From the colors of the flag (insipid and busy) to the clothes often worn by dime-store nationalists (grotesque tees with the text of the Declaration of Independence printed on them, for instance), American conservative politics are loud and gaudy and dumb. Why is that?
I've wondered about that myself. Well, that sort of thing. Not so much the colors of the flag or the dime-store nationalists with the declaration, because I don't really have a problem with those, but the eagle with a tear and the tattoes of an eagle carrying a pig and the wife-beater shirts in black with a bald eagle in front of a waving flag and all that I find tacky.
I don't know the answer to why the sort of kitschy nationalistic print media sell so well, but my guess is that it might have something to do, at least indirectly, with Nixon's Southern Strategy. By the mid-70s you pretty much have a built-in print/airbrush market. All you have to do is replace Farah Fawcett Majors in a bikini with the flag and crying eagles. All you have to do is sell the program. Plus, it sells votes. American flags reminds us of the Republic for which it stands, which reminds us to vote for Nixon, which reminds us to vote for Reagan, which reminds us to vote for Bush, etc. The aesthetic doesn't matter any more. (To be fair, it's not different that the "Keep Calm and jack off" or "BaZinGa. Woot. I watch nerds on TV" or whatever the kids are wearing nowadays... Same idea. Market an idea in a place already saturated by the concept of print on shirts and you have most of your work done for you.) The special benefit of the nationalistic message in such markets is that it helps to get your guys elected, even while they're screwing the same mulleted, wife-beating, pot-smoking guys who wear the wife beaters. Pretty clever, if you ask me.
