Toward a More Savage Nation

By Selwyn Duke

The Shill Media are offering up the usual pabulum about presidential contenders, disgorging reportage about the vapid and venal that’s more soap opera than scoop. With mock surprise they speak of the presidential aspirations of Rudy, Lady Macbeth and Brokeback Obama, as they treat platitudes and political sloganeering as if they were less empty than the minds that regurgitate them. But amidst the din of this much-ado–about-nothing quest for copy, the media have missed – perhaps quite conveniently – the only truly scintillating story of the 2008 election. Radio talk show host Michael Savage is mulling a run for the White House.

I’m sure many would say I was wasting words on wishes, as Savage is the darkest of horses. But there’s a very good reason to welcome his entrance into the race, and I’ll discuss this in a moment. First, though, let’s take a peek into the life of the effervescent commentator.

Although Michael Savage has achieved fame through his exploits on radio and his four best-selling political books, this presidential dark horse is no one-trick pony, as he has lived a storied life and worn many hats. The son of an immigrant, he was raised in Queens, NY, in a home of most modest means. Savage attended public school and, applying himself to academics, vigorously pursued higher education, eventually earning a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and Nutrition Sciences from UC Berkeley.

Dr. Savage went on to become an innovator in the field of nutrition, authoring seventeen books on the subject, became a director of nutrition for a major corporation and spent years as a botanical Indiana Jones, exploring the south pacific in a search for plants with medicinal qualities.

It was only later in life that Savage plunged into talk radio, an effort that gave birth to his show, The Savage Nation, which boasts more than eight million listeners weekly. And on that show one gets a glimpse of what Michael Savage would bring to the presidential race.

The Savage Nation is a land where political correctness finds no safe harbor. Savage unabashedly waxes patriotic, as he fights the culture war with a battle cry of “Borders, language and culture.” He rightly sounds the alarm about radical Islam, the invasion by illegal aliens, the ACLU, feminism and the homosexual mafia, enduring the slings and arrows of those who would tarnish the tellers of truth. He rails against the moral decay represented by pop tarts, Howard Stern, gangsta rappers and the prevalence of pornography.

Yet, despite Savage’s impressive credentials as a traditionalist, he is no blind flag-waver or party loyalist. An independent thinker, he casts the discerning eye within as well as without, exposing America’s true characteristic faults, as opposed to the imaginary ones of leftist conjurers. And his ire is no respecter of party lines, as he has often roasted George W. Bush on the same spit that has impaled the president’s most ardent foes.

Lastly, although Savage is certainly versed in the hyperbole and acid-tongued rhetoric that are staples of talk radio, any honest listener is quickly struck by how his presentation is more sophistication than savagery. He not only nimbly segues from the emotional to the dialectical, from the earthly to the ethereal, and from satire to sober analysis, but is also equal parts philosopher, preacher and poet. He is unafraid to invoke biblical passages when providing insight on today’s woes and demonstrates a grasp of history impressive enough to convince one that he has not forgotten the mistakes of the past. Simply put, he talks about everything the major presidential contenders should but never will.

And this brings me to why I would encourage Savage to don yet one more hat and then throw it into the ring. All the current high profile presidential contenders are pretenders, people who, for lack of either wisdom or will, will never broach the real issues or speak hard truths. They’ll never talk honestly about immigration, Islam, the destruction of our culture and sovereignty or anything else that really matters, and, damnably, the Shill Media won’t ask them the tough questions.

Michael Savage would, in the least, stand a chance of taking these soporific candidates and a slumbering people out of their comfort zone and bringing real issues and outside-the-box thinking to the forefront. Barring this, the politicians will just go through the motions and keep people in the Matrix, a controlled faux reality in which lies can masquerade as truth and liars can carry the day. The end result would be another general election with a socialist on the left and a garden-variety statist on the right, another choice between the lesser of two evils.

So it’s not really about whether Michael Savage can win but, rather, the opportunity to force politicking sentient programs in a virus-ridden system to deal with relevant data. It’s a task that may be impossible, as even Neo might be trumped by the neo-cons. But maybe, just perhaps, Dr. Savage can help administer that red pill.

____________
Selwyn Duke can be contacted at SD@SelwynDuke.com.


Copyright Publius Forum 2001