Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

I was promised a recession.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

The willow is too close to the house.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Some Jesusland Public Art

Some Jesusland Public Art

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I was in South Dakota last week and saw this next to the entrance to a large sporting goods/outdoors store, facing a statue of Thomas Jefferson reading something (probably the Bill of Rights). The store sold guns (but not exclusively–probably about 1/8 of the floorspace was the gun shop), and according to this blog, the quotes on most of the statues are wrong.  I also saw a few “embryos are babies, don’t abort them” billboards, as well as a lot of right-to-life bumperstickers.

Here’s the thing about the Jesusification of my home state–it has gotten more conservative, but it’s not all Republicans. The town where I saw this statue (Sioux Falls) probably went 55/45 or even 60/40 for Obama (it’s hard to find numbers that subtract the outlying rural areas). But the Democrats are underground, and the Republicans are all out proclaiming their freaky Gipper love with shit like this. Here’s an open thread.

Reader Interactions

59Comments

  1. 1.

    geg6

    I’ve never been a destructive sort of person, but there’s no doubt that, if I would come across a piece of shit statuary like this, I’d be defacing it.

  3. 3.

    Ash Can

    The first thing that came to my mind was different ways to creatively deface that statue.

  9. 9.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    From your last sentence this is a statue of Reagan and not just some creepy pedophile.

  11. 11.

    cathyx

    It doesn’t look like Ronald Reagan to me. And what’s worse, most people don’t know him dressed that way. Especially young people.

    ETA: In fact, if there isn’t a name plate, then I would have assumed it was just some local celeb or just a cowboy guy.

  12. 12.

    MobiusKlein

    There are anti-abortion billboards in (well, near) downtown San Francisco. I don’t mind anti-abortion folks using their words to change people’s minds about abortion.
    Well, as long as they don’t lie about it.

  14. 14.

    Satanicpanic

    Didn’t know it was Reagan. Also, don’t think of him as a cowboy, more like a Hollywood type. Shoulda put him in a tux instead of this costume.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    At first I took that to be a statchoo of John Wayne. He’s the Hollywood dude I associate with cowboy flicks.

  18. 18.

    cathyx

    Judging from everyone’s comments, I think that the city should get its money back. None of us recognize RR in this sculpture.

  19. 19.

    Mike Quinlivan

    Hello all. I saw those statues (they are a fairly recent addition, outside of a sporting goods store names Scheels). The store fucking sucks. I worked for a small shop close to it that sold comparable items (snowboards, skis, etc), and the people at Scheels don’t know jack shit about anything they are selling. Which, in a perverse sense, tells you all you need to know about why the statue is there. Management doesn’t know shit either, so it is only fitting.
    I can’t speak for Sioux Falls itself, but Minnehaha County did go for Obama by a few thousand votes; I can tell you with certainty this would not be the case anymore. SD Dems were killed in 2010, and are having to fight back tooth and nail. It will be a long fight.
    But yeah….Scheels sucks. In fact, the gun and fishing portion that you mention contain the only knowledgeable people in the whole store.

  20. 20.

    rlrr

    @Satanicpanic:

    Reagan was more of cowboy than W. Reagan wasn’t afraid of horses. The whole cowboy mythos is a bunch of bullshit, anyway (cowboys were often immigrants, native Americans, former slaves, etc.).

  22. 22.

    gbear

    The drive from Mpls/St. Paul to Duluth is infested with anti-choice billboards with pictures of cute babies and statements about how the fetus could perform basic mathmatics at four weeks. I’ve always wanted to buy some time on one of those billboards, put up a picture of an adorable baby, and have the message say ‘When I’m sixteen, I’ll realize that I’m gay. Will you still love me then?’ I’d just love to put that message somewhere on that drive into the cities.

  24. 24.

    Mark K

    When I see some phony like the fool in this statue wearing a cowboy hat I always like to ask loudly “Hey! What ranch do you work on?”

    George Carlin hated this, too. “Why are these assholes dressed up like a cowboy, a mythic figure? You don’t see me with an eyepatch dressed up like a pirate hobbling around town.”

  29. 29.

    David Koch

    @wvng:

    Looks more like Roy Rogers to me.

    They stuffed Roy Rogers’ trusty sidekick Trigger, so maybe they’ll stuff Reagan’s trusty sidekick Nancy.

  30. 30.

    Ash Can

    @David Koch: I am so going to burn in hell for laughing at that, although it was more the other way around, with Ronnie being Nancy’s sidekick.

  31. 31.

    General Stuck

    Reminds me of my pappy, a charter member of the Reagan Love Society. He had on one wall of his real estate brokers office, a huge pic of Ronnie sitting in the oval office. And huge like one entire wall about 20 feet wide. I used to raz him with “pops” ‘think that poster is big enough’/ He’d give me that sad that my son is communist look, and just say, ran outta wall.

  32. 32.

    gene108

    C-SPAN’s Washington had a call-in about the best President last week. Most of the calls went FDR and LBJ. Some went to President Carter, Kennedy and one or two mentioned Clinton.

    A couple mentioned Reagan.

    What struck me is no one mentioned Nixon, Ford, Bush, Sr. or Bush, Jr. as Republican Presidents they admire.

    That’s 20 years of the Presidency occupied by Republicans that was either forgettable, at best, or actually harmful to the country.

  35. 35.

    Seanly

    I thought it was a statue of Dubya. He was just as an authentic cowboy as Raygun. I guess I should’ve known by the lack of cleared brush in his hands that it wasn’t…

    The pose reminds me of the MST3k were they make fun of the horrible blocking in one of the movies. Scene after scene had characters resting one arm on an elevated knee. Maybe Gila monster or something…

  37. 37.

    pseudonymous in nc

    SD’s Dems include those on the reservations; the Goopers gave their “voter fraud” bullshit a trial run up there, because they don’t trust the injuns.

  40. 40.

    Kathy

    Another South Dakotan here. The urban areas lean dem but that’s not enough to offset the rural. I don’t think SD has ever gone to a Democratic presidential candidate. Maybe FDR.

  41. 41.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    I drove through the Boise area on I-84 once, and some of the billboards along there were, uh, interesting.

  43. 43.

    lovable liberal

    @Kathy:

    Another South Dakotan here. The urban areas lean dem but that’s not enough to offset the rural. I don’t think SD has ever gone to a Democratic presidential candidate. Maybe FDR.

    Unfortunately, only for favorite son George McGovern in Senate elections, not in the 1972 Presidential…

  44. 44.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    @The Other Bob: There’s another picture of it here, and it is accompanied by a plaque with quotes from Reagan.

    ETA: Reagan’s middle name was Wilson.

  45. 45.

    Rome Again

    But the Democrats are underground, and the Republicans are all out proclaiming their freaky Gipper love with shit like this.

    You mean to tell me there are still places out there where this doesn’t happen? I’m surprised.

  47. 47.

    maya

    As they say, South Dakota is where North Dakota vacations.

    Reagan chopped wood with an ax, Bush cut brush with an 8″ chainsaw. Wonder what the next repo president will have to do with wood? If it’s Romney, probably suck toothpicks with his finely capped teeth.

  50. 50.

    Another Halocene Human

    @gene108:

    C-SPAN’s Washington had a call-in about the best President last week. Most of the calls went FDR and LBJ. Some went to President Carter, Kennedy and one or two mentioned Clinton.

    A couple mentioned Reagan.

    What struck me is no one mentioned Nixon, Ford, Bush, Sr. or Bush, Jr. as Republican Presidents they admire.

    That’s 20 years of the Presidency occupied by Republicans that was either forgettable, at best, or actually harmful to the country.

    Reagan was the last, great racist president. Bush I and II used racism in the primary but didn’t go ga-ga for racism while in office. (Bush II, especially. Unless there’s such a thing as being racist against competence.) Reagan was racist in the primary AND in office. Imagine, a president who keeps his campaign promises! White people like my deceased OK grandmother bent over and spread ’em (granny lost SS benefits as a widow right when my uncle was in college) because blah people were getting raped worse.

    Before Rayguns I would have to say the most racist presidency was Woodrow Wilson.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if those people that called in “Reagan” also harbor great love for Tom Tancredo.

  52. 52.

    Bob Munck

    I’m from Hot Springs myself. The statues are bigger out in the Black Hills, but at least they’re of better people.

    There have been calls to put Reagan on Rushmore. Unfortunately, it turns out there isn’t enough solid granite available to do an accurate representation of his head. Possibly they could use the other end of the mountain Crazy Horse is being carved out of.

  53. 53.

    lawyers

    I think this is the second year the Meso Foundation has spearheaded the Today Show awareness effort.

  54. 54.

    Mike G

    @cathyx:

    I think that the city should get its money back. None of us recognize RR in this sculpture.

    Nobody who remembers Ronald Reagan’s presidency can recognize the hagiographic distorted caricature of him the wingnuts worship today, but that has never stopped them.

    Reagan excelled at providing a hollow image upon which wingnuts could project their fevered authoritarian-follower dreams.

  56. 56.

    Watusie

    I love South Dakota. No state or corporate income tax. A wingnut’s ideal state. But yet it ranks 45th in population. And probably just 48th or 49th in population density. Which goes to prove that few wingnuts are willing to move to their idea of paradise.

  57. 57.

    Bill Murray

    @Bob Munck: There is a statue of Reagan in Rapid City’s downtown. It is at least recognizable as Reagan, although another cowboy Reagan. IIRC, the sculptor is a bit of a wingnut

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