Country First. Hmm?...

O.K., so as THEIR slogan's coming together. The lead line is "Country First."

While intended to communicate a unifying principle that nationalism comes before politics, it also recalls a classic fascist tenet better described as something like 'chauvinism before intellectualism.'



Here's what Umberto Eco writes about this tact: "In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism..."

Further on in this essay by Eco entitled "Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt," (published in 1995) the author lists attribute number seven as "To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country."

Eco adds, "This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot."

So what's the plot? What's America founded on? If it's not constitutional democracy, opposition politics, financial opportunism and radicalism then what's left is racism really. That's kind of the list of what the Founding Fathers believed in.

And indeed there is an underlying racism that seeps out of this phrase, cuz "country" does mean one thing in America. It is to be "country," hillbilly, white and more often than not racist, if not violently so.



And even if there's African Americans making Country Music, since its inception and certainly since Charley Pride, and even if its become a lingua franca, so to speak, with its massive recent proliferation, 'country' is borne out of what once "made this country great." Adavism.

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
a southern man don't need him around anyhow.

So that's ALL BAD. ALL BAD, friends.

It's time to believe in Progressivism -- the positive forward momentum of humanity that's made this election possible for Obama and Hillary. Yes, Change.

Lastly, that second tag line? Well, gosh, John and Sarah -- "reform, prosperity, peace"...aren't those really the Obama/Biden slogans watered down? Why try and beat 'em at their own game? That's a bad strategy, right? A little like admitting defeat?

If you've given in then we're good to win.