Attn. Yankee Comrades

If you want to know why this is happening, then watch this - Right America: Feeling Wronged, Alexandra Pelosi's documentary about Republican supporters during the run-up to the 2008 election.

I went through a strange cycle of emotions watching the film. Beginning with gritted teeth in preparation for the inevitable litany of lies & lunacy, I soon felt an odd pity for the people in front of Pelosi's camera. Their earnest, deep-seated, and sincere love for their country, for their culture, for their future was... touching, I'll admit it! These people honestly want only the best for their homeland, and it's hard to begrudge anyone their dreams.

And then, forty-three minutes later, after having heard innumerable innuendos, inaccuracies, and willfully ignorant claims that Barack Obama is a Muslim, a non-citizen, a socialist (as though any of these are inherently bad), a fascist, a one-man sleeper cell, the Anti-Christ, an Illuminati puppet, a pimp, a mobster, a racist, an NLP-employing mass-hypnotist, and quite possibly one of David Icke's lizard people... the small step towards empathy for the right wing that I'd taken was swiftly erased with a retreat to my previous position: that America is being drawn-and-quartered by a gang of megaphone-mouthed, purposefully uneducated Christian fundamentalists, yahoos, self-styled guerrillas, selfish simpletons masquerading as civil libertarians, and sore losers, none of whom can see past their microscopically myopic cultural conservatism or straight-up, old-school racism.

I'm tempted to reiterate my post-election bipartisan stance, but instead I'll keep it civil and say simply that I'm so goddamn glad I never have to live in that country again.