both Democrats and Republicans what they are. Pick your own Trump comment for that conclusion. Whatever bad he said about them is probably so.

The problem with the comparison is that Trump may not fully understand that what Governor Wallace is as true now as it ever has been,

“There ain’t a dime’ worth of difference between the two.”

And there ain’t.

The only aberrant thoughts are from a modicum of conservatives who mostly live down south.

We, indeed, are a band of brothers— and native to the soil.


Paul H. Yarbrough

I was born and reared in Mississippi, lived in both Louisiana and Texas (past 40 years). My wonderful wife of 43 years who recently passed away was from Louisiana. I have spent most of my business career in the oil business. I took up writing as a hobby 7 or 8 years ago and love to write about the South. I have just finished a third novel. I also believe in the South and its true beliefs.

9 Comments

  • Robert Caffery Sr says:

    Short, sweet and to the point. You nailed it, sir!

  • Hugh MCDanel says:

    Democrats and Republicans equal a barrel of snakes, you can’t tell the head of one from the tail of another, all poison vipers with only a very few exceptions, and never enough to make a difference. Yes Democrats and Republicans wings on the same bird.
    But they are only the hired help, bought for a handful of silver. The real power is not even part of the elected government, it is the non governmental agency’s , world economic forum, the world health organization, and International Monetary Fund, that set policy agenda, our leaders just follow orders. The catch phrase “Build back better” , is straight out of the WEF, AND IS BEING PARROTED AROUND THE WORLD! The same is true for “the great reset”. All of this is a violation of your sovereignty, your personal sovereignty as a human being, not to mention the constitution.

  • Leslie Alexander says:

    Excellent. Such a great writing style.

  • Tom Wiggins says:

    Perfectly said sir. Thank you.
    We have a 1 party political system.

  • Noah says:

    Abbeville “HALLELUJAH” supporter here… sheeped-sheepeople are sheepeople.

  • J. C. Marler says:

    The Republican advocates of “American exceptionalism” all seem to think it most commendable that, under the murderous leadership of Bloody Abe, the white North crushed and tyrannized the black-and-white South as a trial run in anticipation of deploying genocidal violence against Indian tribes in the west as a favour for the Union Pacific Railroad to which the Congressional Republican had awarded great quantities of land, free of charge, equivalent to the acreage of the entire state of Texas. Against the collusion between government and commerce by which tribal Indians and Southerners of all colours and cultures were dehumanised, marginalised, and trashed, resistance proved to be futile. Thanks to Bloody Abe and his successors, these United States assumed the qualities of an empire in which politics ceased to be local. After the empire’s conquests of the South and the West and after its bargain with the despotic Romanvs for the acquisition of Alaska, it conducted warfare against the global dimensions of Spain under the flimsiest of pretexts, The American slaughter of Filipinos at the Battle of Manila was nothing to be commended; and the forced annexation of Puerto Rico and the reduction of Puerto Rico to a status for which there is no provision in the Constitution of these United Sates is nothing for which it would be good to congratulate either William McKinley or Theodore Roosevelt, the chest-thumping patrician of Oyster Bay.

    • William Quinton Platt III says:

      It’s always about the money. Love of money is the root of all evil. Money can do much good…but we are lied to constantly…in order to control us…”money is evil” so don’t worry your pretty little heads about it. THERE IS NO INFLATION…THERE IS ONLY DEBT, HANGING OVER US LIKE THE SWORD OF DAMACLES.

  • Larry says:

    Thanks for this article! I live in Western, NY so I’m a Northerner, but I don’t consider myself a “Yankee”. In my mind there is a difference. I love the writing on this site! Maybe I’m a Southerner at heart? There are some here like me.

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