Hope On Life Support
by digby
Adele Stan has an intriguing tid-bit today:
This simple little video from my former employer, the American Federation of Government Employees, seems to have hit a nerve among Tea Partying right-wingers. It simply shows a mob populated by the likes of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; and RNC Chairman Michael Steele calling for the death of veteran’s benefits, Social Security, unspecified government services, as well as pay cuts for federal employees. Nothing there that’s really disputable.(I reported here on Rep. Michele Bachmann’s call for an end to Social Security.)
Adele points out that the argument in the Youtube comments is very … lively. Here’s an example of the right wing pique:
Hey you fucking fed union scum bags just keep on suckin on the government tit get a real job you fucks how do you fucking federal faggots sleep at night if you actually get paid more then a military member willing to die and bleed to make the red stripes on our flag, mean while you scum bags just milk the government tit fucking progressives i never thought someone could be so proud to be victims who think your entitled when all you do is fuck our country KEEP MOOCHIN YOU FUCKIN FUCKERS
Yeah, I’d say it gets under their skin alright. There’s plenty more where that came from (although there are a few “fedfuckinfuckers” fighting back.)
The level of vitriol that’s coming from the right wing is escalating as they win. It’s a phenomenon we’ve seen many times before — the more power they get the angrier at the other side they get. The reason is that they believe that their winning requires their opponent to completely capitulate and join them. (Obviously, that rule doesn’t apply to them because in their view it is impossible for their opponents to legitimately win — that would mean that they are not in a majority and that is simply beyond their ken.) Their opponents must grovel, beg forgiveness and adopt their belief system with every fiber of their being or their victory means nothing. When the other side insists on continuing the argument, even in defeat, they simply go insane.
I’ve written about this at length before, perhaps most thoroughly in this post called The Resentment Tribe. This has always been one of the defining features of American political life.
I confess, that I’m feeling a little bit more battered and a little bit less optimistic than I did when I wrote it almost six years ago. But that’s because we are living in an even more insane time than we were then, and I thought the Republicans had the hit the radical wall with the Bush Cheney regime. I was wrong. Globalization, rapid social change, the hardcore right wing political warfare of the past two decades and accumulated crises of this one have left our political system more unstable than it’s been in a long time. And from what I can tell, liberals right now have no stomach for the kind of fighting it’s going to take to beat them back. So we may be in for a rough ride.
But hey, maybe it will all work out. Keep hope alive.
A couple of posts I did for CAF called Ressentimental Journey Part I and Part II also on this topic.
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