Bush's victory has one other crucial dimension with which we must grapple. A diminished sense of control motivates a significant part of his electoral coalition. Muslim terrorists fly airplanes into building. Employers drop them at the slighest sign of bigger profits elsewhere. And in the intimate relationship that constitutes their only refuge from these assaults, gay people want to redefine marriage and devalue the coin of the realm. Such an assault creates psychopolitical conditions that are straight out of the Frankfurt School, where Bush, who feigns caring better than anybody else-- becomes the protective, authoritarian father. Between Bush and the evangelicals, this protection has a strong religious component. He's their savior, and all the more a credible savior because he believes too. That this relationship has a strong sado-masochistic component (in economic terms, he treats them badly, but bad treatment merely seems to strengthen their willingness to submit) imbues the relationship with an even more bizarre complexity.
I've long thought that this relationship would dissolve amid a more class-based politics. But now I'm not so sure. Something is going on here that is not so easily amenable to the old formulas. We're going to be pounded by the right for the next four years. If we don't figure out how to disentangle this set of psychodynamics, we are going to be pounded on by the right for much longer.
Joel Blau
michael perelman wrote:
Not really shifting the subject -- I play basketball is a lot of young people who are 16-25. Today we were talking about the election. They speak with me differently than students would in the classroom. All of them voted, but they had no idea of what they were voting for. Most merely recited slogans like Kerry missed 15,000 votes in explaining their choices.
For the older players, an appalling number are fundamentalists -- including three clergymen. They are very smart, but ignorant as hell. So even in our college town to so-called social issues are important. Maybe not surprising, since Chico is in the most conservative county in California.
I remember when the first Massachusetts gay marriage court case came through. I send a note to the list suggesting that this would be the ultimate wedge issue -- I may have been overstating the case but I think it was enough to push Bush over the edge.
If Democrats expect to win nationally, they're going to have to find a way to explain themselves about such matters. They will have to be able to tell voters where they stand, but also explain about more fundamental issues.
Kerry did not. I still think Howard Dean could have creamed Bush, although he might make a worse president than Kerry. The Democrats went out of their way to take him down in a manner even worse than the way they treated Nader.
Frank, Ellen wrote:
I don't actually. I don't know if a party with a genuinely "progressive" agenda could win an election in the US, but we'll never find out with the current leadership of the Dems. At least this election is a repudiation of Terry McAuliffe and the DLC who have now lost 3 elections in a row. If the Democrats can't transform themselves (and I think they are now too hollowed out) then it's time to begin working on a new party.
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Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
