Last week The Washington Free Beacon discussed the New York Times’ tabloid-like obsession with Obama’s favorite TV shows. Where the Times slobbers with excitement over the “subtle” dramas the president likes such as Homeland, the Beacon‘s Matthew Continetti dismisses such fare as expensive “soap operas with sophisticated vocabularies.” Obama’s DVR includes such predictable choices as Game of Thrones, House of Cards, and of course Breaking Bad. (Spoiler alert! He’s way behind, so no leaks.) They don’t mention his alleged love of Duck Dynasty probably because it doesn’t fit the narrative. As black liberal icon Cornel West put it, “Who’s watching Duck Dynasty?”

You can’t tell much about a president by what shows he likes, but you can tell a lot about a country by what villains they embrace. It’s not relevant that Reagan’s favorite show was Family Ties, but America’s acceptance of Alex P. Keaton says a lot. I don’t care that Nixon loved Archie Bunker, but the fact that the country did, too, is important. Tricky Dick resented the way All in the Family tried to “downgrade” Bunker and “upgrade the hippie son-in-law” and America agreed, much to Norman Lear’s chagrin. All in the Family, Family Ties, and Duck Dynasty were all created by liberal snobs to denigrate American values, and they all backfired.

Norman Lear was not impressed with his father’s old-fashioned stance on family values, so he created a grumpy, uncool hard hat who said everything wrong. “Fag” seemed to come out of Archie’s mouth almost once an episode. When a friend of Edith’s told Arch her husband cooks all the meals, he replied, “Aren’t you worried about how that looks?” She said, “Like I’m a bad wife?” and he goes, “No, like he’s a fag.” Instead of tsk-tsking Archie Bunker’s uncouth vocabulary, America laughed their heads off. Today the armchair in which he said his lines is a mainstay at the National Museum of American History. People loved Archie Bunker and hated Meathead because they knew boomer liberals were full of shit. Even Sammy Davis, Jr. was in the Bunker bunker. He recognized Archie’s vocabulary was that of a hard-working American who grew up in a rough neighborhood. Davis told him as much when he appeared on the show as himself back in 1972. Archie liked him too, eventually.

While Meathead took classes in “My Father-in-Law is Wrong About Everything,” his father-in-law was down at the docks busting his ass or risking his life driving a cab in New York City. He did this to put a roof over all of his family, including his smug son-in-law. I met an immigrant car service driver recently who pulls in almost $200K a year. He does this by driving from 8AM to midnight seven days a week (he showed me his pay stubs). I’d like to see one of these modern Meatheads try that for a week. America knows that the Archie Bunkers are the ones we can rely on.