THE DAILY BLADE: Was Steve Jobs a closet Republican?

When conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh eulogized Steve Jobs, he said that the Apple co-founder “epitomized American exceptionalism”:

His life epitomized it. His philosophies epitomized American exceptionalism. The fact that he was a liberal, to me, was one of the greatest contradictions. But that is of no matter and no concern now.

When libs hear the term “American exceptionalism” they think it’s code for “Republican,” or “conservative,” because HBO’s “Real Time” Bill Maher got his shorts all in a knot:

[H]e’s one of the few people who liberals and conservatives both like, you know, in the partisan country that we live in. And I just know that the right-wingers are going to try to claim him because he was a giant success. Please don’t do it, right-wingers. He was not one of you. He was not a corporate type. He was an Obama voting, pot-smoking Buddhist. He wasn’t one of you. So don’t try to claim Steve Jobs.”

Leaving aside the fact that pot-smoking is a bi-partisan pastime, that Buddha is nonpartisan and that there are actually Republicans who did (or will) vote for Obama, Jobs famously had a mean streak – he wielded it in the pursuit of excellence, but still; he didn’t run his business according to the moralistic codes of the socially responsible school of capitalism; and he was apparently too “hard-hearted” to donate a significant portion of his income towards uplifting the downtrodden, healing/housing/feeding the poverty-stricken, or bettering the lives of the otherwise pitiable.

In other words, Jobs was just the kind of guy liberals like Maher define as quintessential Republicans.

One more thing: Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak bootstrapped their start-up themselves. Jobs sold his Volkswagen van and Wozniak sold his programmable calculator to get the seed money they needed, and a couple of weeks later Jobs made his first sale. They got no R&D money from the government nor looked to taxpayers to get their fledgling company off the ground, unlike Solyndra and other so-called “green technology” companies (related article, third item on the page) that the Obama administration has been lavishing public monies on.

Apple was green – that is, the company made money. Apple made money for its founders, for their employees, for investors and for the people who developed and launched other companies and services Apple products inspired or made possible. The two Steves are amongst the so-called 1% that the Occupy Wall Streeters are bellyaching about, ~~but~~ and they created wealth for tens of thousands of people.

Besides, if the middle-aged John Lennon had become a closet Republican, who’s to say Jobs hadn’t become one, too.

Tags: Apple, Jobs, Lennon, Limbaugh, Maher, Obama, Solyndra, Wozniak

7 members like this

Comment

You need to be a member of Tea Party Nation to add comments!

Join Tea Party Nation

Comment by Raymond Greenway on October 18, 2011 at 2:53am: All the great leaders were hard people to work for, but they were also fiercely loyal to the people they led. They pushed their people to go beyond what they thought was possible and rewarded them accordingly. To an outsider they would appear as bully. It was not bullying, but have a passion for what they believe in and are able to convey their dreams to others. I may not like Steve Jobs politics or religion, nor am I a Apple fan, but I place Steve Jobs as one of the greatest Americans that help build our country.

Comment by Victoria Knox on October 17, 2011 at 10:58pm: An interesting/informative adjunct to this post:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203914304576628900383...

Comment by Jim Coles on October 17, 2011 at 9:33pm: From the little that I've been able to glean about the way Mr. Jobs built his company I have to say that he was a genius...not just a visionary with great technical skills and a knack for leading as opposed to merely managing...his genius was in knowing who to pay-off, when to pay, what to pay and how to pay the right people...that's not to say that he built his company dishonestly or made his fortune dishonestly; it's just that he understood which palms to grease so that competitors could be disadvantaged, so that regulations could be softened or even waived, tax law shaped so that he could build his company at less cost than other companies in the same business.

So far as I can tell, since about 1920 the companies whose leaders have known how and whom to pay have prospered...real capitalism has been in a deep coma for nearly a century and today is on life support...

Mr. Jobs was able to work this corrupt system to build a company that has improved the qualify and convenience of life in America for tens of millions of people...While his success has largely benefitted most Americans the fact that he had to participate in a corrupt and tortured political-economic system is tragic and disgusting.

I don't blame Mr. Jobs, I blame crooked & corrupt financial officials, on-the-take regulators, self-serving criminal politicians for putting him and all other business people in the position of retaining their personal honor and achieving less than their potential, or even going broke; or participating in the great American Swindle.

TEA Party people and some OWS people -- but not the hard Left agitators who appear to have co-opted the honest concerns of young people who see that their future is being stolen from before they even get a chance to live it -- should be working together to bring down this fetid, rotten corruption of what was a marvelous political-economic system...We need a real revolution...not armed fighting the streets, per se...but a radical reversion to the founding principles of our nation...

There isn't much time left...but somehow we need to push the existing (mis)-administration out...I hope by political action next November...then we need to start investigating and indicting-prosecuting criminal bankers and financiers; criminal politicians of both parties, both current and past within the statute of limitations; and we need to somehow force legislation that will make firing from civil service regulators whose actions have harmed us all...and where the regulators' actions violated law, they too need to be indicted-tried and punished.

Mr. Jobs left a positive legacy...I'm happy that he was among us long enough to have a profoundly beneficial effect on our society...it's just a shame that he had to sell some of his honor to do it.

Comment by henry knox on October 17, 2011 at 6:25pm: Hey, since they say Hugo Chavez may only have 2 years to live it would work out very nicely for Obama to move to Venezuela and continue the Chavez legacy. He has a perfect resume for the job.

Comment by henry knox on October 17, 2011 at 6:23pm: The main difference between Dems and Repubs is that dems embrace Communism and Repubs pretend to oppose it. They both support progressive non-Constitutional legislation. Tea is my party and neither rises to the high ideals that I have. Usually, we have to hold our nose and vote for the least evil.

Comment by Victoria Knox on October 17, 2011 at 6:12pm: One of the complaints about Steve Jobs (I link to it in the piece) was that he was publically apolitical and did not throw his name, reputation or money behind political causes of any stripe. I don't know what his politics were -- neither does Bill Maher, and my post was meant to be a rebuttal to him. If "we" can't claim Jobs, neither can "they" -- I agree with Sharon; he was his own man. Ironically, I think conservatives appreciate him more than libs because we focus on what he did for the world, whereas they focus on what he *didn't* do (according to their definition of socially responsible behavior).

Comment by David G. Lund on October 17, 2011 at 4:32pm: The active discussion among "pundits" ,regarding Mr. Jobs' political persuasion, has become a meaningless excercise in "banal banter" ( a common byproduct of whatever these "self-appointed political experts" choose to talk about)! What has been meaningful has been the symphony of Mr. Jobs' life, expressed with energy and love and directed toward fulfillment of his native genius and always relevant to the needs and desires of Us, The People. May we be lucky enough to someday savor the talents of others like him who may grace Life's Pathway!

David G.Lund whendowethepeoplecount.com

Comment by Dale Miller on October 17, 2011 at 4:14pm: While I do not own, or use any Apple devices, I respect what he did. He did exhibit Republican tendencies.

Comment by Rev. Robert M. Celeste on October 17, 2011 at 4:11pm: "Was Jobs a closet Republican?" Who cares, the guy is dead, and unless he was a registered democrat in Portland, Maine he can no longer vote.

Comment by Jan on October 17, 2011 at 3:54pm: what surprises me, as Dave Newbry simply stated below is he could afford to. Unfortunately, like Buffet what they want done the cost is to be shared by all of us.