The Politics of Resentment

Krugman drives home a critical point about what drives the partisan divide that separates Republicans and Democrats - The politics of resentment

Don't be fooled either by Mr. McCain's long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin's appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

What's the source of all that anger?

Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people.

Thus Mr. Giuliani asserted that Wasilla, Alaska, isn't "flashy enough" for Mr. Obama, who never said any such thing. And Ms. Palin asserted that Democrats "look down" on small-town mayors — again, without any evidence.

What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you're supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it's better than you. Or to put it another way, the G.O.P. is still the party of Nixon.

Like I realized this week, Krugman opines that there is a definite chance that despite the nation's frustrations with 8 years of Republican administration, McCain-Palin have a good chance of winning this election!

Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.

By selecting Barack Obama as their nominee, the Democrats may have given Republicans an opening: the very qualities that inspire many fervent Obama supporters — the candidate’s high-flown eloquence, his coolness factor — have also laid him open to a Nixonian backlash. Unlike many observers, I wasn’t surprised at the effectiveness of the McCain “celebrity” ad. It didn’t make much sense intellectually, but it skillfully exploited the resentment some voters feel toward Mr. Obama’s star quality.

And contrast people's fascination with Obama's personality, that has been tainted by the Republican spin of him as an elite, with the past week's endless fascination with all-things-Palin. She benefits from lowered expectations or rather the tendency by some to support her because she is "average" and "not an elite". She has

...the peculiar cult of personality that not long ago surrounded George W. Bush — a cult that celebrated his anti-intellectualism and made much of the supposed fact that the "misunderestimated" C-average student had proved himself smarter than all the fancy-pants experts.

The faster the Democrats move away from this week's obsession with finding out more about Palin and their compulsive fixation over her background and inadequacies, the better. Time to focus on real issues - the economy being the main one for this election.

That said, the experience of the years since 2000 — the memory of what happened to working Americans when faux-populist Republicans controlled the government — is still fairly fresh in voters’ minds. Furthermore, while Democrats’ supposed contempt for ordinary people is mainly a figment of Republican imagination, the G.O.P. really is the Gramm Old Party — it really does believe that the economy is just fine, and the fact that most Americans disagree just shows that we’re a nation of whiners.

But the Democrats can’t afford to be complacent. Resentment, no matter how contrived, is a powerful force, and it’s one that Republicans are very, very good at exploiting.

I think the Democrats should stop focusing on attacking her and focus instead on the issues at hand. The Palin family soap opera is a big distraction from the actual issues at hand like the economy, the mess in Iraq, energy and the environment, and so on. Like Bob Herbert wrote in the NYT over the weekend:

...the Democrats should not push this stuff too far. Ms. Palin is a lot more appealing personally than the often testy guy at the top of her ticket. And the inescapable reality is that there are millions of voters who identify with her, and may be quick to resent attacks that they perceive as bullying or overkill.

...

Respectful criticism of Sarah Palin is fine. But the great issues of this campaign loom like giant redwoods over the pathetic weeds of politics as usual and the myriad distractions that have turned one presidential election after another into a national embarrassment.

P.S. If nothing else, Krugman's article is worth reading just to get to this interest phraseology: "nattering nabobs of negativism", which Spiro Agnew apparently said while refering to the media, whom he also deemed "an effete corps of impudent snobs." (Seems that though these phrases are often credited to Agnew himself, it was actually written by William Safire, the NYT columnist fwho was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.)

What is real?

These lines are from Paul Auster's recent novel, Man in the Dark (as gleaned from a review in the WaPo):

There are many worlds, and they all run parallel to one another, worlds and anti-worlds, worlds and shadow-worlds, and each world is dreamed or imagined or written by someone in another world. Each world is the creation of a mind.

Hmm... sounds very similar (conceptually) to something I wrote recently! Here's what I wrote for the writing workshop assignment, as it read in the first draft; which I should have re-worked based on feedback but have not had the discipline to work on yet!

You begin to wonder if she was even real. When you lose track of time, memories deceive and the mind imparts a certain lucidity to our experiences that touches the innermost recesses of our being. What is real – the seen or the more deeply felt and imagined?

...

You delude yourself into believing that large streams of people’s unlived lives float around in negative space, in worlds that scientists cannot see but know exists and classify as dark matter, which is held together with dark energy. So, maybe the lives we live, the ones we remember, are illusions too? You snap out of this reverie, knowing that taking these long flights distort a man’s sense of time and memory.

The assignment was to write a short piece in the form of instructions and I somewhat overdid the use of the 'You's' in the piece! Like I said...it's only a first draft and was written in response to the assignment in short bursts over two weeks. I liked the piece (as did the class) but I *know* that some day I will cringe when I read what I wrote. I'm already cringing a little bit reading the above sentences! My apologies for subjecting the few passersby to this blog to this unseemly mess!

The tiger-pit of loneliness

Excerpt from Nonconformity by Nelson Algren:

From the penthouse suspended silently so high above the winding traffic's iron lamentation, forty straight-down stories into those long, low, night-blue bars aglow below street-level, a lonely guilt pervades us all.

A loneliness not known to any ancestral land. To some other less cautious race conquering or lost. No other age, more distant and less troubled. No other time, less lonely and much longer. No other night-blue bars.

No other forest of the night, no other wilderness than ours.

Ours no longer being the lonesome prairie's desolation but the spiritual desolation of men and women made incapable of using themselves for anything more satisfying than the promotion of chewing gum, a goo with a special ingredient or some detergent eer-urgent.

...

The tiger-pit of loneliness out of which there is no climbing. Alone at last with his little pile, the weary years in and the weary years out haven't brought him a thing he wanted in his heart. It was only that which he was taught he was supposed to desire that he now owns so uselessly.

Not sure why I decided to post the above excerpt. Not feeling particularly lonely or anything, in case you are worried. :)

Customary second link for the post: Paris Review interview with Algren.

O-mama

Hopefully not too many are trading that Obama tee-shirt for an O-mama t-shirt this past week!

By the way, many have written about the possibility of Sarah Barracuda* becoming CinC if McCain kicks the bucket during his term....but Camille Paglia apparently thinks

"We may be seeing the first woman president. As a Democrat, I am reeling. That was the best political speech I have ever seen delivered by an American woman politician. Palin is as tough as nails."

Sigh! With the realization over the last couple days that the Republicans have likely found someone to counter Obama's "celebrity" status comes a sinking feeling that McCain-Palin may actually win in November. Like Tracey Barnett wrote:

In one fell swoop, the Evangelical, religious right are whisked back into the fold. Palin's candidacy giving them the conservative anchor that McCain hadn't yet been able to hold down.

The Republican convention not only gets fresh adrenaline injected into the campaign, but also now has God on its side.

..

Ultimately, in a wildly diverse country like America, US elections are about broadening one's base. If you measure what a vice-presidential candidate can bring to the office, Biden trounces Palin. But if you measure what that candidate is bringing into the polling booth, McCain's choice has the potential to be a strategic stunner.

* I first thought that Sarah Barracuda was a moniker that one of the leftist blogs that have been going after her came up with... but apparently:

To Alaskans – both allies and adversaries – Sarah Palin, 44, is known as "Sarah Barracuda," a nickname that goes back to her days as an aggressive basketball player. Noted the Anchorage Daily News in an Oct. 23, 2006 profile: "Supporters consider the name a testament to her aggressive play and ferocious defense. But opponents said the name capture a predatory instinct that Palin could turn on friend as well as foe."

Happy Ganesh Chaturthi

I once had a friend write back to a group email saying: "arre..if it's Ganesh's birthday...go wish him. Why are you sending me emails about it?"

So, before someone does that.. let me say this post is only tangentially about wishing you for the festivities. For all I care, you can join Dan OKeefe in celebrating Festivus. :)

This post is however to write about Natural clay Ganesh idols being encouraged to reduce pollution! :)

P.S. Found this link at the bottom of the above link under related posts.

Solar Powered Hindu Temple in California to Open Summer 2008

Now this is one temple I wouldn't mind going to, if only to look at the solar panels. :)

The Republican "Drill Drill Drill" chorus just got louder

Hear it from Sarah Palin, trying to sell you Alaska's resources as a solution to US's energy woes, all the data from the government's own studies not withstanding!

"We need to drill drill drill... "

And here is an eco-rundown and of her anti-environmental record so far.

Update: Thomas Friedman, who has been writing about climate change and US energy policy recently (for example, see my earlier posts: 1, 2, 3) writes in his NYT op-ed piece today about what McCain/Palin's position on energy means for the US (and the world at large):

With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.

..

“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury — and John McCain is going to let her.”

Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not how to end our addiction.

..

By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.

Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power, strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.

Sigh!

It's a dog's world - 7

Hundreds of dogs get 'married' at mass wedding in India

More details here.