Alright, I'll finally admit it. This California liberal, born in a small town, raised in various big cities I didn't like and very small towns (hamlets really) I loved a lot does hold "small-town conservativeTM" True Believers in contempt. I resisted this self-admission for years--after all, I hold dear the right of others to hold differing opinions. It's one of the cornerstones of liberalism. However, I can no longer even pretend to accord respect for the insecurity and weakness shown by the pseudo-patriots making up the majority of this group. I'm aware that in tearing off the mask I confirm their own paranoid beliefs about condescending liberal "elites" (although in no way am I elite), but too frelling bad.
It's not because I disagree with them. On the left we famously disagree with ourselves. The problem is that the failure of ideas and policies means zip if you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge it or if you feel forced to shift the blame to others: The War on Drugs can be won; the Vietnam War could have been won; against all the evidence, trickle-down economics does work; our actions at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo do not betray our nation's core values. [Edit: I realized after posting this that I was not sufficiently clear that the foregoing impossibilities were offered up as examples of past failures.]
It was many years ago I noticed that despite the constant and inevitable reminders of human fallibility in public life, admissions of error in politics are exceedingly rare and apologies are nearly unheard of. This is true across party lines, but seems more marked in conservative politicos. However, this refusal to acknowledge past failures is strongest not among politicians themselves, but amongst the conservative rank and file.
I've been weighing for years the proposition that the more conservative people are, the less likely to admit or apologize for any sort of error, even outside the realm of politics, and the more likely to be obsessed with the idea that others are looking down condescendingly--liberal elites, foreigners, the media--in fact, anyone not just as insecure as they are themselves. Realizing that every generality about people has exceptions, I've finally concluded this one is pretty valid.
I honestly think this was part of George W. Bush's great appeal. Unable to succeed in business, with a history of drug use and draft evasion, this scion of wealth is unmistakably a modern conservative in one very important way: inability to face failure. In April of 2004, he was unable to name a single mistake he'd made in his presidency. Not one. He has continued to deny and defend his myriad errors to the bitter end, coming up with ex post facto rationalizations that in no way resemble his original decision-making process or lack of same. This shameless--no, arrogant--and boneheaded dishonesty has managed to eventually alienate most of the country, but it masqueraded as strength and resolve for far too long and even now he has support in the double digits. I have seen multiple Letters to the Editor that made the straightfaced claim that he is our greatest President. It has often been said that the reason so many voted for him, twice, was that they could relate to him. I think that's exactly right. This man would never tell them that he, and by extension they, had ever been wrong about anything.
This election is no different. The reason McCain was unpopular in his own party for years was that he occasionally breathed a word of dissent from the orthodoxy. He's chained to the Republican priesthood now, though. They broke him, which can happen to mavericks. And as for Palin? She was picked because she's another Bush, from a humbler background but with no less unswerving certainty on matters she is equally incompetent to judge from education or experience.
So there it is--I don't like validating paranoia, but the conservative True Believers are right about this one thing: I do look down upon them. Not because they're conservative--although I am not conservative myself there's nothing inherently laughable about many conservative values. Not because they're stupid; I have several conservative friends with fully functioning brains (most of whom have lost a lot of conservatism in the last few years). Not because of geography; I couldn't care less how cosmopolitan their town, city, or country road existence is. Certainly not because they are less moral, as I do not buy into the myth I've seen in all too many diaries on this site that conservatives are naturally hypocritical. No, I hold them in contempt because they are so pusillanimously closeminded, so gutless, they cannot admit error even as it stares them in the face, cannot acknowledge gravity as they plunge to a Wile E. Coyote finish. If it affected only themselves, it would be no concern of mine; when their fragile egos threaten the country I love, scorn is the kindest thing I have to offer.
As somebody else said recently--ENOUGH!