John Steinbeck’s On the Road is a diary of his trip across America in the 1960s. (My memory is shaky and I could’nt find an online source for the quotes here, so this is a paraphrase.)
He passed through Iowa and stopped to talk/interview a farmer. “Thank God for the Communists!” the farmer told him. “My neighbor over there”—he gestured with his pipe—“nearly died of a broken heart when Roosevelt died. Not that he liked Roosevelt. Just the opposite. If his tractor broke, it was Roosevelt’s fault. If he had a poor crop or not enough rain, Roosevelt was responsible. Now he has the Communists to blame for everything.”
In the same way [Still my President] Obama has become the dammit doll for this generation of right-wing people. Of course, it’s fanned by the biggest blame-shifter of all in the White House. As Steinbeck pointed out, just through narrative, this is simply a convenient target to blame for everything that you have no control over. The dammit doll means you have an outlet for your annoyance or full-blon anger, and don’t have to waste time in rational thought.
So it’s not worth debating [arguing] with persons who have demonstrated this behavior. To quote Robert Heinlein, “Never teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”