Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Understanding Pseodo-Conservative Republicans

An excerpt from The Radical Right:

"From clinical interviews and thematic apperception tests, Adorno and his co-workers found that their pseudo-conservative subjects, although given to a form of political expression that combines a curious mixture of largely conservative with occasional radical notions, succeed in concealing from themselves impulsive tendencies that, if released into action, would be very far from conservative.

The pseudo-conservative, Adorno writes, shows conventionality and authoritarian submissiveness" in his conscious thinking and "violence, anarchic impulses and chaotic destructiveness in the unconscious sphere. The pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them from largely fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition."

The pseudo-conservative [or Tea Party Republican].

"John Yoo anyone? Dick Cheney? I can think of few examples of this more telling than the suspension of habeas corpus, the enactment of preventative war as policy and the institutionalization of torture as the celebration of American traditional values. So Hofstadter helps me understand how a movement based on inalienable individual freedom had nothing to say about the most authoritarian period in the American executive branch in their lifetimes." - Andrew Sullivan

I like this quote: "[the pseudo-conservative] feels that his liberties have been arbitrarily and outrageously invaded ... he is the most bitter of all our citizens about our involvement in wars past but seems not the least concerned about avoiding the next one.

Sullivan slams it home:

"The Bush-Cheney presidency was, in some respects, the perfect pseudo-conservative administration. They waged war based on loathing of the experts (damned knowledgeable elites!); they slashed taxes and boosted spending for their constituencies, while pretending to be fiscally responsible; they tore up the most ancient taboos - against torture - with a bravado that will one day seem obscene; and they left the country in far worse shape than they found it."

And out of these ashes we get the rage of the Tea Party.

Posted via web from liberalsarecool.com

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