Mein Gott in Himmel

[pecunium]

I think I just chased a couple of people out of the Peet's I'm in. They were talking politics, basically encouraging each other in their support of McCain. Which was whenI heard her (early twenties, still living at home, going to college; but ready to be done with it) say, "He's such an amazing orater, but I'm not sure he believes what he says, and that's really scary, because that's how Hitler came to power"

Which led to me to pay more attention... and when I heard her praising Palin, and saying she wanted to ask Obama supporters how they could compare the experience of the two... I went over and told them how and why.

The shocking thing... when I listed the qualification, including eight years in the Illinois Senate, and the con-law professorship and the Editor of the Harvard Law Review... she thought I was listing Palin's credits.

When I said that was Obama, and listed her failings in Wasilla, her companion (mid-twenties, male) said, "Well I guess you know who you're votong for."

They didn't look all that pleased when I said, "I was only anwering the question you asked," and went back to my work.

And they gathered up their things and left.

Comments

[wolodymyr.livejournal.com]

I think it's really obvious that a lot of burning questions that came up in the 70s got deferred through the election of Reagan.

It also seems pretty clear that - and George Lakoff is the one to read on this - the Republicans, as a party, are part of an authoritarian culture. Which is hugely consonant with a lot of American culture, or an idea of American culture. The whole (and now I'm getting vague and cultural) "Where have all the cowboys gone?" "Why did Daddy leave?" thing, that was, I'd argue, a huge personal/cultural wound coming out of the 70s, gets answered by them.

One can argue the good/bad/right/wrong of it, but I think it's necessary to recognize that it's emotionally compelling, maybe even to us as homo sapiens, maybe even more to us as apes. "Where's Daddy?" We want that question answered, the Republican party is good at answering it.

This is my opinion, and it takes the shape of a story, which very fact makes me suspect it: Daddy needs to REALLY BURN YOU before you decide you're better off on your own. But George W has really burned us. I think he's burned us enough for us to really turn to something different. For, in other words, democracy to continue to be possible.

I think many of us - at least, I know I am - are feeling a particular kind of paralysis right now, in these last few weeks before the election. Because it looks like, despite the media scare stories, despite, I think, an unfortunate partiality of liberals toward portraying themselves as DOOMED, it looks like we're going Obama-ward. Not because he's a Democrat, but because he would like to change things. That sounds so vague! But I think you know what I mean - he doesn't seem tied to old antagonisms. In this way, he seems almost to have shot past Generation X into Generation Y, the new silent generation.

Short of some real crime, something like the institution of martial law or very large scale election fraud, it doesn't look like the Republicans can win this time, and many of them seem not to want to.