The Mad Hatter's Tea Party!

Hello Everyone!

It seems that ever since the Inauguration of Barack Obama things have been getting curiouser and curiouser in terms of the charges made against the President. Of course, this administration deserves it's share of criticism as does any other. But the "birthers" and other conspiracy theorists who think Obama is a secret Muslim or isn't a citizen seem able to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast.

The absurdity of the things these people come up with will not be covered in any depth here. The question, I care to address are the causes for these peoples' behavior.

There's been a lot of debate about the extent to which racism is a factor. And of course, that is by its very nature hard to quantify. However one point that many people seem to overlook is the fact, that many of these tea-partiers were comparatively silent about Condaleeza Rice and Colin Powell during the Bush years or actively supported that administration and everyone in it.

Furthermore, there is a good to excellent chance that the majority of them voted for Bush over both Gore and Kerry. It's also a safe assumption that many of these people were among those who continued to support the Bush administration to the *bitter end*. And while it is possible that some of them were among the voters (less than 2%) who voted for Ralph Nader(I), Bob Barr(L), Chuck Baldwin(C), or Cynthnia McKinney(G), chances are that most of them voted for John McCain. That is assuming they voted. However, in my experience not too many people are going to show up at an event like a town hall meeting if they are too apathetic or disenfranchised to vote, so I'm going to assume most of them did.

While I have no way of knowing what the actual numbers are, I think it is safe to assume that we have a subset of Americans who fit the following profile:

1) Voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004.
2) Acted as "counterprotesters" against those of us who opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administrations policies.
3) Continued to support the Bush administration post-Katrina even the polls continuously declined.
4) Voted for McCain in 2008.
5) Is currently among the tea-partiers and/or the birthers.

Of course, I'm not making the claim that everyone who opposes the Obama administration and makes comparisons to Hitler fits this profile. For example, the lady who Barney Frank told off in a town hall, identified herself as a member of the LaRouche Movement. Now for those of you who aren't familiar the LaRouche Movement are the cult-like followers of the colorful Lyndon LaRouche. A group that sort of has to be dealt with first-hand to be believed!! There are differing stories about what that group has endorsed at different times. But they are both notorious for inappropriate and offensive comparisons to the Nazis, and have at times been known to deny the Holocaust. Other big shticks of that group have included conspiracy theories involving the Anglo-Swiss banking establishment, the claim that environmentalism is "dead" and an anti-human ideology, advocating endless infrastructure projects that would make the Three Gorges Damn look unambitious, boosterism for 1,000 new nuclear power plants in the US, and the claim that every political group outside theirs is morally and intellectually bankrup. Everyone who gets involved in political activism in a cosmopolitan city runs into this bunch sooner or later. To expect otherwise is like trying to be a hippie and expect never to be approached by the Hare Krishnas.

But I digress.

Despite various other factions, I think it is safe to say that there are some people who fit all five of the criteria listed. Having been involved in the anti-war movement through most of the Bush era, I can tell you that the behaviors of the tea-partiers and the more angry pro-war ralliers are very, very similar. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't think racism is the sole or even necessarily the primary cause, is the amount of venom I've seen worked up at anti-war demonstrations that tended to be predominantly and in some cases were nearly 100% white.

During the 2004 election, those who opposed Bush made much of the fact that Kerry's record as both a Vietnam Vet and protester ultimately counted so little, in terms of his ability to defeat Bush. Also a common rallying point among the most loyal Bush supporters was his faith. However four short years later McCain's Vietnam record seemed serve him much better than Kerry's did, as far as convincing the Right that he was fit to be President. In another reversal of Bush vs. Kerry you have the fact that Obama is by all accounts a much more religious person than McCain. For John McCain has a lifelong record as a very cynical guy, who tended to be rather apathetic about religion except when it became inconvenient for him politically. In fact, as much as Kerry's professed Catholicism "failed to convince middle America", he too is probably more sincere than "McCain the Evangelical". Yes, this time Obama did win. But in 2008 only a couple million fewer people voted for McCain than voted for Bush in 2004. And McCain actually got more votes in 2008 than Bush got in 2000, thanks to rising voter turnout in the 21st century so far.

One simple conclusion might be hypocrisy. But it is reasonable to suggest that for certain people Kerry was the "wrong kind of Vietnam Vet" and Barack Obama the "wrong kind of religious". One possibility suggested by a psychologist named Dr. Robert Altemeyer is that for some people patriotism, religiousity, and admiration of the military and its veterans are simply a named tagged on to an "authoritarian personality". Of course, like every psychological theory it warrants being taken with a grain of salt. In the 1960's many people tried to use the same theory to explain racism and fascism, at the time the Freudian model was the dominant way of trying to understandstand how such personality types would develop. Now there are a wider variety of explanations on the table.

But whether some of these people are Authoritarian personality types and indeed if that is a valid label (some psychologists are skeptical of terms like "type A personality" and such), it does seem that what they want is beyond some specific set of items such as faith, veteran status, patriotism (as it seems no liberal can ever be the "right kind of patriot"), and so on. Some of these people seem to be searching for a sort of narrow idea of what the US should be. Newer theories about what motivates people politically may yet show some surprises. Given Barbara Ehrenreich's book linking war to our heritage as a prey species, and the works of thinkers like Jerry Lembcke, Ira Chernus, and other our understanding of these things may take some unexpected directions.

If we dare to see how far the Rabbit Hole truly goes when it comes to the nature of the right!

Say Goodnight Readers!