Great American Hypocrites by Glenn Greenwald

The modern Republican party is very much like John Wayne, according to Glenn Greenwald. On the outside, they are the party of real men, strong and manly. They stand for morals, the family, and for the War. But this conceals their true nature: Many of them may support the Wars America fights, but will do anything to go and actually do any of the fighting themselves. Nor will they send their own children to do the fighting, making them Chickenhawks. (Not all of them, admittedly. John McCain did serve. but how many other Republican Candidates actually went to Vietnam or Korea, or served in World War II? Not many, apparently)

John Wayne did the same. When World War II was going on, he did everything he could to get out of serving his country, yet spent years playing tough men in combat, from Cowboys to Marines in Army Men. He played a good game, but he was only play-acting a role he was apparently too scared to actually do in real life. He also looked down on sissies and those who cheated on their wives while he had numerous affairs, drank like a fish, beat his wives, and had an addiction to pills. And contrary to his supposedly lush hair, for most of his career, he was bald and wore a toupee.

Modern Republicans, unfortunately, live up to this image. While claiming to be the party of morality and Christianity, they almost all have had multiple wives, or are concealing numerous affairs and liasons with both men and women, despite Jesus saying that once you marry a woman, no man can put asunder what God has joined, making all the Republicans with multiple wives, in effect, serial adulterers in the eyes of the God whose worship they espouse. Thus, while appearing to be the party of morality and "Family values", they are anything but.

Worse, they have made politics into something on the level of a schoolyard, with name-calling the Democrats and trying to make them seem to be effeminate males, butch-dyke male-hating females, and the party to be based on no morals at all. By Contrast, most Democrats have had only one wife, to whom they have remained faithful, supported their children, and tend not to have homosexual skeletons in the closet. Who really is the party of morality here? The one who labels themselves as one thing and does something not in line with that label, or one who actually lives up to the promises they made when they married?

This book points out many things that the Republican party wouldn't like for most voters to see or realize, like the fact that much of their strategy comes down to name-calling and trying to label their opponents to make the Republicans seem better than them. I didn't start out convinced before I read this book, all I had to do was turn on the nightly news to see evidence of the claims Glenn Greenwald makes. All I can do is suggest you read it and make up your own mind.