Joe the Plumber became a media star, a foreign correspondent, a lecturer to Republican Congressmen and an expert in various other areas without ever having been a plumber, or even a Joe.
Joe Scarborough became a politician and television star with no ability to communicate. Joe’s problem, one of many, is a total unfamiliarity with the meanings of the words he is so fond of using. It may be unfair, as I suspect he lacks the creative ability to conjure anything passing for English but he was the first I heard using the words.
Joe, referring to Rick Santellis overblown television moment, called it a populist rant. Since his use I have heard many others, commentators, politicians and other comedians, use the same description. Populist? How so?
What we had was a derivatives trader, a bozo with diarrhea of the mouth, calling his fellow Americans losers. Why? Because they didn’t, or couldn’t, meet the requirements of the bankers. It was actually a bankers’ rant.
Zbigniew Brzezinski nailed Joe when describing him as “stunningly superficial.” He was speaking of international affairs but Joe is not so limited. He is stunningly superficial in many areas, English being so obvious. If you still have a Funk and Wagnalls dictionary for junior high students gathering dust around you home, please send it to Morning Joke.
Benito Mussolini defined Fascism thusly: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Benito was familiar enough with the subject to serve as an adequate source.
Populism is the opposite. It isn’t some hoary caricature of Huey Long. Former Wisconsin Senator Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follete would be the perfect poster boy for populism. Simply stated, populism is, from one dictionary, The political doctrine that supports the rights and powers of the common people in their struggle with the privileged elite.
Allegiance to corporations, including banks, is antithetical and antagonistic to populism. They are polar opposites. One would think that it is difficult to confuse the two.
Am I basing this criticism of poor little Joe on his misuse of one word? After all, many others behaved similarly. No. The list of words that Joe misunderstands is long: capitalism, socialism, democracy, republic – essentially all of the words that constitute the language of his areas of pomposi . . . er, discourse.
Joe isn’t alone but he tries so hard to stand out. He has been fairly successful in that quest. Not too surprisingly, he isn’t embarrassed by his ignorance. Again, that seems to be the nature of the beast (media star).
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