CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-The Dems are certain that all Trump supporters are vile White racists and the GOP is convinced that all Dems are snowflakes who would turn the country into a Socialist nightmare.
Since neither side has any use for facts or rational thought, they only dwell on the evils of The Other.
Western Civilization Is Built on Fear and Hatred of the Other
Although we like to think nice thoughts about ourselves, a lot of our civilization is based on fear of The Other, upon our hatred of The Stranger. In most instances, fear fuels the hatred. It probably doesn’t require a Freudian to realize that we project our own inner fears onto strangers and develop a hatred to justify those projections. Quite often, we fear and hate people we do not know.
The most dangerous development is how we have turned fellow Americans into The Other who needs to be feared. Our neighbors have become the Stranger in the mythologies of both political parties.
Americans See Other Americans as the Stranger
Abraham Lincoln noted that a “house divided against itself cannot stand.” Increasingly we are turning our fellow citizens into the dangerous Stranger who must be vanquished. That is always the outcome of Group Rights, e.g. White Supremacy and Identity Politics. Trump is not a cause; rather, he is expressing the dark side our collective culture.
According to Dr. Libbe Hale’s “The Archetype of the Stranger Contemporary American Culture,” the “…American public is, at present, denying the reality of the archetype of the stranger by generating two coinciding national myths, that of the evil stranger, the rapist and/or kidnapper, and that of the good stranger, the celebrity.” We see this more easily with Trump’s labeling of Mexicans as rapists and criminals, while Trump is cast as the celebrity hero. People fail to realize that Trump is not a salt of the earth American; he’s always been the flamboyant outlier living off Daddy’s money while lying about being a self-made man.
The Dems, on the other hand, are fashioning the Whites to be the Stranger to be feared. The Whites have become the evil force to be destroyed. Not only do the Dems promise to wipe out the White majority as soon as the nation has enough minorities to vote Whites into oblivion, but the character of individual White person will not matter. They are all decreed to be evil due to White Entitlement – a form of original sin for which there is no redemption.
The Dem attack on the GOP is seen most recently in the calls for Socialism. Neither the Dem nor the GOP actually know what Socialism is except the GOP know that it is the devil incarnate, and the Dems see it as an attack on Capitalism, an economic system which we no longer have. But, when a country has the Ignoranti on one side lined up against the Ignoranti on the other side, words have no meaning. All that counts are Emotional Memes.
Dr. Hale is correct that we live under myths – the right wing believes the myth of the alien horde coming to destroy us and the hero celebrity to save us. The falsity in the GOP myth is that there are no hordes and the hero is a mentally unbalanced Histrionic.
The Dems, on the other hand, think that posing an existential threat to the existence of White people will win elections. We saw what that foolishness produced in Charlottesville. Without the constant race baiting of the Alt-Right by Charlottesville’s vice mayor Wes Bellamy, there would have been no Nazis’ marching chanting, “Jews shall not replace us,” and Heather Heyer would not be dead.
Complicating Factor – Trump’s Histrionic Personality Disorder
People suffering from Histrionic Personality Disorder have a talent. It’s an innate ability to please the crowd. Histrionics are addicted to the cheers of the crowd. Extremists cheered the loudest. The more Trump said outrageous, bigoted, and vile things, the more they cheered and that’s what sustains a Histrionic. He continues to campaign and say absurd things. No matter what American value Trump bashes, the extremists cheer what he says. Mock a disabled person, they cheer; grab women by the pussy, they cheer; physically attack a journalist and they cheer – they cheered again in the same week that Trump’s friends the Saudis murdered a journalist.
Both the Dems and the GOP Agree on One Thing
Both Dems and GOP believe they are alone in being right and the other one is evil. The reality is that both pose a lethal threat to America. Unless we stop this incipient civil war, the nation will not survive.
We Do Have Common Core
The Declaration of Independence promises that every individual has inalienable rights including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If “We, the People” are to be true to our founding values, we must treat each person with respect based upon his/her own character and not due to hue of his skin or national origin of ancestors. As a nation we need to shun emotionalism as a guiding emotion. Most Dems and the GOP are leading us towards disaster. Ruination is the result of emotionalism and ignorance flowing from their respective Group Rights claims.
One Thing We Can Each Do
Admit that “We the People” created both parties. Pogo is correct: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” Our politics have become an orgy of lies and misinformation because We the People demand lies, misinformation and above all bigotry. If it isn’t Trump’s declaring Mexicans being rapists, it’s the ferkata Dems’ racist charge of White Entitlement which brands every White person as evil. No matter who prevails on Nov 6th, they are going to credit their lies and nastiness as the reason for their success and this polarization will drive us father apart.
Who’s to blame for this mess? “We the People.”
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.