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The AMERICAN Party: I Am Not “Republican.” I Am Not “Conservative.” I Am Not “Alt Right.” None of These. “I am an AMERICAN.”

An American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,… No sentimentalist …. no stander above men and women or apart from them…
— Whitman, Leaves of Grass (1855)

“I am not an American, I am THE American.”
-– Mark Twain

A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
— Same Old Train

[First written November 2010]

Remember when Hillary Clinton, during her 2007 attempt to rule the world, stopped calling herself a “liberal” and rebranded herself as a “progressive?”

I do.

This relabeling from “Liberal” to “Progressive” was Clinton’s desperate attempt to crawl out from under the vast heap of crap she and all the other “liberals” had piled on themselves -– notably during her own husband’s administration. And who, when trying to run, wanted to have that old “liberal” ball and chain around her thick ankles? Not Hillary.

By 2007 “Liberal” had become so drenched in sewage that liberals could only clean it through “rebranding.”

The new/old brand name chosen was ‘progressive.’

And it worked for them — and for Obama — just long enough to get them elected the first time by a credulous public who had seemingly never heard “progressive” before.

“Progressive…” it sounded so, well, hopeful. It was, after all, not “trans- gressive” but “pro-“gressive”.

After all, who can be against “progress?” Who is not pro “pro?”

Who, that is, except the vast majority of older Americans who had seen the wreckage that the progressives’ “progress” had wrought wherever it touched down on the American landscape.

Still, the recloaking of ye olde “liberal” wolves inside of the “Progressive Sheeps’ Clothing” worked well enough with the young and stupid as well as the old and malicious.

“Progressive” caught on because it junked “liberal” but didn’t say “socialist.” At least not in so many syllables, until the Democrat candidate Clownworld of 2019.

That was then.

Now, of course, “progressive” as a brand has become synonymous with cheats, control-addicts, the walking brain-dead, lying Social Justice Warriors, and the power junkies that want to tell you all about the bad McDonalds Happy Meals in condom-chewing San Francisco.

Today “Progressive” is as dead as Hitler’s charred corpse smoldering in a ditch outside the bunker on Pennsylvania Avenue. But “progressives” don’t know they’re crispy critters because they can’t entertain any ideas that weren’t minted in ye olde Soviet Union. So let’s let them keep it.

Let those bitter aging boomers cling to their Darwins and their “progressive” programs and labels. Progressives, after all, are the queens of worthless labels.

What we need to do is a little “rebranding” of our own in order to blunt the brain-dead attacks that keep coming from the attack poodles of the left. Attacks that when examined are all aimed at the label “Conservative” or “Republican” or, most recently, “Alt-Right.”

“Conservative.” “Liberals.” These two categories are not the same. Not all “Conservatives” are “Republicans,” and – unfortunately for the life expectancy of the Republican party – not all “Republicans” are “Conservative.”

An attempt to pull all the Trump voters into one group was made under the ham-handed and, frankly, Deep State 1984esque label, “Alt-Right.” This label commits several branding errors in one cast. First, it has a hyphen and hyphens in labels have signaled nothing but “troublemakers” for decades now. Second, it has internal phonetic errors that echo German pronunciation as “Alt! Reich!” Not a good echo. Third, it insinuates all those under its umbrella are on the Right, which is not the case in a populist movement such as the Trumpening. Many do not wish to be lumped in with rightists of any sort. In short, the attempt to make us all “Alt-Right” simply isn’t making it.

Let’s dump all three brands: Conservative, Republican, and Alt-Right.

I don’t know about you, but I do not consider myself either a “Conservative” or a “Republican” or a member of the “Alt-Right.” Never have. Never will. I consider myself to be one thing and one thing only:
I AM AN AMERICAN.

Always have been.

Always will be.

Nothing less.

Couldn’t be anything more.

Born and bred from ancestors that go back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636.

To call me a Conservative is to miss the point.

To call me a Republican is to mistake me by a mile.

To call me an AMERICAN is to know me down to the bone. I suspect this blunt fact is true of all those who term themselves “Independents,” all those who call themselves “Conservative,” all those who joined the Tea Party, and the Trumpening; they and all the others who,

Came from the hills and mountains,
The valleys and the plains
,
Some were kind and gentle,
And some too wild to tame.

That’s who we are and that’s who we shall always remain — Americans.

A single, obvious, and overarching word to cover a wide, wide tent:

Americans.

Americans all regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin.

Let’s rebrand ourselves from this point forward. Let us go back to the original brand:

When you are called a Conservative, you reply, “No, I am an AMERICAN.”

If someone tries to tar you with the label “Republican,” you must correct them by saying, “No, I am an AMERICAN.”

If accused of being some sort of stealth fascist by being labeled “Alt-Right,” you need to sort those mental midgets out by reminding them, “No, I am an AMERICAN.”

If they say you are arguing from Republican or Conservative views, point out to them that you are arguing from AMERICAN views only.

Do that consistently and we can all look forward to future disputes and elections that pit the “Progressives” against the AMERICANS. I know which way I’d bet.

It’s a big country and it needs a big rebranding. If we call ourselves “AMERICANS” we’re going to need a bigger tent.

Failing to fetch me me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass [1855]

Same old train with Lyrics Clint Black, Joe Diffie, Emmylou Harris, Merle Haggard, Alison Krauss, Patty Loveless, Ricky Skaggs, Earl Scruggs, Marty Stuart, Pam Tillis, Randy Travis, Travis Tritt and Dwight Yoakam

In order:
(Clint Black)
Well I got on in Bristol, by the old Virgina line
With a suitcase full of dreams,
And a brand new spendin’ dime

(Pam Tillis)
I had a full bouquet of music, wrapped in pretty words
Singin’ songs sent down from heaven,
On the wings of a speckled bird
Wings of a speckled bird

(Randy Travis)
I heard a guitar and a fiddle, banjo and mandolin
An old man opened up the door and told me “come on in”

(Marty Stuart)
He took my ticket, then he told me,
Bring what it is you do
‘Cause that’s how you’ll be remembered
When you’re travelin’ days are through
When you’re travelin’ days are through

(All)
They came from the hills and mountains,
The valleys and the plains
Some were kind and gentle,
And some too wild to tame

(Emmylou Harris)
A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
Just a different time

(Merle Haggard)
We sung songs in war, we sung songs in peace
We traveled in abundance and we traveled on relief

(Travis Tritt)
From the outer gates of heaven, to hell fire’s burnin’ door
It don’t matter where you take it,
‘Cause it’s been there before
It’s been there before

(All)
They came from the hills and mountains,
The valleys and the plains
Some were kind and gentle,
And some too wild to tame

(Merle Haggard)
A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine

(All)
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
Just a different time

(Ricky Skaggs/Patty Loveless)
Now like a precious treasure, that’s immeasurable in worth
We stand before a new wave, proud children of the earth

(Joe Diffie)
We’ll go on forever, and here’s your solid proof
As long as there’s a world we’ve gotta sing
Those folks the truth
Sing those folks the truth

(Dwight Yoakam)
They came from the neon cities,
The suburbs and the towns
From Bakersfield to Baltimore,
It’s sacred holy ground

(All)
A string of fearless hearts, on an endless ball of twine
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
Just a different time
Just a different time
Just a different time

Scruggs, Krauss play banjo and fiddle interlude)

(Merle Haggard)
It’s the same old train, it’s just a different time
Same old train, just a different time

[First written November, 2010.]

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • ghostsniper August 21, 2017, 4:45 AM

    I’m just “me”, don’t need no goofy assed labels, nor will I accept any.
    IOW, leave me the fuk alone and mind your own business.

    Thanks
    Mgmt.

  • Casey Klahn August 21, 2017, 7:23 AM

    Well done. I especially like Mark Twain’s words, and the longer I live the better his work gets. Perfect music, too.

    I left “Conservative” behind in the election, but not for reasons of public concern. No, I am madder than a hornet at conservatives all by myself. I noticed when I looked down the ranks to my left and right, that the guy next to me was mostly in agreement with me. I observed that the next guy down the rank was a bit confused compared to my own brilliant thoughts. Strangely, by the time I got 3 men down the rank, that turd was so completely different from my own political beliefs, that I wondered who let him in this army. He held crazy beliefs I’d never expected from conservatism, but in retrospect I understand have been held historically by those on the Right.

    Isolationism in this century is as crazy as driving in the fifth lane of a four lane arterial. Anti-Semitism is just plain nutty; no explanation needed, I hope. I cannot countenance complete libertarianism when it comes to narcotics use, or deviant relationships. I’ll take the Code of the West on many things, and leave you to your steamy shit, but keep your stupid mouth shut about it while you’re at it. We’re trying to have a civilization here.

    Trump comes along for me at the perfect time. No more Republicanism. Every member of Congress with an “R” is liberal, at worst, or supernumerary at best.

    Since the American Experiment is founded in violent revolution, and since the urge to individualism is virile, I have decided that if I were to be categorized I’d have to say I am an Anarcho-Capitalist. In short, I am the American.

  • Vanderleun August 21, 2017, 10:32 AM

    Individuals don’t need labels, true. But movements do.

  • Vanderleun August 21, 2017, 10:33 AM

    And yes, Casey, we need to note the Cucked R’s.

  • ghostsniper August 21, 2017, 6:12 PM

    They need to be stolen away in the night. The very middle of night. While everyone sleeps, they will weep. For in their core the moment they always dreaded and only thought about in private, was here. Now. Their atonement. The guilty know they are, and are always one step ahead of the judge, and the judgement. The final.

    Who gives the american communists teeth?
    Who paves their way?
    Who greases their skids?
    Who lets them slide?
    Who, by default, encourages them?
    Who brightens their every morning?

    We are played like pawns and they care nothing of us, only what we can do for them.
    They know, in group, there is nothing we can do to them.
    We can only take, and take, and take all they dish.
    All the little chess games are easily manipulated like herds of rooks and bishops.

    But they too must sleep and it is then the lone wolf creeps.
    Over the gate, behind the shrubs, in the shadows, under the radar, through the locks, and into the room, a glint of steel, a strained sigh, a crimson stream, loup solitaire….

  • Millie_woods August 21, 2017, 6:31 PM

    The liberals aren’t liberal, the progressives aren’t progressive and the anti-fascists aren’t anti fascist. Everything about these people is a lie. They have no souls, they have no conscience. Many of them probably don’t even realize it.

  • Howard Nelson August 21, 2017, 6:37 PM

    ‘American’ sounds good to me. To put some definition to that identity I’d add:
    .. love of country
    .. courage to defend and implement the meanings, as originally intended, of the DoI and amended Constitution
    .. require all citizens to (whatever) to stand within the definition of American.
    Sooner or later we need to stand together for certain principles, lest we be picked off one by one.

    How do Americans contrast themselves to AntiFA, AltRight, Democrat, Republican,
    Conservative, Fascist, Progressive, Perversive, Communist, RectalOrifce, …?

  • Quent August 21, 2017, 9:19 PM

    The term, ”Alt Right,” was not coined in an effort to put all Trump voters under one blanket. It was around long before Trump was on the horizon.

  • ghostsniper August 22, 2017, 4:30 AM

    “require all citizens”
    ==============

    No.
    Unless you add “mind their own business or else” to it.

  • Howard Nelson August 22, 2017, 12:44 PM

    gs, your addition is necessary and accepted. I especially like the “or else” part.

  • ghostsniper November 1, 2019, 2:56 PM

    OK Howard, ain’t seen you around here in a while, what’s up?

  • Rob De Witt November 1, 2019, 5:31 PM

    O Hell yes.

    I’ve done some genealogy of my own the last few years. Son of an American killed in 1944 following Patton across Northern France, I was born an orphan who knew nothing about his family background. A Mormon friend did me a family tree with some historic backup in 2015. I discover that the first De Witt born on these shores saw his first light in 1600, in Nieuw Amsterdam 67 years before they sold it to the English to be re-named New York. I grew up in Illinois and spent the first 29 years of my wandering far from a coast.

    I live now among knee-jerk Social Marxists who nonetheless know better than to start that “We’re all immigrants here” crap with me, since it quickly engenders the response “Maybe you are. There were De Witts in this country before there were Pilgrims in New England, and two hundred years before there were Comanches in Texas.”

    I may have done this whole trip on my own, but I’ve always known who I am: I’m an American.

  • Sam L. November 1, 2019, 7:40 PM

    Progressive: What it means to me.
    It means CANCER. It means DEATH is likely. Maybe long in coming, maybe much sooner. Might fight it and win. I wouldn’t put money on that.

  • Casey Klahn November 1, 2019, 11:05 PM

    Oh, this is the post where I said I was an Anarcho-Capitalist. I musta been thinking of a very free market approach to society, and a very devolved locus of power (THE American). But, sumbitch! Here we are in a nation of like-minded citizens, or mostly so. Yes, there are huge differences on a variety of things. I think the hands-off policy regarding all the wars on the Earth has the shitty effect of crowding them all closer and closer to us. Non-isolationist, here. But, rare kinetics = very good thing. Especially since we don’t seem to have a steady hand on the rudder. We lack serious thinkers in DC (why the fark I’m not in charge is a mystery to me).

    Every couple of days, and sometimes every day, the impeachment fantasy becomes more clarified. The dems cannot beat POTUS and so their only play is the hail Mary of removal. They haven’t got credibility but then again they gave that up 3 presidents back. Now their whistleblower is a partisan but it only helps the for-trumper narrative. The dems won’t even bat an eye about it.

    When Putin invaded the Crimea and Ukraine, I was way bent out of shape by the Rooskies invading Europe (which it was) and didn’t want that shit. Obama fumbled and I buried my head in my hands in shame. Now, in hindsight, I see how Ukraine is the butt of enormous international corruption. This is deep stuff and the US intel community is like those guys running in circles in the volcano crater that James Bond is fixing to kersplode. Rats scrambling to leave the ship.

    The America that the Progs think they are defending is actually their pseudo-commie fantasy of what they wish for America. This fantasy has very little correlation to the historic America of the revolution, the Civil War, the frontier, the industrial powerhouse of the late 19th Century, the world power in 2 world wars plus a Cold War. It is their feeble attempt to bring Marxism to us.

    Keep your powder dry, Americans.

  • JoeDaddy November 2, 2019, 4:29 AM

    HeYYuLL YEAYYUSS!! I can add Veteran to American. Swore an oath to defend the Constitution. The oath does not have an expiration date.

  • Kathryn of Wyoming November 2, 2019, 7:31 AM

    Thank you for this wonderful essay. Thank you! You said what I don’t have the smart, articulate words to say.

  • John Venlet November 2, 2019, 7:53 AM

    I’ve long said that being an American is not a piece of paper, signed by some bureaucrat, granting citizenship in these United States. Being an American is an idea, a way of life, encompassing a strong work ethic, individualism, and an ability to coalesce into a formidable force of individuals when that ideal has been threatened, as it is now, and has been for some 7 decades. What I think has most stymied the idea of America, and being an American, is universal suffrage.

    The United States is a republic, run, of course, on democratic principles. but it is these democratic principles, buttressed by universal suffrage, which is killing the idea of America. America cannot vote its way out of the morass of socialist principles under which it is decaying, unless, the ridiculous, egalitarian idea of universal suffrage is done away with. The ability to vote in a republic should come with responsibilities, ownership so to speak, in the idea of being an American, rather than being purchased by “free stuff.” Nothing is free, most especially freedom, and the egalitarian idea of universal suffrage is smothering it.

  • james wilson November 2, 2019, 9:42 AM

    The “American” train left the station in 1865 but it took all this time to see where this goes. Back is not one of the possibilities. Derailment is.

  • SoylentGreen November 2, 2019, 4:42 PM

    Gerard is absolutely correct in his admonition – and I for one will start to do it immediately. Two party system: Democrats and Americans. Who’s in charge of the branding now, punk! The “progressive” rhetoric will become extremely obvious once this takes hold.

  • MaDuece November 4, 2019, 9:30 AM

    Grandpa didn’t need no government
    He paid his way
    everywhere he went
    He worked his land
    ’til he was spent
    Grandpa didn’t need no government

    Daddy didn’t need no government
    they called him to war
    and off he went
    He came home
    all broke and bent
    Daddy didn’t need no government

    Mama didn’t need no government
    take care of your own
    is how it went
    I got by on the love
    that she sent
    Mama didn’t need no government

    I don’t need no government
    They always want to steal
    every cent
    But never seem to know
    where it went
    I don’t need no government

  • Foo November 5, 2019, 10:42 PM

    +1 Joe Daddy

  • Terry August 28, 2020, 7:24 AM

    @ MaDuece

    That is very good. My outlook precisely. Government is Murder incorporated. Government is theft. Government is total control over you and me.

    This should be very clear even to the dumbest fool on the planet now.

    I am an American. Period.

  • rabbit tobacco August 28, 2020, 7:54 AM

    It’s not what they “call you”,
    but what you ‘answer to’.

  • Sam L. August 28, 2020, 8:49 AM

    The word “progressive” always makes me think of cancer.

  • MadTNTaxpayer August 28, 2020, 9:40 AM

    Words to ponder and reflect on during this perilous time. Yes, I am an American, but also a Christian. In total, “Know Thyself” and know Jehovah, who is “Holy, Holy, Holy”.

  • I am Who I Am August 28, 2020, 11:25 AM

    Well said, sir. Very well said.

  • Ordinary Joe August 28, 2020, 1:15 PM

    These people are the Americans.
    First American Digest article that I ever read.
    http://americandigest.org/chico-is-leaving-it-all-on-the-field/

  • Richard G. August 28, 2020, 5:36 PM

    When I am compelled to fill out a federal form (for the Census or the BATF) and I come to the part that asks me to choose to define myself by race, my needle skates across the disc (with the sound well known to vinyl audiophiles) to the box marked ‘other’ where I type with umbrage ‘HUMAN’.
    FUCK THESE RACISTS. (Spoken as a biology teacher).
    Rob De Witt, I am right there with you. Both sides of my family tree date to the 1600’s America. Before the USA was ‘a thing’.

  • Sam L. August 31, 2020, 9:24 AM

    The word “progressive” always (ALWAYS) makes me think “CANCER”, which “progressives” are.