Fear and Self Loathing of Right Wing American Voters

[McCamy Taylor]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17poverty.html?hp

First, some numbers. One in seven of us live in poverty. Over 50 million of us have no health insurance. Close to 10% of us have no jobs. Food stamps are the only thing keeping over 40 million Americans from starving. Almost 75% of us have been personally affected by the unemployment of a family member or close friend. Poverty, hunger, joblessness, lack of health care----all of these problems are worse for Blacks and Latinos, who have poverty rates close to 25% (higher for minority children). But the number that has the corporate fascists’ salivating is this statistic---almost 10% of European-Americans now live in poverty.


What does it mean to be poor, jobless, uninsured in a country which embraces the puritan ethic? It means that you are worthless, shiftless, lazy. It means that God hates you. It means you hate yourself---and when you hate yourself, you start hating the world around you.

Some Tea Baggers are probably well paid corporate shills. The rest are desperate, dejected, self hating average American citizens. This Bloomberg poll from spring, 2010 reveals that the average Tea Party supporter is 55 years old, white, a Christian fundamentalist, college educated and male.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289821

Try to put yourself in the shoes of a 55 year old white male Christian fundamentalist. You were brought up at a time when the Civil Rights movement was rocking your parents’ world. You were taught that no good would come of integrated schools and lunch counters and that America would go to hell in a hand basket if Black votes were ever counted. You watched your police attack (Black) school children with fire hoses and dogs. Being a child yourself, you were probably shocked, but when you turned to your parents, you saw only smiles of satisfaction.

Though your mother did not work outside the home, she probably had a Black woman to do her housework---at a pitiful wage. You called the woman by her first name, even though all the mothers of your school friends were Mrs. So-and-so. The maid took care of you and your siblings, while her own children were left at home.

Your father probably supervised Black and Latino employees. You were proud of him because he was a “boss” and because all those minority underlings called him “sir.” You were told that when you grew up, you would also be a “sir”, well respected, in control. No matter how bad things got, you would always be better off than the Blacks and the Mexicans. God loved you, that’s why He made you white and male in the most prosperous country on earth.

Fast forward 45 years. The U.S. economy has turned to liquid shit, you are in danger of losing your job, your pension has evaporated, your second mortgage payments are eating you alive, your kids (who can not find work) have moved back home along with your wife’s mother who has to use up her savings before she can qualify for a federally funded nursing home. Your life sucks. You are glad your old man is not alive to see you. He would probably tell you it is all your own fault. How could a white, healthy, American man make such a mess of his life---?

The thought of your father’s scorn makes your stomach twist up in knots. Your blood pressure is through the roof. You are so full of fear and self loathing that you feel as if you could burst. Being only human, you look around for something or someone to blame. You see the president---

Of course! It is all the fault of those Black folks. They hate you and that is why they are trying to destroy you. Your kids can not get into college, because of affirmative action. Your mother in law can not get help from the government, because government employees are all Black and they only take care of their own. Your job is in danger because of illegal aliens. Your mortgage payments are too high, because a bunch of minorities defaulted on their loans. Your pension went to pay for some welfare queen’s Cadillac---

And somewhere, some corporate fascist rubs his hands in glee, knowing that his manipulation of the economy has created another foot soldier in the battle against democracy.

It is natural to feel anger when confronted by the anger of the Tea Baggers. It is much harder to respond to anger with compassion. But only compassion will win the hearts and minds of America’s very frightened voters. I know that some people want a firebrand in the White House, a modern day John Brown. That is because we on the left are also afraid, and we also channel our fear into anger---

Anger has its place, but sometimes all the anger in the world will not solve the problem, if the problem is a sense of loss and despair. Just once, I would like to see a politician sit down and cry for the American people instead of fighting for them.

Then, maybe, we could all work together and get something done.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Then these foolish twits are voting against themselves

we need educate them

[Andy823]

3. Good luck trying to educate them!

I tried on another site, got banned every month after Obama took office, and trust me, the die hard far right who watch Beck, listen to Limbuagh, love Palin, and keep voting for Michelle Bachmann, are never going to see what they are doing themselves by voting for the GOP, or tea party candidates, till they are living on the streets with no homes, no job, no medical insurance, and not hope of ever seeing those things again!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. we need to destroy News corporation and its Fox and the AP

[SemperEadem]

27. you can't educate people who don't want to be taught anything

you're wasting your time.

[Taverner]

2. Susan Faludi: Stiffed

While it offers nothing like the eloquent argument she made in Backlash, Faludi's examination of what she dubs the "masculinity crisis" does present a series of thoughtful interviews and fly-on-the wall journalistic excursions into the company of men. Faludi finds that American men are looking for metaphorical Viagra to cure an impotence beyond the literal kind. And sometimes, she argues, they are looking in the wrong places, becoming the proverbial "angry white males." Laid-off aerospace and naval shipyard workers, magazine editors and football fans, patriots and Promise Keepers are struggling to define manhood. Faludi aims wide in targeting the sources of the masculine malaise, citing everything from "the remote-control methods of a military-industrial economy" to "the feminization of an onrushing celebrity culture." Boomers and postboomers, deprived of the heroic status of their WWII veteran dads and having had their sense of virtue eroded by the chastisements of feminism, are trying to find "a route to manhood through the looking glass." As Faludi exhaustively documents the struggles of incredible shrinking men with the "post-cold-war restructuring of the economy," she suggests that the core of the problem is that men have lost "a useful role in public life, a way of earning a decent and reliable living, appreciation in the home, respectful treatment in the culture." Faludi concludes by exhorting men to stop thinking of masculinity as a quality detached from their humanity: "their task is not, in the end, to figure out how to be masculineArather, their masculinity lies in figuring out how to be human." This admonitionAbe a mensch!Ais a sensible way to close a book that proceeds less by well-shaped argument than by the accumulation of anecdotes and Faludi's intelligent, interpretive forays into the lives of men. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc

[Patchuli]

4. Kick this to the GREATEST!!

They tried to raise me that way...thank God I made a u-turn. It is compassion we must use with the rightwing voters...

[alittlelark]

5. I hope the unrec trolls are not able to sink this brilliant piece...

It hits very close to home.

[RagAss]

6. I have no compassion for these scumbags. I pray for their starvation or stroke !

[colsohlibgal]

7. If Only

If only all people would vote for their own personal interests republicans would have gone the way of the Whigs years ago.

So many dirt poor people vote for candidates that are nothing but shills for the wealthy. It's insane. The honest truth is that some of them aren't the sharpest tools in the shed but many of them aren't dumb but are horribly misguided and manipulated.

If you just look at the big tax debate now, up until the last few days the republicans have made it seem like taxes were being raised on everyone, you could see it in their "Harry and Louise" type ads. Lately though Obama and the dems are doing a better job to lay out the real facts which include the fact that everyone is getting a tax cut - on their first $250,000.

It's really hard to know exactly what will go down election day, a lot can change in 50 days or whatever it is now.

[eridani]

8. Poirtrait is too Southern, IMO

Plenty of teabaggers are like my brother, working class or poor, able to enter the middle class only because our generation was the first to be able to attend college, due to heavy government investment of course, since cut way back. Small town midwesterners ususally didn't have maids of any color.

[McCamy Taylor]

9. KKK was 5 million strong in the 1920's----and its home base was Indiana.

After the Civil War, Blacks moved out of the south---and anti-Black racism spread across the country, as employers pitted white workers against Black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

[alittlelark]

10. I thought she and her children were farmworkers in CA.

It's late and I have no energy to research it, but I have always thought that when I saw the pic.

Am I completely wrong?

[eridani]

13. Oopsie. I meant the verbal portrait. Sorry n/t

[oldlib]

12. Your narrative

is outstanding in that I now understand what the Tea Party membership is made of. It makes sense that the right wing is finally feeling the effects of the bad economy and is rebelling with the Tea Party.

[madrchsod]

14. the same people who cheered hitler as he drove by...

[dotymed]

15. I believe many of those statistics have been manipulated.

Either that or my family, friends and I are much worse off than most Americans.
10% unemployment? Just 1 in 10 are involuntarily not working? In my circle (college educated,Caucasian, mainly blue collar, over 45) it is much higher.
Just reflecting on the (at least 50 million) uninsured in America, is so sadistic. That is a problem that could and should be resolved with a "pen stroke", because it is undoubtedly, the right thing to do. That is much more pressing than any bail-out or stimulus. In fact, with Universal health care, Americans would be able to deal with all of the other problems, much more effectively. The undeniable, and life-or-death necessity of having health care for everyone, lies at the very heart of all of the other problems.
Bankruptcy?- health care costs the largest reason.
I go hungry in order to afford my medicine and I know that many others do.
IMO, most of the over 45 population, will do almost anything to obtain or continue health care. It is a matter of survival. To allow profits to trump life is proof positive that our "brand of capitalism" is an abysmal failure. It used to be illegal for a hospital to turn away someone who could not afford treatment. Now, if they do "treat" you without insurance it will be just enough "treatment" for you to be able to leave the hospital, ambulatory or not.
How the "profit first" crowd has been able to prevent universal health care in America is beyond any rational comprehension. Amazingly, the insurance companies get huge discounts from providers and the uninsured are charged at about triple the costs for the same treatments.
We are long overdue for a revolution in this police state. I support it, but I pray that somehow it can be a non-violent one. "They" make that much less possible daily.
I'll stop being long-winded and state that if we publicly finance elections (we set the limits, force the media to present PSA's for candidates, etc..)then we will be half way (at least) toward solving most of our major socio-economic problems.
If these (mainly millionaire) politicians are forced to be accountable to the citizenry that actually hires and fires them, (presently they are accountable to corporations for the very same reason)then they will be forced to appease the majority or walk. That is the definition of a democratic republic. Honestly, we currently have a Fascist (corporatist) government.
I know I ramble..it's the frustration of repeating the same "meme" for decades, and while I've never seen a solid argument against this obvious "fix", I've never seen an actual attempt made to incorporate this commonsense step.

[McCamy Taylor]

17. Agree that middle aged Americans too young for Medicare and SS are feeling the pinch more than

other groups. Probably due to a combination of factors. Folks with experience (and higher wages) are now the first cut. Older people, who may have health insues, cause employer insurance premiums to go up, so that is another reason they do not want them.

I work in a public health clinic. Nowadays, we see a bunch of middle aged people who have lost their jobs and can not find work. These are people who have worked all their lives. They followed the rules. They are scared and mad as hell. They will vote for whomever offers to get them back to work.

[chervilant]

16. Time To Wake Up.

I've been a closet economic anthropologist since my days at University. I assert that we humans are our own worst enemy, because we blithely and greedily engage in economic behaviors without examining the import or the impact of such behaviors. Our economic behaviors have become more important and more influential than ALL of our other behaviors, comprising the framework within which we do all things political or spiritual. Please note that I mean WE as in our entire species.

Humans are now a systems-stressing economic resource, yet we seem incapable of seeing the forest for the trees. All other economic resources are being taxed beyond the system's capacity, yet we sustain a rhetoric that smacks of the blame and shame game--warring with one another, blaming others without examining our own roles--when we should be seeking ways to fix the problem.

A great philosopher once predicted that capitalism would eventually collapse, and that economic behavior would evolve into a more egalitarian, cooperative means of production. Capitalists, politicians, and others with a vested interest in maintaining an oppressive status quo promoted a pejorative meme that taints this great man's scholarship to this very day. We should take note of the enormous energy expended to denigrate this man's collected works.

We too can attack Karl Marx on the strength of his detractors' red herring meme, or we can emulate his courageous endeavor to examine human economic behavior as it exists today and envision the changes that MUST occur if we are to progress as a species. Do we have to throw out the baby (capitalism) with the bath water (Corporate Megalomaniacs)? Is communism the inevitable alternative to capitalism, and would that really be a bad thing? Can we continue to subsume our spiritual selves in servitude to the almighty dollar?

Change is often a big scary barrier to personal growth, isn't it?

Still, as another great philosopher said, "We MUST be the change we wish to see in the world."

So, this starts with me. My awareness of the core issues described herein above shapes and informs my activism every day. I refuse to buy into the divisiveness that the Corporate Megalomaniacs promote to keep us from examining these real issues, and that includes divisiveness predicated by education, status, or any other hierarchical measure. We The People are on the verge of a major change--perhaps cataclysmic--and we have the intellectual capacity and the spiritual framework within which to propel ourselves into an amazing future.

FURTHERMORE, to those who vilify, parody, ridicule, or otherwise denigrate the unfortunates among us who are factually challenged, please bear in mind that at least 40% of our adult population is functionally illiterate. Of those who can 'read,' another 60% cannot comprehend what they've read, nor can they give a defensible synopsis of the material they've read. Many of these unfortunates cling tenaciously to their world views, because fear--and the other visceral emotions that drive them--is a great motivator. Furthermore, any measurable self esteem in these pitiful individuals is often a thin veneer over a seething cauldron of insecurity and doubt.

The Corporate Megalomaniacs know this and use it well, both through their propaganda tools (the MSM, lobbyists, and paid political hacks) and through their skilled sustenance of the 'wealth carrot meme.' Moreover, the Corporatists continue to divide and conquer, regularly promulgating their partisan red herrings (which quite a number of us snarf regularly--regardless of party affiliation).

That old chestnut, "Ignorance is Bliss" carries new meaning for me. Perhaps, "controlled ignorance is bliss" might be a better way to look at it. I beg the non-ignorant among us to focus your energy and your analytical skills on ways we can help the unfortunates among us (variously labeled Teh Stoopid, teabaggers, right-wingers, DINOs and blue-dogs) to understand who is the real threat to their financial and social well-being.

Oh, and--at the risk of getting more backlash from some for whom this post resonates--our networking efforts need to intensify. Our efforts to work together to effect change MUST focus on stopping the exponential success of the Corporate Megalomaniacs, or we'll find ourselves hiding behind closed doors, avoiding any mention of a world view that challenges the controlling uber wealthy elite. Actually, how many of us are already there?

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

(Yes, DUers, this is a repost, but I think it bears repeating...)

[zehnkatzen]

18. I'm afraid I failed at this thought experiment. Sorry.

I cannot imagine myself a fundamentalist Christian; I can no longer comprehend that level of stupidity.

I cannot imaging myself hating and fearing people without white skins.

I have lousy self-esteem, but I don't hate myself that much.

These people have my sympathy and pity, but I still loathe them, because they've been told over and over and over who their real enemies are and refuse to listen. When it's pointed out that they are endlessly trying to hand over power to people who are economically a$$-raping them, they accuse you of being "socialst" and "anti-american".

If anyone else here can do that ... well, more power to you.

But my patience and forbearance has gone.

[LongTomH]

19. K & R & Forward: An excellent article and analysis

I need to forward this to my SAMIZDAT political maillist, along with your next article!
:kick:

[Jade Fox]

20. The Right has learned to take our compassion and rub our faces in it....

by making Liberal a dirty word, and progressive ideas evil to the people this article describes.

Liberals/Progressives cannot enable ignorance and self-pity, especially in those who kick us in the teeth every chance they get. It's just possible we can't save many of the people attracted to the Tea Party, and need to focus on protecting ourselves and the planet from them.

These Tea-bagger types take no responsibility for how their own passivity and complacence has contributed to the situation they are in. Rather than educate themselves, they have embraced the cheap high of mindless patriotism and consumerism. They chronically vote against their own self interest. They want a gratifying (rather than "successful") life handed to them. As for white men, many seem unable to envision a life not based on bossing everyone around, and that's damned hard to feel compassion for.

I guess I'm not in a very compassionate mood today.

[XanaDUer]

21. What jade fox said

nt.

[McCamy Taylor]

23. Compassion will keep the 50% who have no opinion of the Tea Parties right now from being

lured to the dark side. 25% of the American public is always rabidly right wing. They are trying to convince the middle 50 that only the RW cares.

That is why Obama needs to get on a train and do a poverty/unemployment tour of America. Or send Michelle. I know he cares. He has to show that he cares.

[Jade Fox]

24. The Tea Party types I know aren't poor.....

especially by world standards. In fact, they have little compassion themselves for the truly poor, who they write off as lazy.

The Tea Partiers I know are whites who have less than they expected (and probably deserve) as they head into their retirement years. But their political rage is all about themselves. And yes, they are racist as hell when you scratch the surface, and are threatened by the loss of status automatically granted to them as white people.

Does the Tea Party talk at all about poverty and job loss? Not that I've noticed. It's all crap about "Socialism" and "Big Government", which is code for "We don't want to pay taxes."

[rschop]

22. RE: The right wing in America

Just what the hell did the American people expect when all of our factories were shipped to China and all of our jobs to India. That the Chinese and Indians were going to pay for our SS. I don't think so.

And we were told, by the right wing politicians and the multi-national companies, that this was the magic of globalism, and that we were becoming an advanced service economy,

That means you wash my clothes and I wash yours.

We were told that we no longer needed manufacturing, just as we were told we no longer need good jobs.

HOW GOD DAMN DUMB CAN YOU GET FOR THE CHRIST SAKE.

Can't the Americas people put 2 and 2 together?

[butterfly77]

25. Kick,kick,kick &recommended!

:kick: :kick: :kick:

[SemperEadem]

26. gawd! the lies some white people tell themselves...

when you build your life on top of nothing but lies, why are you surprised when the artificial construct falls down around your ears?