Since I spent most of the days leading up to Christmas in the district of soon-to-be U.S. Rep. Barry Loudermilk, I wish I’d found the opportunity to offer the young coot some advice: Keep up! The “War on Xmas” meme is so worn out that even Bill O’Reilly is declaring victory and moving on. So Loudermilk was definitely behind the curve with this pronouncement (picked up by Right Wing Watch):
Republican congressman-elect Barry Loudermilk of Georgia wants to reassure his future constituents that he will never give in to the anti-Christmas belligerents. On “Washington Watch” this week, Loudermilk told Josh Duggar that he is looking forward to Christmas despite the left’s best attempts to ruin the holiday.
“It’s always been an honored time but just recently it seems like it has gotten to the point where we have to even defend our rights that are given to us to celebrate the birth of Christ and even just the celebration of Christmas has been under fire by the far-left,” he said.
Well before Loudermilk won the nomination to succeed that great solon Phil Gingrey in Congress, I fingered him as an ideological successor to Paul Broun (who, like Gingrey, left the House to pursue an unsuccessful Senate race) as an unusually wingnutty wingnut in a state House delegation famous for spawning them.
But championing yesterday’s crusade is not a good sign. Fortunately for Loudermilk, the same remarks show he’s caught onto another meme:
Loudermilk later said that people throughout the country “lost their sense of hope” and pride but will ultimately persevere, comparing America to George Bailey of “It’s A Wonderful Life.” He added: “There is some momentum that we haven’t seen in many years in this nation that people are just tired of political correctness, they’re tired of having their rights stepped upon and they’re ready for something different.”
Sounds like he’s using “political correctness” in the same special way as Dr. Ben Carson, as an all-purpose attack on anyone questioning the Right’s exotic world view and outrageous expressions of same. So maybe there’s hope for Barry yet.
