The ''Duck Dynasty" Fake Rednecks - And How They Played Red State America

The fakers from 'Duck Dynasty' - before they grew beards, doffed camouflage, adopted a "god fearin'" attitude and got their own TV show on A&E to dupe millions

I believe it was P.T. Barnum who once opined, "There's a sucker born every minute". Well one can certainly say that about the millions who've fallen to the 'Duck Dynasty' clowns after it was revealed the whole shtick was a big act put on by yuppies- who clearly saw a way to cash in on the vast "Red state" love of rednecks that permeates the 'land of the free'.

I bring this up because one of them - in redneck drag- was actually trotted out (naturally in the company of the Repukes) during the Obama state of the union. Didn't this character even have a clue his guise was exposed? That he was busted? Didn't his Reepo handler know that?

See also:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/20/1264354/-Duck-Dynasty-is-a-Fake-Yuppies-in-Red-Neck-Drag-Con-Job#

The break on exposing these guys came originally via a GQ article on the scam. But even that partly bought into the myth that they're real "godly folk" - yeppers, that also love 18 holes of golf and lots of amenities from fooling millions into believing this BS.  The actual source of exposure turned out to be a Political Blind Spot report from late last year titled “How a Wealthy, Clean Cut ‘Duck Dynasty’ Tricked the World for Publicity.”

That report displayed a series of Robertson family photographs from before the show that contrasted strongly with the beard-laden, camo-garbed image the Robertson men have cultivated in the public eye.  In one photo, the brothers posed with golf clubs apparently in front of a pool (see image).


In another, Duck Commander CEO Willie Robertson posed on the beach with his family displaying an even worse haircut than he currently sports.

According to the original source, Luzer, for Political Blind Spot:

 “Rednecks might sometimes play golf, but rednecks do not go on golf outings with their entire family. They do not pose with golf clubs and all of their brothers at the country club after a great game.. Seriously? He’s barefoot on the beach with frosted tips?

So A&E appears to have taken a large clan of affluent, college-educated, mildly conservative, country club Republicans, common across the nicer suburbs of the old south, and repackaged them as the Beverly Hillbillies.  And the outcome? 14 million Red State 'Muricans have jumped on their bandwagon.  After Phil was dumped from the show, they've yelped, put up Facebook support posts and  generally howled in their defense  - not realizing they've all been played.

The Duckster con almost reminds me of the "Balloon boy" farce of several years ago, when millions actually believed a small boy could be carried aloft for miles and miles in a hot air balloon - despite the fact anyone with passing acquaintance with basic physics would have known it was nonsense. In the case of the 'Duck Dynasty' bunch, any sensible person with some intellectual heft ought to have seen through the shtick and realized NO one turns duck hunters into a frickin' "dynasty"!  Nor do any REAL duck hunters exist in any dynasty. The ducks would have to be made of gold for that to happen. While in the real world, most duck hunters barely manage to get by - as I found when I visited Baton Rouge in 1969.

So again, we come to the need for more critical thinking in this country - as opposed to swallowing wholesale  whatever one sees on the tube, or anywhere else (especially NSA hearings)