Essay:Total Bastard

Total Bastard is a term often used for certain combinations of sociopathic, misanthropic, and fraudulent behavior in people who market their political views for personal advantage directly to those it would harm the most. Rush Limbaugh is a very prominent example of this, in marketing the elimination of Social Security and Medicare, often under the blanket term 'Welfare Programs', directly to seniors.

There are also numerous less notable talking heads who like to tell people working minimum wages that they need to vote to get rid of it, as it will some how make them better off. Either mystically by increasing the number of people hired, massive deflation that would increase the purchasing power of the money they have, or other bullshit.

Health freedom advocacy groups and their champions marketing to sick people. Often feeding into parents' vaccine hysteria, desperate cancer patients, homeopathy users, and other alternative medicine woo. At best many of these advocates want to make money off these people, but at worst it can cause them to delay or stop conventional treatment.

What this does not include
- Idiots who are part of these groups will fall for the rhetoric, and start repeating the points ad nauseam. Often these are seniors who think that Medicare and Social Security are destroying the US. They often become very quiet when you ask how they would pay for their living expenses and medical care if they got what they desired. Most have suffered some sort of cognitive decline or a cerebral vascular event (stroke).

- Glenn Beck and Goldline, which is simply fraud.

- Michelle Malkin and her crusade against anchor babies. Of course, she would be deported first.

- Phyllis Schlafly and her crusade against women having rights, because she would not be able to continue her other insane quests if she succeeded.

- Anyone who has a dark enough sense of humor to laugh at those who take actions that harm themselves, no matter how hard people try to stop them.