George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 67

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“Kentucky. One of the heartlands of ‘Rednecks.’ Although not as much as Texas, it’s definitely pro-Republican.”

The word “Redneck” itself means ‘neck red from the sun.’ Those who work outdoors are often the poor and less educated, and they inevitably get more direct sunlight. However, there’s also a theory that this red skin isn’t just sunburn, but actually due to pellagra, a type of skin disease [caused by niacin deficiency].

In any case, in a society that historically discriminated against people based on their skin, this was a significant disadvantage. Perhaps that’s why “Redneck” isn’t just a term that refers to a social class, but a word that carries the weight of racial discrimination. To put it simply, it’s similar to the impact of the word n****r.

It’s a magical word that transforms into ‘What’s up, dude’ when said by a close friend, and ‘What the hell did you say!?’ when uttered by someone else.

“So, it would be best if you refrained from using it.”

A filter that should exist in any educated person must have broken down, as the president, who usually had an impressive vocabulary, seemed to have lost control of his words.

“Please think before you speak.”

“I know, I know!”

The origin of Rednecks can be traced back to the poor in the British Empire. Those who suffered from oppression and violence in places like Scotland crossed over to America, which was called the New World, but even there, they still faced hardship and struggle.

Because they were poor, they inevitably lacked political influence, but they constituted a significant portion of the American population and participated in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

Furthermore, the reason why Virginia is divided into ‘Virginia’ and ‘West Virginia’ is also thanks to the Rednecks. They resisted external interference, and when they felt Virginia was acting poorly, they simply created another Virginia in the west.

Bush cautiously speculated that the moment they reached the New World, they somehow mutated and gained superior DNA somewhere in their genetic structure.

In any case, until the 19th century, they were generally progressive, but in the 20th century, as the industrial sector grew, they rapidly became more conservative. This shift contributed to the Southern United States becoming a Republican stronghold. However, it’s important to remember that Rednecks are just one group representing American conservatism; the term doesn’t encompass American conservatism itself.

However, there was a concept that encompassed the entirety of conservatism, which included ‘legitimate authority,’ ‘pursuit of a stable livelihood,’ and ‘Great America.’ Legitimate authority meant obedience to legally elected officials, and the pursuit of a stable livelihood was somewhat contradictory. Even when striving for stability, the desire for a better future remains.

This was especially true in the agricultural sector, where it’s often said that ‘agriculture is gambling,’ and income can vary significantly depending on the crop planted. In a small country, storing crops to weather price fluctuations might be a viable strategy, but America wasn’t that kind of country.

If you plant it, you’ll have a bumper crop every time, but a bumper crop is only good in ancient and medieval times. In modern times, it was like saying, ‘Oh my, crop prices have plummeted! You’ve all gone down the drain!’

However, their tendencies were definitely different from progressives. While conservatives carefully adjust a small portion, progressives tend to change more than half of it.

Agriculture, policy, and life – this is the essence of American progressives and conservatives.

Leaving the agricultural comparison of conservatives and progressives and moving on to Great America, this concept represented the hegemonic America that Bush was trying to create. It was originally an ideology favored by neoconservatives, but when things are noticeably successful, the narrative changes.

Those who wouldn’t appreciate their country’s success were either cynical people who believed that ‘No matter how well the country does, my life doesn’t get any better,’ or attention-seeking traitors.

In summary, what the conservatives wanted was ‘a stable life and gradual change,’ and Bush’s policies were, at least for now, very pleasing.

Of course, it was impossible to know how things would change if Bush started meddling in public works, but for now, they were very satisfied.

In addition, when Karl Rove began to heavily promote the policy of replacing unstable and unsightly wooden utility poles with solid concrete utility poles, the response was overwhelmingly positive. This was because ordinary people welcomed changes that were directly visible, rather than seeing their taxes invested in obscure projects.

“Wow!!!”

“Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So, these kinds of things happened everywhere in places where Rednecks were, borrowing the form of a Stars and Stripes unit.

They wore the Stars and Stripes like an army, with the stars on the right, that is, towards the flagpole, and wherever Bush went, they waved the Stars and Stripes, advanced, were enthusiastic, and cheered.

Thanks to this, he could enjoy the phrase ‘very popular’ 24 hours a day. However, the bodyguards were always having a hard time, recalling even those who were on vacation and getting the cooperation of the police to somehow block access.

Bush was initially inclined to ignore the blockade, but he stopped when he envisioned a future where he wouldn’t be able to move even 100 meters due to the crowd the moment the blockade disappeared. Frankly, if the crowd stretched beyond the horizon, he would be terrified.

Sometimes, when Bush waved his hand to one side, these kinds of happenings occurred.

“Bush! Bush!! He saw me! The President looked at me!”

“No! He saw me!”

“No! He saw me!”

And fist fights ensued. Police were sweating bullets trying to suppress this, fearing that they would turn into rioters. Looking at it this way, being very popular wasn’t always a good thing.

Once, this also happened.

“Wow! It’s the President!”

The words were somewhat cliché and textbook-like, but the story is different when the speaker is a child who looks to be just 5 years old. His eyes widened like a puppy, and he was just repeating ‘Wow, wow’ with his mouth.

Feeling touched, Bush wanted to give him something, so he gave him his watch. The child trembled and fainted.

Frankly, I got a little goosebumps at this point.

“Mr. President! Please look this way once!”

Ah, of course, reporters who wanted exclusive coverage followed him like crazy. Usually, there were two types of these people: the first was with the intention of somehow taking strange pictures, and the second was those who realized that if they just took pictures of Bush, they could write a terrible article and it would still be a hit.

The former was usually made up of photographers or paparazzi who made a living selling photos rather than people whose job was to write articles, and in the case of the latter, the articles were like this:

「The car that President Bush is riding in is going down the road.」

「President Bush is getting out of the car.」

「President Bush is walking.」

「President Bush is breathing.」

Let’s get one thing straight. These were articles that really came out in the past week without exaggeration. It wasn’t that these articles were wrong. These kinds of articles existed in any era and in any country, and they were gossip that ordinary people preferred, whether in a good or bad way.

‘The problem is that my face and articles completely plastered one side of the newspaper, or even beyond that, there were several magazines specializing only in me.’

Moreover, they even wrote down habits that Bush himself didn’t know about, so he got goosebumps.

‘Damn it, I can’t sanction things like that.’

Why would those kinds of trash sell? Originally, the economy runs on supply and demand, so if you just put in the two letters ‘Bush,’ it sells no matter how you write it, so that’s how they’re writing it.

In any case, as Bush’s son came to mind, his father Bush, who also came to mind, was having similar hardships.

Where is it common for a father and son to be presidents? Because he was suffering from paparazzi and young reporters’ coverage on a daily basis, he lied that he was not feeling well and was going to take a break for a while, and suddenly left for his villa.

His younger brother, Jeb Bush, was having the time of his life. This was because the prestige of the Bush family was shining so brightly that it was beyond a simple halo, like the sun that you couldn’t even look straight at. However, since he was currently the governor of Florida, he could send enthusiastic support, but he couldn’t blatantly say, ‘Oh! My family! Two presidents came out of it! Oh!’

Still, it was true that he had emerged as a very strong candidate for the next presidential election. Jeb Bush was just grateful to his brother. Perhaps because of that, in Florida, the president’s tour was being accepted not simply as a state tour, but as an event at the level of a reunion of brothers. In fact, they were busily preparing a festival, half forced, to coincide with the president’s tour.

However, unlike her father-in-law, who was getting old and tired, and her brother-in-law, who was blinded by his success, Laura Bush was very much enjoying this phenomenon itself. This was partly because she accepted this as something she had to do as the First Lady and started her work ethic. It just felt vaguely good as a wife that her husband’s popularity had increased.

As the saying goes, a couple is of one mind, and the success of the husband is also the success of the wife. Recently, it seemed like he was avoiding her strangely, but when she thought about it, she thought, ‘Isn’t she also this tired and busy? Then how much busier would Bush himself, the source of the aftermath, be than her?’ and glossed over it.

However, it would be a lie to say that she didn’t feel any anxiety as her popularity among young women increased. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was doing something wrong with a younger woman than her, or if she was going through menopause.

In fact, if there hadn’t been a chief of staff who reported Bush’s movements to her one by one, she would have seriously considered it rather than just letting it pass.

Now, what can we hide after coming this far? Laura Bush was next to Bush right now. Bush acted like a stone, but she clung to him even more, saying that he was more attractive because he had suddenly become strangely cold. Of course, that’s just what she said, but she didn’t really cling to him. At least the atmosphere being created was what you would call friendly.

Too naturally, as time went on, it must have been Laura Bush’s mood that Kim Bush was strangely ‘stiffening.’

“Governor! The President!”

“What? Cancel lunch? What on earth are you talking about!?”

This was a bolt from the blue for the Governor of Kentucky. At first, he was worried that he had done something wrong and was wondering how to coax the president, but he was relieved to hear the reason for the cancellation. Frankly, he was relieved, but he also harbored a small resentment.

“Heh, heh. Heh heh? No, so. That’s. That reason is. Heh heh?”

The reason that made the Governor of Kentucky feel both relieved and resentful at the same time was as follows.

“If you come to Kentucky, you have to eat KFC!”

It was truly ridiculous, but Bush was serious. Even the people who would normally say that it’s unseemly, that he’s a president who eats chicken, praised Bush as a down-to-earth president.

‘The home of KFC! The beginning of modern fried chicken!’

Thanks to this, he gained the glorious title of ‘President who chartered the entire KFC store’ with the prefix ‘first’ attached.

It was because of security issues, but Bush actually just wanted to eat without chartering the store. Even though the attention was a bit burdensome, when he thought about his days as Kim Kap-hwan, he had the radical thought, ‘No, damn it. What is it about being president that deprives me of my right to eat at this KFC store and makes a fuss?’ This was partly because Kim Kap-hwan was full of rebellious spirit, but also because he didn’t think he would look kindly on chartering a franchise store during busy hours.

Thanks to this, he had to tear into Hot Crispy Fried Chicken, which was different from the luxurious fried food that came out of the White House, and the MSG-specific taste of cheap food took Bush’s soul away.

While the hymn to chicken inherent in Kim Bush was echoing within Bush, contrary to Bush’s concerns, KFCs across the country were crowded with people.

Reporters were busy raising their cameras as much as possible over the blockade to figure out what menu he was eating, and reporters who couldn’t do that were anxious to climb onto other buildings to take pictures.

With this one incident, Bush was even given the contradictory nickname of ‘a down-to-earth president from a chaebol [family-owned conglomerate] family’ in the newspaper.

Not everyone smiled at this incident. Coincidentally, 2001 was the time when the Internet was moving out of its infancy and redecorating its site design in a modern and sophisticated way from a crude, primitive system. In Korea alone, the famous Cyworld came out in 1999, and in the United States, Yahoo was enjoying its last twilight heyday.

“Damn it! What on earth is going on! Users have suddenly increased!”

However, due to this KFC charter incident, netizens flocked to major sites, and the already narrow server overloaded and suddenly traffic exploded, causing a delay in access, so they had to stomp their feet.

In other words, it’s not that the number of netizens has increased, but that they’ve flocked to search sites. This phenomenon forced those who operated Internet sites to install additional servers.

When a company has to consider installing additional servers, they have to figure out whether the increase in users is a temporary phenomenon. Fortunately or unfortunately, it was also the time when data was coming out that the purchase of personal computers (PCs) was increasing exponentially year by year, so based on that, they came up with a plan to install additional servers and increase advertising banners and exposure.

Bush was unknowingly accelerating his wish for ‘network expansion and infrastructure expansion.’

‘After all, people have to live by eating chicken.’

Bush devoured three buckets of Hot Crispy Chicken that day.