While many bemoan the lack of civility in modern politics, those of us involved in the grassroots are often too busy trying to effect change to really consider what may be driving the grassroots right to hate the progressive left.
The match was certainly lit by those who sought to use the right-wing grassroots to propel them into positions of power, but as my old man used to say: an explosion requires oxygen, fuel and a spark. Somewhere there was fuel to spark, and the result has been consuming oxygen ever since.
I'm Canadian. One of the benefits of that is universal healthcare. This afternoon I spent several hours in a waiting room to get blood work done--the only cost to me was my time. This is as fair an exchange as I can imagine, as I take extensive medications that require monthly blood tests to ensure my liver isn't consuming itself in a fit of pique. If I had to pay every time I went, I could ill afford my medications--and without them I might as well be homeless.
While I was waiting, a good-ole-boy Albertan with a ten-gallon hat and a twenty-gallon attitude pulled up in his Ford F-150 and moseyed into the clinic. He was obviously annoyed by the lines, and after taking a number squeezed his ample ass into the seat beside me. He spent the remainder of my wait berating the 'liberals' who caused the long heath-care lines, and how he wished King Ralph (the Albertan Premiere) would push through a two-tiered health care system now that 'the west was in' (that meaning a Conservative MP from Alberta was elected as Prime Minister of Canada).
I noticed when I left that his truck wore the bumper sticker "Piss off a Liberal: Buy a Gun".
Beyond his stellar personality, and the fact that he continued to complain about the health care services and spoke of how they need to be replaced by a user pay system even while he used those self-same services free of charge, it was that bumper sticker that struck me most.
It struck me as a remarkably common, yet infantile response from the right wing. It urges people to do something just to annoy someone else. My three year old doesn't consider that appropriate behavior--why would this man?
Several years ago, when my younger brother was facing stiff bullying from his high school peers (far worse than I received when I was in school) I decided to do some research into bullying. Living on the other side of the continent, I could only provide a sympathetic ear to his angst-filled diatribes, but that didn't seem to be enough for me.
I found an interesting article in Psychology Today, which I clipped and sent to my brother and parents. After some thought on the clinic cowboy and his bumper sticker, I went looking for the article online and found it here.
The right-wing-as-bully is a common progressive blogger meme. It has the added benefit of being true--at least it seems to once you look at the Psychology Today article:
A nation whose toys are given to slashing robots in half seems to have more tolerance for violence as a solution to problems. Most Americans do not take bullying very seriously--not even school personnel, a surprising finding given that most bullying takes place in schools. If Americans think at all about it, they tend to think that bullying is a given of childhood, at most a passing stage, one inhabited largely by boys who will, simply, inevitably, be boys.
Sadly, America is not alone in this--Canada is just as culpable in raising our children in a violence-soaked culture. I'm no dove: I spent three years in the Canadian Forces, and while being a liberal progressive, am also a firearm fan. I am not one of those liberals who would be pissed off if someone got a gun--I however believe in registering them, restricting them, and ensuring people who don't need them at home, don't have them at home.
I currently own no firearms, nor would I have them in a home with a child in any case.
Yet the message of that bumper sticker lingers: conservatives want to piss me off. Why?
Bullies, for the most part, are different from you and me. Studies reliably show that they have a distinctive cognitive make-up--a hostile attributional bias, a kind of paranoia. They perpetually attribute hostile intentions to others. The trouble is, they perceive provocation where it does not exist. That comes to justify their aggressive behavior. Say someone bumps them and they drop a book. Bullies don't see it as an accident; they see it as a call to arms. These children act aggressively because they process social information inaccurately. They endorse revenge.
As a liberal progressive I am a threat to what the conservative believes, as my beliefs entail: might does not make right, differences are only skin deep, all people are equal, you are not a special and unique snowflake.
This ideology I offer would put this man on the same footing as his wife (equal partners), ethnic minorities (racism is so 1776), and political opponents (he would have to have a rational opinion). This cannot be tolerated, after all, he must be a man and his masculinity cannot be threatened by women, foreigners, liberals or God-forbid, Gays marrying.
Maybe I'm painting too brad a picture of someone I met for only ten minutes. I too have biases--I have been the target of bullies all my life.
Those who become targets also bear a particular set of psychological characteristics. They are more sensitive, cautious, and quiet than other kids, Olweus finds, and more anxious. They also have a negative view of violence. It's not just that they're non aggressive, for lots of kids are non aggressive. But these kids withdraw from confrontations of any kind and cry when attacked. They radiate what one researcher calls "an anxious vulnerability." Faced with conflict, they are gripped with fear. Their fearfulness and physical weakness probably set them up.
Perhaps this 'anxious vulnerability' isn't common in all liberal/progressive individuals, but I imagine a sense of fair play, non-violence and caution is. The left is generally more given to thinking a problem through and attempting to negotiate a resolutions--the use of force to solve an issue is seen as a measure of last resort, or even failure.
Does this mean we are perceived as weak? Perhaps. Western society--strongly influenced by American culture--promotes people (especially men) who are seen as strong because they are unafraid to use force--and even resort to it gleefully--to solve an issue. While this may make for a more exciting evening with popcorn and a Lethal Weapon flick (after all, who wants to see Mel talk the hostage takers into releasing the hostages--let the bullets fly!) it makes for a pretty poor social dynamic.
So I guess I society idolizes the aggressors?
And they are the least liked. Of all children, they are the most rejected in the peer group--which puts them at risk of developing the kinds of externalizing, antisocial problems bullies develop, as well as the internalizing problems, like anxiety and depression, that are common to victims. Whether these bullies have the most trouble in life isn't clear, but they do have the fewest friends.
Why do they keep at it, when they always lose? Most of all, says Perry, they have problems of emotional regulation; they have low thresholds of arousal in the first place, and they can't calm themselves down once conflict starts. They get invested in their fights. Their high level of arousal keeps them from recognizing it's time to get up and walk away when they are clearly losing." Their emotions may be preempting their cognitions, or arousal may be distorting their cognition," Perry says.
I don't think "Pissing off a liberal" is really about my views, or even the clinic cowboy's views. I think it goes deeper than that. Those who have grown up believing that aggression and/or violence is the best way to solve a problem have ultimately found themselves cut off from the empathetic side of their social dealings. This breeds contempt for those who have more empathy, and can interact in a calm manner with others--those of us who have embraced the ideologies of the left.
Why doe Republicans still whimper about how victimized they are when they control the entire mechanism of government? Why will Alberta Conservatives and Reformers complain about the rest of Canada shutting them out even now that the 'West is in'? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that they are victims--of their own emotional makeup. While progressives can build grassroots organizations based on community, these days only hatred and contempt seems to motivate the hard-right grassroots. They envy our community and comradeship, knowing it is something they can never take part in.
Even with all their power, they cannot make people like them--instead the vast majority of people who are moderate and centrist loath them even more now.
Yes, they may well be victims--of genetics:
"They are losers," he states emphatically. "Their testosterone status at puberty reflects the fact that they are not dominating their environment. The human behaviors of dominance are not the same as animal ones," he insists. In humans, even in beefy boys, social dominance has less and less to do with physical aggression--and more and more with language. "While aggression is important for attaining high social status," says Tremblay, "it is not the only strategy. And when sustained, it is not decisive at all." And that is precisely where bullies are weak. Their general intelligence starts out about on a par with that of other kids, but their verbal intelligence is low.
Here at DKos I have seen many snarky comments about the size of certain parts of the male anatomy in respect to the Bush cabal--they may be closer to the truth than we may like to think.
In addition, these may well be men and women who are unable to communicate on a rational and normal level with the rest of us. As unfortunate as it may be, children like this are shunned by their peers for good reason--they simply cannot interact normally with the rest of the group.
In many ways, this should be our approach to the hard-right grassroots--our doppelgangers if you will. Recent polls show ~35% of Americans support Bush and his policies. Like many others, I suspect Bush's 'core' is closer to 15-20%:
The vast majority of children (60 to 70 percent) are never involved in bullying, either as perpetrators or victims.
This number would be consistent with the bullying demographic. These are individuals we will never--can never--truly communicate with, because they lack the skills and tools to empathize with and understand us. Like school children, we should ignore and shun these bullies.
We however need to also dispel the myth of the left as weak--despite swift boating them, both Kerry and Murtha have strong hawkish tendencies, and these may need to be highlighted. We cannot allow ourselves to be seen as victims.
Nor can we allow the myth of 'boys will be boys' to continue in our society. Both for the sake of our children, and for ourselves, we need to consistently make the point that violence and aggression in any social context constitutes a failure of social norms--that it is not a norm itself.
Bullying is common in our society because we as a culture allow it, and breed it. If we hope to continue to bring progressive policies to our respective governments we need to address this issue in addition to all the rest.
To do otherwise, is to allow them to piss you off when they buy their next gun.