NASCAR = Politics?

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Big Red Car here in the aftermath of the Republican debate in Greenville, SC last night with some observations.

First, it was a Saturday night, the prelude to Valentine’s Day and one could feel the love in the air. I am betting that Donald Trump and his Melania are probably enjoying a nice brunch down in Charleston with Jeb and his bride right now. Think so?

The country needs to understand something and that something is called NASCAR and how it relates to politics.

South Carolina is the South, the old Confederate South wherein the Civil War was started with the poorly thought out shelling of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. [Who knew Lincoln was going to take it so poorly? It was just some good old boys letting off a little steam and nobody even got hurt.]

South Carolina has Columbia, Charleston, Greenville, and Myrtle Beach. That’s the Low Country and all that great seafood, the Midlands with the Capitol and the University of South Carolina, the Uplands with Greenville/Spartanburg where they make Mercedes and BMWs and used to make textiles, and the Beach where they dance the shag.

Everywhere in South Carolina they have NASCAR. NASCAR is the South, Confederate flags, Rebel yells, and what poses for “normal” at racetracks like Darlington, SC. Go to Darlington Raceway’s website and look at the advertisers. It’s middle America.

Look at the advertisers on the individual cars (which are really just moving billboards when you get down to it). What do they know that you don’t? They understand NASCAR.

NASCAR is really all about the wrecks, y’all. Not the races, the wrecks first and, only then, the races. Like Rob’t Duvall said to Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, “Rubbing is racing.”

That Republican debate last night was a NASCAR wreck on a stage pretending to be politics or it was politics at the NASCAR level. There was a lot of rubbing going on, y’all. You may have even noticed this yourself.

The debate quickly produced the requisite wreck and likely Donald Trump emerged as the guy who started the wreck and emerged unscathed. The bad boy tapping into all that nationwide anger. Who better to create a wreck?

South Carolina is not the GOPe or preppies who went to Princeton undergrad and Harvard for law school. They love George W Bush but it’s because he’s a spoiled frat boy with whom they’d like to have sixteen beers and talk shit about NASCAR and eat Low Country seafood and barbecue and fried chicken.

So, know this, if you think that NASCAR crowd hasn’t heard every form of profanity or doesn’t like to see a food fight, think again. They love that shit the same way they love seeing a damn good wreck and that, dear readers, is the Darlington Raceway God’s awful truth of the matter.

Oh, you can stroll along King Street down in the city with all those damn churches and you can go put on airs at the fine restaurants on Queen Street but those boys in their seersucker blazers and their pink slacks with their fine looking, tanned women, even they love NASCAR. They also love their politics in the same  manner — with a weather eye turned toward seeing a good wreck.

On next Saturday, remember who told you this.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway, I’m just a Big Red Car? Be kind to all old red cars, y’all. Please tell that freakin’ Boss to get me a new paint job. Please. 

4 thoughts on “NASCAR = Politics?”

  1. Wow!

    The BBQ I grew up with was picnic pork shoulder cooked over a fire of oak and hickory in a big oven of iron plates for about 16 hours at an oven temperature of about 225 F and a meat internal temperature of about 170 F. Then the meat was chopped, sauced, dumped on a lightly toasted, white bread roll, topped with white coleslaw, and served with, say, iced tea or beer with, say, chocolate icebox pie for dessert.

    As a freshman in college, I took a girl for such a lunch several times at which time I got my driver’s license back (I’ll omit just why I lost it but it was roughly related to, say, NASCAR) when I took her to a movie. Back in the car, cold, with the car warming up and fog on the windows, only car in the parking lot, dark, she said “We can pretend can’t we?”. That lesson will be in Girls 101 for Dummies: Boys.

    They probably do such things in SC also. Actually, I’m totally convinced that the SC girls are much better than the SC BBQ, seafood, or NASCAR races. MUCH better!

    Well, IIRC, the SC BBQ is similar to what I grew up with except they cook to a slightly higher temperature, say, 180-185 F, and pull the pork which means they use two forks, pull in opposite directions, and separate the meat along its fibers. So, that’s pulled pork BBQ. And their BBQ sauce is really big on vinegar. IMHO, due the higher temperature and vinegar, it’s a bit too sour and not as juicy. It’s probably pretty good, but I prefer what I grew up with. Maybe the beer is about the same — can’t guess about the slaw and pie.

    But the SC seafood sounds terrific. So, a rustic place with a lot of unfinished wood, a red checkered tablecloth, a pitcher of beer and plastic baskets lined with paper with french fries and fried scallops with lemon and/or sides of slaw — sounds good! Or chunks of breaded, fried fish! And if they have good shellfish, for chowder or whatever, fine with me!

    I watched some of the debate and then turned it off. Intend to watch it all on YouTube or maybe C-SPAN.

    The GOPe seems to think that the way to have open borders, slave labor, and killing the jobs of middle class workers is go after Trump on abortion, eminent domain, and bankruptcy. Well, at least the GOPe has their politicians working reliably if not very effectively for the interests of their clients!

    Then there’s John Kasich: “We can’t have jackbooted, Nazi Waffen SS Schutzstaffel with loaded, drawn, cocked luger pistols, black uniforms, Swastikas, and barking police dogs breaking down doors of the houses of immigrants in the middle of the night and putting the immigrants on trains of cattle cars in freezing weather with no food or water.” or some such. He keeps saying this. John, you are the only one saying such a thing. Is this what YOU have in mind? And, of course, we can’t have impalings, eviscerations, excoriations, crucifixions, various inquisition and medieval tortures, cannibalism, etc. either. There’s a long list of what we can’t have. And, John, reciting such a list accomplishes just what? Such lists, are these what you are entertaining, John?

    Uh, John, Trump has clearly said that we can deport any illegal immigrant criminals, e.g., rapists, murders, drug dealers, right away, and for the rest of the illegals we will deport them as whole families humanely. And Ike did it. And, John, there’s an easy way. And may I have the envelope, please? [Drum roll] And the solution is, in just one word, eVerify. That is, once the illegals, visa overstays, etc., discover that they can’t earn money, then nearly all of them will leave on their own.

    John, I’m getting the clear impression that you are making up any absurd nonsense you can, that no one is proposing, so that you can serve your clients who want slave labor or to export jobs. John, the workers at Carrier in Indiana, right next to Ohio, will understand your desire for slave labor right away. So will any of the people left in Detroit or much of Michigan and much of the Rust Belt, including Ohio. So, will the ex-textile workers in SC after, IIRC, the US State Department, for their goals of world peace, helped Pakistan take over much of the textile work of SC. Gee, early in the Internet, Pakistan had up Web sites showing huge varieties of big, fluffy, terry-cloth towels they were selling. IIRC, the US State Department helped with getting the equipment over there and opening up the US to importing from Pakistan.

    And the GOPe is back talking about abortion. Gee, not a single candidate on the stage was at any risk or would ever have any need for an abortion. And, IIRC, Trump clearly said that to him abortion is ugly or some such and that he hoped that DC would stay out of it.

    And, now the GOPe is after, gee, Planned Parenthood. For a lot of women and their health, that organization is really, really important. Gee, was it the GOPe that funded the fraudulent video clips that people, IIRC, are now being prosecuted for?

    Then, last night, Jeb! got all irrational exuberant and blurted out his family’s dream and that of Cheney of, apparently, the US standing like a colossus over the earth and ensuring peace, tranquility, constitutional democracy, capitalism, Episcopalian Christianity, merchantilism, the US dollar as the world’s only reserve currency, a strong dollar with strong balance of trade, all the countries of the world devoted US allies, with you leading the world singing Why Can’t We Be Friends. And, right, Jeb!, you just need the lives of a few hundred thousand US soldiers and about $10 trillion of US dollars to seed your dream which won’t do any better than W’s did. So, is that why you want those illegal immigrants and no abortions — “cannon fodder” Jeb?

    Jeb, Nassar and Saddam mostly just wanted the oil. Same for Iran. Tojo just wanted an empire with colonies much like those of Britain, Holland, France. Hitler just wanted the east to a line from Stalingrad to Moscow to Leningrad and the Baku and Arabian oil. But, you, Jeb!, you want the whole world. No thanks.

    Tell you what, Jeb, we will get you a backyard sandbox and some toy soldiers, and you can spend the rest of your days with your fantasies. Or, now, better yet, we will get you a PC with some super high end video, and you can spend 20 hours a day playing Call to Duty and killing the bad guys, dozens each second.

    And, Jeb, what W did in Iraq and Akrapistan did not “keep us safe”, and, indeed, due to 9/11, he didn’t keep us safe. Also, W did a lot to wreck the economy, and that is very much against keeping us “safe”. Jeb, 9/11 was from Al Qaeda, and they were not in Iraq, and about the best way to keep Al Qaeda out of Iraq was to leave Saddam in charge in Iraq.

    And, Jeb!, just what the heck is it about why you want to dump Assad? W dumped Saddam and, thus, let ISIS grow in Iraq. Obama and Clinton dumped Gaddafi and let ISIS into Libya. What we’ve done in Akrapisatan is now letting ISIS into that toilet. So, presto, bingo, you want to dump Assad and let random Sunnis from South Asia and elsewhere, supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia, along with ISIS take over Syria? Where do you get that really strong funny stuff you’ve been smoking?

      • Yup! Biggie omission! There was a seafood restaurant in Mayport, FL, and when my parents took me there I fell in love with their hushpuppies right away — maybe I was 3-4 at the time!

        Have a sack of corn meal, an effort at a recipe with onion and baking powder, a deep fat fryer, etc., and have tried making what I remember from age 3-4. So far, not good success!

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