A book excerpt called “American exceptionalism is a dangerous myth” has some really good bits in it, such as —
A clue to the collective psychology emerged in the movement’s early days, when adherents dressed in tricorn hats, knee breeches, and brass-buckled shoes. This goes to the true meaning of the movement and explains why it appeared when it did. One cannot miss, in the movement’s thinking and rhetoric, a desire for a mythical return, another “beginning again,†a ritual purification, another regeneration for humanity.
Whatever the Tea Party’s unconscious motivations and meanings—and I count these significant to an understanding of the group—we can no longer make light of its political influence; it has shifted the entire national conversation rightward—and to an extent backward, indeed. But more fundamentally than this, the movement reveals the strong grip of myth on many Americans—the grip of myth and the fear of change and history. In this, it seems to me, the Tea Party speaks for something more than itself. It is the culmination of the rise in conservatism we can easily trace to the 1980s. What of this conservatism, then? Ever since Reagan’s “Morning in America†campaign slogan in 1984 it has purported to express a new optimism about America. But in the Tea Party we discover the true topic to be the absence of optimism and the conviction that new ideas are impossible. Its object is simply to maintain a belief in belief and an optimism about optimism. These are desperate endeavors. They amount to more expressions of America’s terror in the face of history. To take our country back: Back to its mythological understanding of itself before the birth of its own history is the plainest answer of all.
Elsewhere — I’m pretty much on the same page as Kevin Drum regarding the State Department investigations of James Rosen.
we can no longer make light of its political influence; it has shifted the entire national conversation rightward—and to an extent backward, indeed.
‘I have not yet begun to fight”… To me the baggers will always be a joke because the reality is…You can’t go home again. They can delude themselves all they want, but they’ll never achieve what they’re trying to recapture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6yYXbgtLbI
No, they won’t, but they can sure as hell do a lot of damage in the effort.
The Tea Party is the unfortunate Id-Kraken the Republicans released, thinking they could control it.
The Republicans PTB (Powers-That-Be – Manichean Capitalists), with Reagan, welcomed the Manichean Dominionist Evengelical (Born-again) Christians, back in the late 70’s.
And then, to harness EVERY right-wing loon, in the hopes of stopping President Obama and the Democrats, in 2009, welcomed the group that Goldwater, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I, Dole, and Bush II, kept at arms-length – the equally Manichean John Birchers. These are the people who thought Ike was a Communist plant.
And an “unholy” alliance was formed, when all of the Manichean’s met, and decided, “The enemies of my enemy, are my friends.”
And what the PTB discovered, was that they COULD NOT control their Tea Party Id-Kraken, after they released it.
And now, it not only threatens the Republican Party, it s a grave threat to America. Not the white, male, Amerika of their fevered dreams and imaginations, but the multi-cultural representative democracy that is the real America.
Today’s Republican Party cannot, under ANY circumstances, be allowed to have any more power than the already have – the lunatics who’ve taken over the House of Representatives Asylum, and the Governors and state legislatures in various states, prove why.
My fear is that, since many of our people don’t seem to have learned from history, that we are reliving the 1850’s.
Right now, we are in a “Cold Civil War.”
And, quite frankly, I don’t know how we, at some point, avoid another Civil War.
But I’m open to suggestions.
‘Gulag;after the 1st shot is fired, the price of gas goes to 10.00 per gallon, snipers prowl the streets of D.C., FOX and the internets go down, and Budweiser is as rare as escargot in Dubois and the makers of the hoveround can’t get replacement parts, the end will be near.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEV8XHBt9fw
“And, quite frankly, I don’t know how we, at some point, avoid another Civil War.” Frankly, the secessionists might have the germ of a good idea. Maybe we need to chop off the more irredeemable red states and see how they fair without modern conveniences like computers or paper currency.
Tom_B,
The problem is, it isn’t just the Red States.
It’s the rural parts of EVERY state, that’s Red.
I live in a purple district in not too far, upstate NY. We just got rid of Nan Hayworth(less) after her first term in the House. And while I’m glad we did, what concerns me, is that she ran as a Teabagger in 2010, and won this district in the first place.
This “Cold Civil War” is a battle to see which culture will win. The more accepting “Urban” one, or the Manichean “Rural” one. Suburban areas are varying shades of purple, depending on what city, in what state, they surround.
And, while we more accepting urbanites and suburbanites have more people, unfortunately, the rural folks have more land. They are over-represented in the Senate. And, even though the Democrats got over 500,000 more votes for House seats in 2012, the Republicans have gerrymandered their districts into corkscrew shapes, in order to keep those seats.
If it was just a matter of drawing a border at the old Mason-Dixon Line, then we could let them, even encourage them, to secede.
But, unfortunately, we can’t. Not unless we want to turn every city and surrounding suburb into West Berlin.
And, there-in, lies the rub.
The Patrick Smith excerpts were right on the money. I’ll have to read the book. Thanks for posting that.
Before the new civil war, I see people “dropping out” again, maybe some new experiments in collective living for seniors. I’m ready.
A really pedestrian analogy occurred to me, as they often do. I am not much of a sports fan, but, when an up and comer beats a seasoned champion in a boxing match, it speaks well for the new guy, but what really tells the story is the second fight. The seasoned champion can deal with defeat better than the new man can deal with victory. The new man will fight the same fight over again and the champion will know just what to expect and how to beat him. The champion accepts defeat, learns from it, and adapts. He will win the second fight and every fight thereafter.
That’s where we are as a nation, we just have to decide which fighter we want to be. The first step is to admit that something went wrong and that a new plan is in order. There is nothing wrong with failure, I should know, unless you can’t admit you’ve failed and get on with the game.
Cundgulag, my fear is not that the proper parallel is with the USA circa 1850, but rather Germany circa 1925, and Godwin’s Law be damned.
Great point, Gulag. The real difference in America is between the heavily blue urban areas (including minority populations and progressive educated and working class whites) and the solid red exurbs and rural areas. Even solid blue states like CA look like this. This also allows for republican state legislatures to gerrymander like crazy. Just put all of the citified dems in one district. No sweat dat. It also allows for republican politicians to play up on racial biases to the suburban populations. I literally know people here in the reddest county in the country who are on public assistance, and white, who don’t see themselves as getting help from the government, they decrie black people getting welfare and food stamps. Literally, keep the gov’ts hands off my Medicare.
Buckyblue,
It ain’t an “entitlement,” if it’s a white person’s getting it.
That sh*t was “earned!”
But we can’t have “them” getting their “entitlements” – they didn’t “earn” them!
Remember these immortal words from actor Craig T. Nelson:
“They’re not going to bail me out,†Nelson said. “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No.â€
DUMBASS!!!
This “grip of myth” that he’s talking about is a big part of the reason I started reading American history a couple of years ago. For instance, I got tired of hearing people say the Founders believed this or the Founders meant that. I knew enough to know that the Founders were far from unanimous about anything, and in fact some of them detested each other. So I wanted to know the whole story.
At any rate, one thing I’ve learned is that the Tea Party is just the latest generation of a pack of barbarians who’ve been with us for centuries. Benjamin Franklin wrote this in 1782:
To me it’s both disturbing and oddly comforting to know that these assholes have been out there all along. Comforting, I mean, because they haven’t managed to completely wreck the country yet. But they’ve come close a few times.
I’ve been word wrestling with this topic – here’s my 2 cents.
“The fringe lunatic only respects the popular will ONLY when it reflects his view. The friend of democracy is the citizen who will respect a law or election contrary to his personal view. Since the United States is a diverse nation, I can guarantee – GUARANTEE that you won’t always get your way. If that’s unacceptable, you’re a child and I haven’t time to deal with your tantrum.
Here’s the litmus test you can use to decide if you are dealing with a kook – they come in left-wing and right-wing varieties. On the subject they are most passionate about, if the majority or government (on the behalf of the majority) adopts a policy that they disagree with, will the kook candidate accept the decision (and try to change it legitimately) or operate in denial, threatening secession, armed revolution, violence against the opposition, etc. You get no patriot points for accepting a decision you agree with – it’s in accepting the rule you dislike that shows your true colors.”
When this becomes the standard test, conservatives (and liberals) will be able to identify and dismiss the kooks from their ranks and sane patriots engage in spirited debate and disagreement working for the good of the public.
This conflation of reality with what-we-want-to-believe-is-true might be our undoing. The abdication of media in risking confrontation with mythology and, consequently, paying customers is sad because media has been the last firewall in place to protect our society from going completely bonkers.
I wish I remembered which Bush sound bite it was but I remember hearing something from Bush that drew completely from his unfolding mythology that had been the staple of his administration. What “W” claimed in that sound bite had been patently false and I began to think what might happen if others were emboldened to discard reality in favor of convenient, self-serving thinking and belief. I distinctly remember the creepy feeling that these considerations left me with.
In retrospect, my concern was not displaced.
It’s yet another variant of human weakness and frailty to cling to a self-serving belief even when facts suggest otherwise. No political ideology owns fear or any of the rest of the base emotional weaknesses. We all do this to some extent and only vary by degree. So why should it be any surprise at all that we see the same thing from those of either party?
The only way we can get by in life is to know what we can then go on intuition or our hunches for the rest. Therefore we can be wrong to whatever extent we are ignorant of the facts or refuse to embrace them over our own personal comfort.
Who says we can’t get by on beilef alone? Perhaps not as well as the alternative but how lnog had everyone believed the world was flat?