Self-Loathing Power Junkies R Us

In terms of sheer bang for the buck, however little or however much it cost The Nation to send Max Blumenthal to the wingnut fundraising conference CPAC, it’s been repaid a thousandfold in entertainment value alone.

The latest tale to emerge from Blumenthal’s CPAC visit is curiously reminiscent of the story of our old friend Jimmy Jeff Gannon:

CPAC’s Gay Porn Star Honoree and the Politics of Personal Crisis

I don’t know if David Horowitz knew Cpl. Matt Sanchez was once a gay porn star and male prostitute when he introduced him to me at last weekend’s CPAC. But he did know that Sanchez was an eager yes-man, and a supposed victim of the campus PC thuggery Horowitz has made a career out of decrying.

As Horowitz played cardiologist, ranting to me about how each leftist “has hatred in his heart” and how members of the New Left to which he once belonged had “treason in their hearts,” Sanchez stood faithfully by his side, muttering encouragement. “That’s right. That’s right,” Sanchez would say, almost on cue. Whenever I spoke, Sanchez would mumble something under his breath like, “That’s such a lie! Omigod!” or “See! Liberals are hateful.”

Horowitz probably discovered Sanchez after the ex-Marine appeared on Hannity & Colmes alleging that while studying at Columbia University, he was called a “baby-killer” by members of that school’s International Socialist Organization. This alleged episode, which was investigated by Columbia but never confirmed, also earned Sanchez a spot on the O’Reilly Factor.

For his supposed courage in the face of liberal cruelty, Cpl. Sanchez was presented with the Jeanne Kirpatrick Academic Freedom Award at this year’s CPAC. Sanchez was the perfect vehicle for the conservative movement’s ongoing attempt to wrap itself in the uniform, and to heap resentment on liberals for their supposed anti-military bias.

Soon, Sanchez was rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin. Malkin posted pictures of herself beside the corporal on her blog. Sanchez was clad in full military regalia and Malkin wore a big smile. But Malkin is not smiling anymore. Like so many of Sanchez’s boosters, she was mugged by reality.

As several gay blogs revealed late yesterday, Corporal Sanchez was known during his halcyon days as Rod Majors, a majorly well-endowed gay porn star. (Photos of Corp. Sanchez aka Rod Majors in action can be viewed here. I warn you, this link is NOT to be clicked on if you have minors around or if you’re in a crowded workplace). According to Tom Bacchus, Sanchez was also a $200-an-hour male prostitute who advertised himself (here) as an “excellent top.”

There is of course nothing inherently wrong with Sanchez being a gay porn star or a male escort. His past is only notable because he chose to join a movement that exploits anti-gay sentiment for political gain. Coulter’s now-famous “faggot” remark was not an aberration, but rather a symbol of the politics of resentment that propels the conservative movement and its elected Republican surrogates; a reflection of the bigotry conservatives have sought to write into the Constitution through the so-called Federal Marriage Amendment. The ascendant “family values” wing of the right is also responsible for sabotaging legislation allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the armed forces, a maneuver that may now spell the end of Sanchez’s career.

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What is it that attracts people whose natural interest would seem completely opposed to the Republican agenda, to that agenda? Why feel the need to become so slavishly adherent to a movement that hates you? How can anyone deal with the internal conflicts and stay sane?

Blumenthal has a theory that he uses Ann Coulter to illustrate:

[…]

I asked Coulter how she could reconcile her defense of the sanctity of marriage with the fact that she has had three broken engagements and has never been married. She was unable to answer my question. Instead, she made an ambiguous remark about my appearance which I assume was a sarcastic insult

[…]

She is what I would call a CCC, or a Conflicted Conservative in Crisis.

[…]

CCC’s are aggressive toward groups they privately identify with, like sexual minorities or independent women, but they are simultaneously submissive to those who might otherwise persecute them. Thus, Coulter assiduously cultivated the approval of James Dobson, an anti-feminist demagogue who advocates “women’s submission;” Sanchez enlisted in the Marines, then joined the right’s campus culture war; and Haggard inveighed against homosexuality from the pulpit. These CCC’s scurried away from freedom for the tight confines of an authoritarian movement. For CCC’s, backlash politics is a crude form of therapy,

There’s certainly something to the politics as therapy idea, although in my experience this applies equally to left and right, in broad terms at least. (All politics wonks are just working out out our own neuroses really – what, you thought being a poilitics wonk was normal?).

What’s different with wingnuts and particularly gay and other minority wingnuts is their addiction to the toxic sexual stew of power-worship and the fervid desire for self-abasement that seems to swill around Republicans. Then there’s their erotic worship of the military…

The adrenaline hit they get from passing as one of, or even better, actually being noticed by, the Big Bad Boys is like a amyl nitrate to the likes of Coulter. Just look at her orgasmic flush as the rabid right applaud her latest crudity.

But for some there’s always a bigger hit even than that – and that leads closeted Republican gays like Gannon, Sanchez and defrocked pastor Ted Haggard to seek out situations in which their private sexual persona is teetering on the knife-edge of public exposure. But what a rush, and what a delicious feeling of dirty shame when finally outed! They can’t get enough of it.

Remember the character Anybody’s in West Side Story, the tomboy who would do anything, anything at all to be in the gang? There’s your self-loathing wingnut in a nutshell.