Please file this diary under "Thinking Out Loud."
For months I’ve been befuddled by a large and increasingly vocal portion of the far right. There is apparently a large overlap between Minutemen, Tea Partiers, birthers, deathers, and heat-packing dittoheads. I keep asking myself, "What do these people want?" There's allot of nonspecific anger, but few tangible solutions. Moreover, in the case of healthcare reform, they appear to be acting in ways directly at odds with their own interests. Why, for pete's sake, would a middle aged white guy living in an outer-ring suburb identify his interests with those of a transnational insurance company?
So what’s eating these town hall patriots? My working hypothesis is below the fold.
Psychiatrists used to talk about "complexes." The idea was that assorted crazy shit orbits an identifiable core of crazy. Expose the core crazy, and the peripheral crazy dissipates. The taproot of mental decay might not be apparent to someone caught up in the peripheral issues. E.g., problems with finances, employers, drugs, and the law might all spin around an internal core narrative of persecution, perhaps founded on a single real or imagined event.
Moreover, the core-crazy is heavily defended. Various sideshows veil the core, and the internal chaos gets projected outward. Expose the core, and the crazy person gets pissed. Needless to say, a "complex" hinders rational decision making.
I think the taproot of bagger craziness is desegregation. To see what I mean, take Reagan's quip
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
and read it in context with this:
Now think of the signature issues of the American far right: vouchers for private schools; illegal immigration; "activist judges;" "reverse discrimination;" crime and punishment; states' rights; gun ownership as the antidote to "government tyranny;" Americanism; entrepreneurs unfairly taxed to redistribute wealth to social programs. I'm starting to see a pattern here; how about you?
From within the confines of the far right's desegregation complex, of course a federally-administered alternative to for-profit insurance and tighter governmental scrutiny on the industry will be a nightmare. It's yet another reenactment of the desegregation trauma--this time at their sickbeds. Hence, the talk about "death panels," and, hence, the overreaction to a president who looks like this: