American Pathology.... Why Does the Right Thrive Here and not in Europe?

[ulTRAX]

If the Left is ever going to make some sense of the 2002-2004 elections I think it has to ask the simple question why does the Right thrive in the US compared to most of the other advanced industrial democracies?

Granted the Right has been building an ideological infrastructure for decades... from think tanks to the takeover of talk radio. It has added the Religious Right to its coalition. Those two forces alone are powerful forces that sustain the movement and bring people to the polls. The Right has a better narrative about activist judges and liberal elites while the Dems refuse to even talk about the Right's "strangle the beast" agenda or how the GOP favors capital over labor. Then there's the war.

But is there something deeper in the American character that makes it susceptible to such Right wing nonsense? Do they connect better with myths about the US? Why does Europe embrace the welfare state and half the US has utter contempt for the concept? Why are we obligated to piss away 400 Billion to be the world's superpower when Europe prefers to fund social programs? Why does Europe reject religion while much of the US embraces it?

I'd suspect that there was some deep seated pathology at work but we all know that a century ago Progressives and Populists were in power and brought immense reforms to the US. So is the Right just better organized and provided a better story line? Or are they appealing to some deeper pathology? Is it creating a new ideological pathology? If Dems can't answer such questions, they'll not have an effective strategy to counter the Right.

[still_one]

1. there are segments in europe which are very right

[PROGRESSIVE1]

But the large majority have rejected the American Style Right Wing...

idealouges that have infiltrated America.

[ulTRAX]

8. I'm aware of that.......

Look who Italy has as Prime Minister. But generally Europe... maybe Old Europe, is much more progressive than the US.

Check out this Fresh Air interview with T.R. Reid.
http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?display=day&todayDate=11/02/2004

[Sara Beverley]

45. And a hell of alot of them have immigrated here, where they can be

comfortable with the rest of the fascists.

[DireStrike]

2. The media.

And a 20+ year campaign against the ideas of the latte drinkin liberals, specifically reason and critical thinking.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

13. But 70% of Italians opposed the Iraqi war and 60% opposed Bush's....

re-election.

[Algorem]

3. gene pool mostly cleansed of them by WW2?

[aden_nak]

4. It boils down to one thing. Religion.

And the electorate's willingness to take political direction from their religious leaders. Whichever candidate professes to have a more direct line to God (and has any in American history done so more than Dubya?) taps into a huge voter base. Any candidate that panders to the medieval social concerns of the Christian Right locks in that vote as well.

I am fairly convinced that I could run, in a red-as-blood state, on a campaign of, "Drowning Kittens and Opposing Gays" and in with 60% of the vote, no problem.

[The Icon Painter]

15. Say "Amen"

You've hit it squarely on the head. We are afflicted by the insane, followers of superstition. I know whereof I speak. I was kicked out of Bob Jones University for being worldly when I drew a completely clothed human figure in art class. These people don't compromise. They are zealots to the utmost degree and I fear them as I fear nothing else in this world.
I had hoped to die before this sad country underwent another "Great Awakening". Alas, mates, we're in for it now.

[Copperred]

5. BRAINWASHED RELIGIOUS FAITHFUL

Personally I think its because Europe is not brainwashed and knows the Bible as revelation is a joke...in fact its a Joke THEY WROTE....

.....

[AlinPA]

6. Because they saw Nazism and Mussolini's fascists in action.

[demokatgurrl]

11. Bingo!!!

[Obviousman]

7. europe has been torn apart

in two world wars. they have seen first hand the destruction and death that comes from right wing fascism. instead of shoot first and ask questions later, they have seen the benefit to diplomacy and the necesity to get along. this has influenced even domestic policy. health care and labor laws are designed so everyone can get ahead

[smirkymonkey]

39. I think that's it exactly. They have learned from their mistakes.

We are a young and very immature nation.

The problem is, we can't afford to make the same mistakes, as the entire planet is at stake.

Our Imperialist follies could end up destroying all of humanity.

[htuttle]

9. They purged many of their facists after WWII

The US did not. Didn't even face up to their existence, really. They all just sort of melted back into their positions in high society.

Now they're back.

[DemBones DemBones]

41. Don't forget we allowed Nazis to move to the US,

mostly Nazi scientists. Werner von Braun, for example. Were they reformed and no longer fascist when they got here?

:shrug:

[Touchdown]

10. 4 Centuries ago, they were smart enough to ship their nutjobs here.

And then, those nutjobs breeded.:scared:

[ulTRAX]

14. I suspect tradition over genes......

As I said in the first post, the US has gone though periods where Progressives were able to bring radical reforms to the US. So I don't think genes are the explain the problem.

I think the explanation is in the mix of US tradition, education, brainwashing, and an ideological infrastructure that molds and reinforces Rightist views.

[Touchdown]

20. I was being facetous, but we rever the pilgrims every Thanksgiving

The pilgrims were an oppressive faction of protestants that tried to take control of the Anglican church and were shipped to Mass, as punishment. We talk about the Salem witch trials and read the Scarlet Letter, but do we really understand the message? Obviously, half the country doesn't. They didn't REALLY want religious freedom. they just wanted to be in charge of it.

What we get from the history of the Puritans and Jamestown, are the Mayflower, some platitudes of the "quest for freedom", cornocopias of food, and a "unity" with nnative peoples who they slaughtered the other 364 days of the year....so much so that we iconize the very word in a bad tasting vegetable oil fake butter spread.

These people's history should be told in a cautionary sense, but they are revered for their "quest for freedom". What you learned as a child was religious indoctrination disguised as "American History".

We can talk about God and Dixie, or Manifest Destiny next if you want. Everything is built from the foundation and grows from there.

[smirkymonkey]

40. So I guess, in a sense, our nation was founded by fundie

nutjobs and greedy mercenaries.

Well, that explains a lot.

[DemBones DemBones]

43. And convicts, in the case of Georgia, which was

one of the original 13 colonies, remember. Most of the prisoners shipped here
were likely in prison for debt, but maybe the propensity to fail and thus be thrown into debtors' prison in the 1700s has been passed down to some 21st century Americans. There is a lot we don't know about nature vs. nurture.

An old friend with a history degree likes to say that all of us are here because our ancestors couldn't make it back where they came from.

[Glenda]

26. lol!

I'm finally able to laugh again.

[momisold]

12. I don't have anything to back this up...

but I think part of it is the age of our country. Look at the countries you are comparing us to. They are all centuries older than us, and have gone through the "evolutionary" process much longer than us.

Also, one reason people came to America was so they could be the religion they wanted. That was one of the underlying foundations of our country. When I say that was ONLY 250 years ago it seems like a long time, but when you look at how long other countries have been in existence, it's not that long.

Just MHO.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

21. Canada has been around for as long as the U.S has been around.

Canada is not as right wing as we are.

Several Provinces have approved Gay Marriage.

[momisold]

28. I don't know much about Canada

but I'm assuming that since they were considered part of Great Britain until recent history, they were more influenced by that. Also having a very French area influences that.

I was thinking more that when we founded this nation, we founded it from "scratch", new rules, new constitution, etc., and therefore threw off outside influences. The new America didn't want to be like where they had just come from.

I could be very wrong. Just my opinion.

[northernsoul]

32. Canada never had slavery

To maintain the system of enslaving Africans while simultaneously proclaiming that all men are created equal, Americans had to create the insidious and pervasive ideology of White Supremacy to explain why all the noble ideas we were proclaiming only applied to white folks.
White Supremicist ideology has deeply stained the American imagination, and though much progress has been made, it is still overtly or covertly present in many of our political calculation.
Think about the American Right's positions on crime, civil rights, welfare, immigration, economic justice, etc. and ask yourself if there is not a racial subtext present.

[ladjf]

16. Perhaps it's something to do with our recent frontier past where

everyone was taught to be very self-reliant. Who needs help?

Or perhaps our education system has begun to fail to the point that
our young just aren't receiving any enlightened instruction.

[dogtag]

17. We are spoon fed from birth the concept that

we are the greatest nation on earth, the greatest people on earth, we have the greatest government on earth, etc., etc. If you try to say otherwise, you will be branded with the traitor stick. There is no room for discussion of any kind. Hubris is our byword.

Therefore, there is no need to question, to examine, to investigate, to learn anything from other countries.

The Red Menace left over from the fifties was so successful in scaring ordinary Americans that the very idea of universal healthcare seems a subversive idea. The people in 'old Europe' DEMAND social programs that are to their benefit. In most cases, they value intelligence and life experience in their leaders and are not easily fooled...if they are, it's not for very long.

We are smug beyong belief. My Country Right or Wrong is still our motto. Uber alles!

[aden_nak]

22. Lewis Black pointed that out very well.

Paraphrasing here, but the gist of it was:

If you worked at an office, and every day, one guy came in and said, "Im the best motherfucker who works here and you're all lucky to even have me! I'm better than every one of you. Bwahahaha!" By the end of the week, that guy'd be dead.

[ulTRAX]

36. hitting one nail on the head

It's rather incredible that we can have such an anti-democratic constitution and yet even so-called Democrats are intellectually incapable of critiquing it from the stand point of democracy itself. I believe that on the individual level this sabotaging of the intellect begins with early education and it's sustained because the Democratic establishment, itself, does not value democracy. Sure we call ourselves a democracy but that borders on an Orwellian delusion: anti-democratic = democratic. I'm a big fan of Howard Dean. Just think how ridiculous it is for a group calling itself Democracy for America seems devoid of democratic values.

[RPM]

18. WWII

A) They have seen the enemy and, in large part, purged themselves of it

B) The effects of the purge led to a more socially conscious society; We are still stuck with the old-school cowboy mentality.

C) They have suffered extensive religious persecution and are more sensitive to the issue than here.

D) Generally cooler people

[ulTRAX]

48. the effects of war

Europe endured three major wars in some 60 or so years. That's a war a generation. They finally learned that war is hell and everything must be done to prevent it. It's a lesson that American's have never had to face.. at least not since the Civil War.

After WWII the industrial base of the US was intact. We rebuilt Europe and Japan. The US felt threatened by the Soviets and the Red Chinese in a bi-polar world. The threat pushed us to be a super power and even as the Cold War ended and the major threats are gone... the money spent on the military continues to increase. Where we spend some 400+ billion on the military the next nation, Russia, spends about 65 billion... and Russia is no threat. It's spending that's politically justified by the military-industrial-political complex. Where Europe has hopefully freed itself of the trap of militarism.. the US remains mired in it.

[blm]

19. Because their benefactors control most of the media.

.

[jpgray]

23. We have conservative groups that spend billions indoctrinating people

Europe has nothing analagous, yet.

[ulTRAX]

35. what a return on an investment

The Right's think tanks have been a good investment in propagandizing the public. They don't do it alone. They provide the pseudo-intellectual rationale for Rightist dogma which is then spouted by politicians and Right wing media. At times I suspect they believe their own lies and distortions. Case in point... the Orwellian rewrite of Reagan era history. We were told there was a supply side revenue boom and the Democrats spent it all. Some facts and figures are supplied to support the contention. Yet looking at the actual inflation adjusted revenue numbers, there was no boom but a bust. Much of the revenue they credit to a supply side revenue feedback is really from Reagan's tax HIKES. But the Right has no other way to sell irresponsible tax cuts so they stick with this lie.

But while the Right can lie, I also fault the Dems for not exposing the Right's agenda. They still have not developed a compelling narrative that provides Americans with a broad ideological overview. If they can't even expose the Right's "strangle the beast" agenda, or how income and wealth are flowing upward, then the Dems deserve to lose.

[starroute]

24. Historical differences going back to the original colonies

Europe has a history of rule by powerful political institutions -- kings, nobles, autocratic bureaucracies, the Catholic Church, state-sponsored Protestant churches. This makes Europeans more willing to accept a strong role for their governments, although at the same time they maintain a well-deserved skepticism towards government power.

America began as a series of small, self-governing communities in which the local church played a major role. Even as things got regularized in the original colonies, this pattern kept being replicated out on the frontier. Also, when more formal institutions did arrive, they were often imposed from outside by the British government, and Americans took them as foreign and intrusive. This was a major factor in inciting the American Revolution.

Much of American conservatism involves an almost biological impulse to get back to this original pattern -- local autonomy, a strong role for the church in education and morals, and distrust of central governments. That's your basic small-town and rural conservatism.

The real question for me concerns the more alien conservatism of the Neocons and crypto-fascists like Paul Weyrich. I have to think that the small-town conservatives are largely oblivious to its presence, because I can't see anyone who comes out of that old American paradigm being willing to sign on to an ideology of elitism and subordination of the individual to the state.

[Lexingtonian]

44. yep, it's the colonialism

I have some quibbles with what you say. The story isn't entirely one of imposition- life in the Thirteen Colonies was politically hierarchical/caste-defined in a way that would strike us as extreme today.

What we do have is a pattern of ~75 year periods of trying to shed one aspect after another of the medieval European village-based society. But every time the effort to change something attains power enough to challenge that one aspect, its defenders put all of the progress made since the beginning at risk.

1640~1720 The theocracies of the country, e.g. Puritans, are defeated. The fighting takes place mostly in Britain but American aspects are the Salem Witch Trial and the hanging of Quakers in Boston and such. (Progress preserved as the 1st Amendment in 1790.) Becomes real in American life by ~1770.

1720~1790 The monarchy/aristocracy system is defeated. The Revolutionary War is its central conflict. (Progress preserved as the body of the Constitution.) Becomes real in American life with the end of the Secession/Civil War (which involves an attempt to "rewrite" the federal Constitution) and, indirectly, completion of the Settlement/Conquest.

1790~1865 Slavery/indenture is defeated. Requires the Civil War. (Progress preserved as the 13th Amendment.) Becomes real in American life with the dying out of the sharecroppers and last Civil War soldiers and industrialization (end of unmechanized/manual farming labor), 1930s.

1865~1941 Suffrage/Enfranchisement of women, Native Americans, and people without 'property' (land holdings). (Progress preserved as enforcement of the 15th Amendment.) Still being completed at present: enfranchisement of 18 year olds took place during the Vietnam War, yet disenfranchisement of ex-felons remains in the South and Midwest. (A travesty.) Ends in a way coincident with the demise of agriculturally-defined ways of life.

1941~(?2015) The structural racial/ethnic/gender/religious group non-equality, i.e. the colonial privilege system in the society imposed via Government, is in the process being defeated. I.e. the black (Hispanic, Asian, Jewish) Civil Rights movement, womens' rights, gay rights, nontheist rights. (Progress preserved as enforcement/interpretation with integrity of the 14th Amendment.) Will become undisputed reality in American life as non-white/'mestizo' people become the cultural and demographic majority ~2045 and voting majority ~2070 (lots of error in that numerical estimate).

The Cold War was a recapitulation of the "battle of civilizations" of (Western) Europe and Northern Asia (Eastern Europe is the overlap zone) and was an industrialized version of Huns vs Romans, a residuum (like the two WWs) of the herding/agrarian/industrial group/social transitions over the past century or two. It made the retention of and "liberal" internal readjustments to a colonialist politics kind of symbiotic- sustained both- in the United States. (American "capitalism" is colonialist economic behavior repackaged, Russian "Communism" was in practice something with only a peripheral relationship to Marx.)

The present attempt to make for a Europe (U.S.) vs Middle East "battle of civilizations" is a clever effort to do the same kind of thing- rebolster the power of the colonialist Old Establishment- with the psychological aspect of colonialism, the Expansionist version of Christianity. "Islam" is the new enemy, as false as "Communism"- but the point is only for people who can't accept that they aren't The Chosen People in The One True Way Of Life - the American Messianism- to have something to fixate on. If they can't/won't create the Good and Eternal, they'll try to find something to destroy that is Evil. Pity on all the innocent victims of that intense vanity.

American selfimage as a pseudo-European colonial society ('christian', 'capitalist') will in time come to an end, simply by attrition of the Chosen... the country will be able to become a civilization of its own, and the first truly pluralistic one in world history, during the next century. But there will be plenty of people who won't be able to bear that it's not white/Eurocentric, nor Christian, in its destiny along the way. Hell, we saw the ones who presently can't bear the idea come out in force three days ago. And we'll painfully continue to be the political alliance that continues to bleed elderly white people over to the other political alliance over time, the reactionary/static one that has nowhere to go but license depravity because it realizes it has no future.

[Kellanved]

25. Social Democracy

It is about the only thing that is unique in Europe - and Canada for that matter. Even most conservative parties have accepted certain Social Democratic concepts.

At the moment the greatest fear is that the Bush regime might lead to a social climate change, boosting the religous right in Europe as well.

[LuminousX]

27. Europe already has had its dictators

[Cleita]

29. Yin and Yang???

When Europe was in the grip of the Nazis, we were a practicing democracy. Now that Europe has passed us in the democracy department, we are becoming fascist. I can't imagine why a bunch of baby boomer hippies managed to turn out goose stepping children.

I don't think we have a true answer about this right now and perhaps it will be up to historians to come up with an explanation after all of us are long dead.

[2Design]

30. lots of nazi's and their youth came here after war to escape

punishment

they are doing the same thing now that was done in 1930's

[athena]

31. Because the democratic party does not represent the economic interests

of the lower class. Unlike in Europe and Canada, unions are weak, and there is no proper health care, unimployment insurance or welfare. If the poor had access to these things, they would recognize their importance and work to keep and improve them. As it is, with the economic issues removed, all that remains is the so-called moral issues. Please read What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank -- especially the last chapter.

[Mountainman]

33. Europe has gone through what we have yet to go through.

We can only purge ourselves of right wing fascism by living through it. Europe had Hitler, Mussolini, Franco. Now we have Bush.

Like a little kid, until the American people touch the hot stove themselves they will never understand what is means to get burnt.

[jacksonian]

34. history is important, America has always had a radicalism

that expresses itself in moralistic terms and has morphed into the RW we have today. I also think the points about Europe being older are correct - they all had these battles years ago.

But the BIGGIE difference is our two-party system. We do not allow extremist views to hold their place at the ends of the political spectrum, it is an all-or-nothing fight for control or marginalization. Take over or die.

This, more than anything else, is what is telling about this election. It's what makes it so hard for us to consider such non-ideological questions such as competence. When everything is a fight between red vs blue, hows does one deal with an incompetent candidate? For many, the larger issue is preserving their worldview, if the red guy is an asshole, do I really want to make the world blue? Jim Bunning comes to mind here - totally out of it, his only strategy was that he was not a Dem in a red state. And he won.

So an atheist secular Republican who hates the welfare state, who is he supposed to vote for? And in the end he is lumped in with all the fundies when it comes to mandate time. In an European multiparty system this just doesn't happen. If one party goes off the rails into extremism, a voter can just slide over to another party without totally compromising everything. Europe is not perfect, but they do know some things.

We have no way to release pent up rage other than yet another fight to the finish.

[cassiepriam]

37. This is crucial to understanding what has happened

The problem is no longer bush and the neocons.
It is now the american people. Why are they so
willing to be taken in by con artists?
So willing to believe lies and nonsense?
So willing to do the wrong things?
The american people are either too lazy to do their homework,
or have no critical thinking skills. Or they are immoral
like the neo cons. There are only so many ways to slice this.
And all the answers do not look good for us as a people.
I was also thinking that the american public is like
an adolescent. Acts out in an immature way. With little
thought of consequences or careful evaluation of facts.
How did our country lose its adults??

[ulTRAX]

38. morality as self-delusion

I think many... most... take on label because they value the self-descriptions more than the substance of a label. We can see that in the Democratic Party which has no use for democratic values. So when Rightists claim morality is a value... their self-delusions also have to be explored.

Historically the US has had an amoral if not immoral foreign policy. How many have died in the American Holocaust?

Looking at one specific choice: how many have died because we felt we'd rather install murderous thugs in the mid-east to insure our access to cheap oil rather than try to run our economy more efficiently? Any one TRULY interested in morality would have stumbled upon this simple choice and condemned it long ago. Yet those more interested in the label of being a moral person than in the responsibility buy into the lies of the flag waving politicians and support such immoral policies.

[leesa]

42. Southern Baptists and civil war retreads

[xchrom]

46. secularism and an acceptance

that government is the best vehicle for civilized society to work out it's problems.
europeans are committed socialists -- even the moderate right in europe embraces basic socialist principals.
but you absolutely correct in wanting to diagnose the american pathology -- america right now is sick.
and we need to understand it at it's roots.

[Hotler]

47. One word!

GREED!

[Kimber Scott]

49. Americans are all about "Me" when it comes to money and power and

all about "Them" when it comes to moral values. It's a "Leave me alone - I can't live and let live" syndrome.

[ThoughtCriminal]

50. Fascism - Been there, done that, no thanks

[Zero Division]

51. Several factors I believe: leftover hostility from the anti-Communist

hysteria of the McCarthy era (the entire left spectrum including moderate liberals was unjustly and irrationally tarred by the right's exploitation of anti-Communist sentiment) and the civil rights movement, plus the rise of the Religious Right, all of which are somewhat tied into each other.

America went through decades of anti-Communist hysteria that still lasts in the right wing up to the present day. I think anti-Communist hysteria was eclipsed by the hatred of the extreme right in Europe because of the rise of Fascism and it's horrifying destructiveness there.

On top of the anti-Communist hysteria, a backlash against the left came from those who were angered by the civil rights movement. Then, as our society began to clamor for greater social liberty in areas like sexuality, another backlash against the left created the rise of the Christian Right, who using the powerful organizing tool of their churches have now stormed their way into power in our govt. The greed and power of the Laissez Faire Economic Right has cemented the power of the right wing by allying themselves with the Christian Right and giving them increasing control of the media and extraordinary financial power.

My guess is that nothing like this, or at least nothing on this scale, has ocurred in Europe because they've already tasted the bitter horrors of right wing extremism.