There's a lot of hype about the "angry liberals" and "Bush haters" in the wingnut world, spilling into the MSM. They say liberals are driven by irrational anger at Bush, visceral reactions to anything Republican, and really have nothing else to offer except negativism.
Of course, there
is anger in the liberal community, and there
is Bush hating. But they are wrong, for the most part, about negativism without alternatives - that just is a convenient device, one of many they employ, which are well-known to critical thinkers.
Below the fold, let me present a conclusion I've come to. A non-controversial one; just a thought.
This point has probably been discussed here and other places, but since this is
my diary, I thought to put my thoughts out about it, and since I am rather new here, I have not yet come across it so I hope this does not duplicate others. Accept my apology if this has been hashed to smithereens before. Move along, nothing to see here, and be nice about it... I am no great philosopher or reporter or researcher ;-)
My general impression of conservatives is that they are angry at everything. They act out of anger at anything that challenges their ironclad belief systems.
The translation of this emotion to the political arena really took off with the changes in the wind in the early 90s after the conservative era of Reagan and Bush I. They trotted out the Contract with America, taking advantage of a lazy Democratic majority in Congress, and began a drive to roll back progressive changes. These changes were perceived as a threat to their traditional values, and they felt that America would be ruined by further changes in that direction. I applaud the intention of “saving America”, but of course I do not agree with the means to their end, nor their picture of what a saved America would look like.
Their fears were strengthened and exploited by concerns that would benefit from returning to status quo, such as religious fundamentalists and dog-eat-dog capitalists, and the message rang true with many Americans willing to drink the Kool Aid. And thirsty they were.
Like caged animals, they lash out at everything that seems a threat. No thinking, no sober contemplation of arguments. Just that visceral dislike of change, the clinging to memories of protests during the Vietnam era and the segregated past, adoration of an Ozzie and Harriet America, and a longing to return to simpler times.
It's understandable - change is hard to deal with. But humanity cannot progress without change - it would be an impossible contradiction in terms. It could be argued successfully that they do not want progress at all, but the folly of it is that in general they do, because they like their TV and Internet and all the nice new material thingies progress brings.
I find a lot of truth and explanation for the phenomenon in Philip Slater’s Why America is Polarized.
These people that refuse to throw off the shackles of the past, whether out of laziness of thought, or admonitions from the pulpit (religious and media), now like to conveniently label liberals as angry and haters.
But what I see is that they are angry at everything. Anger voted the Republicans into majorities in Congress and the Executive. The reaction to 9/11 was driven by anger rather than reason. After Afghanistan, where for me anger and reason did converge, they branched off to Iraq just for anger’s sake. They pissed off most people and governments around the world. They focused on immediate gratification instead of dealing with real looming issues such as North Korea and Iran, the deterioration of the environment, the continued and growing disparity between rich and poor countries and rich and poor people, etc. Their domestic political agenda is based on anger and meanness, from barring GLBT people equal rights, to rollbacks of gains for other minorities, to attempted institution of state-supported religion, etc. Interesting, of course, is how this domestic agenda neatly intersects with the goals of fundamentalist Islamists and jihadists.
How dare they accuse liberals of being angry and hating? I, as a liberal myself, have anger and hate Bushco policies, but this anger is directed at a sliver of reality, not the whole thing. And I believe that most of us here and in other progressive communities feel the same way. And yes, we have positive alternatives to offer - but they are not as sound-bity as the media likes, and the right's propaganda machine certainly will not parrot them. They are well-thought out, smart solutions to the problems we face. Solutions based on a better understanding of the current world and human nature.
When you see/read them pull out the canard about angry and hating liberals, ask them if they are not angry themselves, if there are not things they hate, and how many there are. I bet their glass is more full than ours.