Do You Think You Know Who Jim DeMint Is? It's Worse Than You Thought-- But There Is An Antidote

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is a political product, bought and paid for by massive corporations that have grown far beyond understanding and control, in some measure as a result of everything DeMint believes in and works for in Washington.

The paucity of his Wikipedia biography is remarkable. He was born, attended college, went to work for a public relations firm, moved into politics as a three-term Congressman and then won Fritz Hollings' seat in the Senate. That’s almost all you learn of him there. The one remotely interesting biographical fact is that he once played drums in a cover band called Salt and Pepper. Even in this one slight glimpse of humanity, he is parroting other people’s material as his own.

It's not much of a story, because Jim DeMint isn't much of man. He has not seen war, backpacked Europe, worked shoulder to shoulder with the poor or faced any transformative personal struggles that can produce greatness. He has no Valley Forge, no charge up San Juan Hill, no Freedom Rides. As much as he reveres Ronald Reagan, he doesn’t even have made-up stories to tell.

The America of WalMart, strip malls and Fox News which produced Jim DeMint is a culture stripped of nearly everything that might relieve the empty pursuit of material possessions. It is increasingly cheap, manipulative and disposable. It is not the flawed decency of the small towns of the old South. It is not American in the sense that it really means anything. It is a shopping cart full of cheap Chinese goods purchased on credit, oblivious to the consequences: that our children will have less of everything that is of value unless we change.

As you read the endless stream of press releases that pour out of DeMint's noise machine, the numbing repetition of manipulative words strung together is striking, because they once were words that really meant something. Prayer, freedom, free enterprise and individualism are invoked paragraph after paragraph and day after day. The message is simple and sadly seductive: "America is in trouble, and it's all the fault of the powerless, the poor and the people who are different. If they could all be driven out of our society, the cheap gas and secure middle class life people remember would return for all of us 'real Americans.'"

DeMint is against nearly everything. Saying "no, No NO" to everything is easy, and can be-- in the short term-- very emotionally satisfying. Just ask any two-year-old. He opposes health care, public education, unemployment insurance, student loans, bicycle paths, public transit, high-speed rail and attempts to slow global warming. If you sit on a bench in a public park, watching your children play on a tax-funded swing set, DeMint's against the park, the bench and the swing set. He's against taxes for the sidewalk you walked there on.

What DeMint is for is the relentless concentration of power and wealth in the huge corporations who fund his own campaigns and those of Marco Rubio, Pat Toomey and Chuck DeVore, whom he wants to join him as his brotherhood in the Senate.

He communicates the messages of his corporate funders, using the money they send him, over right-wing media outlets like Fox News, where he has become a favorite show pony since Obama became President. He has gone all in with the Tea Party. He famously said that healthcare reform would be Obama’s “Waterloo,” and has strutted like a Napoleon ever since.

DeMint did not emerge as the leader of the far right in America because of any particular talent. There are probably some conservatives with principled, thoughtful, if wrong, ideas about social policy and taxation. But DeMint would not be one of them.

DeMint has risen because he is the emptiest of men. He is needy enough and empty enough to become whatever is needed. He was willing to serve as the author of a book other people had written. He will demagogue any issue for profit. He has been willing to frighten elderly people into believing they would be better off if their social security was gambled in the stock market, and eager to convince his constituents that they would be better off if "government kept their hands off Medicare" and left decisions of life and death to the market.

Eighteen months ago, a new President promised hope and change. It is an open question and fair argument whether he can, or has the will, to deliver it, one that will continue here and elsewhere. But when you consider Jim DeMint and all he stands for, and all he wishes and intends for this country, that isn’t what’s on the table.

For DeMint and his corporate masters, the real money, the big take at the end of the game, comes by delaying the moment that problems can get solved to a point past solution. There is a huge corporate killing to be made when people will surrender everything they have just to survive. Then those who already have so much will be able to take all the chips off the table.

DeMint is their man. He wants South Carolina to be the low-budget test bed for the future he wants for all of America: emaciated government, privatized everything, overtaxed charity, a degraded environment, no unions and low pay.

DeMint is working now to bring that time on, if he can. He will try to take over the Republican Party in the US Senate. He will fill it with his friends using corporate-funded campaigns driven by fear, if he can. And make no mistake, if he wins re-election this year, Jim DeMint’s next play is a Presidential run in 2012 against his personal demon, Barack Obama.

DeMint and his friends have no massive, secret agenda. They don't want to turn our children into robot lizards or implant chips in our brains. Their agenda is massive and public: they want to own it all and keep it all.

They already own Jim DeMint. They want to own some more senators, and they’re spending mad money to do that. They want to own our government. They would like to own our future. All they need is our frightened consent and they'll quietly arrange the rest, assisted by an empty man willing to do whatever they ask: Jim DeMint.

There is a red pill to DeMint’s blue pill. A man named Vic Rawl has very recently entered the South Carolina Senate race against DeMint, following the abrupt withdrawal of DSCC favorite Chad McGowan. Rawl is an actual progressive Democrat, and not just by the low bar set for such in South Carolina. And even as a genuine progressive, he has a pedigree that might actually beat DeMint.

Rawl is a former statewide judge, four-term State House member and National Guard colonel in a state that reveres the military. He is principled, pragmatic and, yes, progressive. While he faces nominal opposition in the June 8 primary, he will be our candidate in November against DeMint.

He’s gotten in the race late, very late to raise enough money to compete against what will be a formidable DeMint war chest ($3.2m as of 12/31/09, doubtless more in the first quarter report coming next week). It’s a serious lift, but Judge Rawl is a serious man.

Vic Rawl is exactly the sort of candidate we should be supporting: a courageous progressive in a state that isn’t hospitable, running against a true and credible threat to everything we believe in. He’s put a good team in place to run an aggressive campaign against DeMint, and needs help now.

You can learn more about Judge Rawl’s campaign at VicRawl.com.