01.16.13
The Insurrectionist
Ted Nugent has a long history of dancing right up to the line of threatening members of the current administration and calling for armed revolution. Last year, he earned himself a visit from the US Secret Service for remarks made at the annual NRA convention. The Secret Service investigates those people who either make statements calling for the assassination of the president or, who by their exhortations, may be inspiring others to do so. No charges were filed.
From Media Matters, reporting on Ted Nugent from another right wing talk radio show, today:
We need to turn up the heat and tell our elected officials we want Eric Holder arrested. We want him brought to trial for Fast and Furious. We want Hillary Clinton arrested for defying, denying American citizens the proper and adequate security as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches. We want these people held accountable. We want to know where Barack Obama got the authority to spend like a drunken maniac and blowtorch all these tax dollars following the Cloward-Piven and Saul Alinsky playbook to destroy the last, best quality of life in the world and it’s called the United States of America. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Eric Holder are the enemy of the state. (One week ago, Nugent used his weekly column in the Washington Times to ask Biden to invite him to contribute to the talks on gun control. How’s that for reptilian hypocrisy?)
Yesterday, Nugent was on yet another radio show implying that law enforcement, or retired policemen and ex-soldiers — now in the group called Oath Keepers, would revolt if the US government made moves on gun control.
With Ted Nugent, the insurrectionist cant is part of his business. As a guitar player he tours casinos, dive bars and county fairs during the summer, playing his old tunes from the Seventies arena rock circuit.
While Nugent’s persona might seem like the essence of rebellion, it isn’t. Ted Nugent is anything but a rebel. On the contrary, he is a panderer.
Much of Nugent’s time, outside his summer touring, is spent cultivating his profile as a pundit and celebrity for the extreme right, appearing at Tea Party rallies/dinners or on radio shows, walking the thin line between free speech and denial of the the legitimacy of the current elected government with advocacy for revolt. It’s red meat to the people who pay him for his appearances and columns.
For Nugent it’s a cynical personal style. For if he stopped and adopted a more intelligent, nuanced delivery of less inflamed material, he would lose his audience. And that would mean a good deal of income, too.