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Believe It or Not, Santorum's Surge Is Scary
I've been told that it is way too early to begin showing signs of Rick Santorum derangement syndrome.
A well-meaning reader suggested that even if the Republicans were suicidal enough to hand the former Pennsylvania senator the nomination, his defeat in the general election would dwarf the blowout Barry Goldwater suffered at the hands of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The argument goes like this: Rick Santorum is such an implacable foe of modernity that casting a vote for him is only possible if one shares his nostalgia for the chauvinism, authoritarianism and unbearable whiteness of the 1950s.
According to this argument, Mr. Santorum is a protest vote writ large across the Republican firmament by grass-roots conservatives repulsed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's malleability and phoniness. It isn't a vote for Mr. Santorum's political theology as much as it is a rejection of the likely apostasy of the Republican frontrunner.
This also happens to be the prevailing view of the pundits toiling daily in newspapers and the cable news commissariat. The assumption that Rick Santorum can't be elected president is axiomatic in the circles I frequent, too. He was a punch line long before he lost his Senate race by 18 points in 2006.
Yet, a mere half dozen years after what should have ended his dreams of ever holding elected office again, Mr. Santorum is poised to steal the Michigan primary from Mr. Romney, although the polls have tightened in recent days.
Many Democrats are salivating over the prospect of an Obama/Santorum showdown in November. The only contest that could possibly make a Democrat happier would be one in which Newt Gingrich or Donald Trump were the Republican nominee.
Ironically, Mitt Romney, the gelatinous Gibraltar of Republican politics, stands the best chance of making the race for the White House competitive among independent voters he has alienated in recent months. After a hard tack to the right, Mr. Romney wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep embracing the middle to beat Mr. Obama in November. It's that kind of mercenary pragmatism that enrages conservatives who value principle over short-term electoral victory.
Because Mr. Romney has residual appeal with independents, Democrats would rather Mr. Obama faced someone with more extremist views -- someone like Rick Santorum. I understand the logic. I just don't buy it.
I think it is irresponsible to underestimate the appeal of a demagogue when so many Americans are suffering and the public mood is so mercurial. All it would take would be a few weeks of $5 a gallon gas and a Democratic electorate demoralized because of some administration misstep to put even the strangest protest candidacy into play.
Mr. Santorum is a principled culture warrior who doesn't believe in evolution, man-made global warming, sex for purposes other than having children, separation of church and state, tax-financed public education (except by Penn Hills of his home-schooled kids), a Constitutional right to privacy, contraception, some forms of prenatal testing, or freedom of conscience if it contradicts his church's edicts or his party platform.
Mr. Santorum would like to see doctors who perform abortions criminally prosecuted. He has said that war with Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions is in America's best interests, despite the painful lessons of the past decade and the skepticism of our own generals.
If he is elected president, women should expect an administration openly hostile to their interests on a number of fronts. As for "blah people" -- union members and academics -- well, they can just forget it.
The former senator's comments about Mr. Obama's "theology" over the weekend make it clear that his version of environmental stewardship is more about exploiting the earth than respecting it. It is a mentality closer to that of a 19th-century robber baron than someone informed by modern science or concerns about environmental integrity.
So, how did Mr. Santorum make it this far? How is his candidacy even possible in the modern world? Some pundits refer to his "likability" compared to his rivals. What are they talking about? What has he said or done during his surge that paints him in any way as likable?
There's some Rick Santorum derangement syndrome going around all right, but it's not affecting me.
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125 Comments so far
Show AllThank you very much for saying this, Siouxrose,
And, right-you-are, readytotransform,
Collapse is what we are up against.
If interested, see a website with much foresight:
Collapsenet.com
Every hierarchy ever was modern. Modern isn't progressive as we use it, and tradtional isn't con servative, as in the beginning none existed and none for at least 88 to 90 millennia. How traditional is that? It's not! We're tradtional and have our roots in that of modern humans coming out of sub Saharan Africa. "Say it loud. I'm black and i'm proud!"
"It is a work in progress, we saved your butt twice in the past hundred years, we will gladly do it again and make plenty more mistakes along the way".
No, WE saved YOUR butts twice in the past century. At the start of WW1 the US of A was about $4billion in the red (big money in those days). In 1918 the USA came out with a profit of $10 billion. That $14 billion was mainly British money. Granted, we were damn silly in the first place to have got involved in WW1.
During WW2 we spent 2 1/4 years holding Hitler at bay (Kennedy's dad kept knocking us for it at the time) before the USA was forced into it by Japan.In the meantime and also later during WW2 WE paid the USA big bucks and ran up a massive debt that got paid out around 2006 if I recall it correctly. American industry was built on British money.Now you have thrown away all of this financial advantage fighting 50 years of stupid wars run by stupid administrations.
You have a great, nay highly enviable, constitution and yet for some strange reason since WW2 you have consistently elected the daftest bunch of turkeys to uphold it.Hence my strong recommendation that the USA re-joins Mother Englande, pays its due back-taxes to 1776 at 7.5% compound interest, and accepts a very good National Health Service in return. And you will have no need to waste $billions on advertising every 4 years to find out which turkey is going to make a mess of everything yet again.
Good luck, America! You need it.
Yes it is scary. We have only had one Catholic President for fear that the Pope would rule the U.S. Now we have good reason to believe that is possible. The Catholic Church is spreading it venom throughout the U.S. A vote for Santorum is a vote for the leader of the Catholic church. Look what happened in Nicaragua. Ortega is President, (of the Nation that Reagan spent millions and supported the bloody Contras to get him out of power) thanks to Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo who really is rules Nicaragua. Santorum is a fanatic Catholic beware.
Okay - you stand there on that trail. Don't growl or nothing. Try to look friendly. Meanwhile me and Ross will be barking and salivating and acting crazy. Maybe even bite a few. Anyway, we'll drive 'em toward you. I mean yeah, they'll see you're a wolf but, compared to us, you'll look like the safest path. And when we got 'em all bottled up in there - SUPPERTIME!!! - Rick
DOUBLETHINK (From 1984 by George Orwell):
"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....
"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary.
~~~
"Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.
"...the population of Oceania - all of it and including the ruling elite - could be controlled and manipulated merely through the alteration of everyday thought and language.
"Newspeak is the method for controlling thought through language.....Newspeak incorporates doublethink, as it contains many words that create assumed associations between contradictory meanings, especially true of fundamentally important words such as good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, and justice and injustice....
"If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality."
~~~~~
Familiar, at all?
"Believe it or not?" I don't believe it, and I won't be intimidated by fear mongering.
As a loyal Democrat, you should not be scared by Santorum. The crazier the better for Democratic party electoral prospects. Maybe you are not afraid of him, but rather you just want to scare all of us back into the Democratic party fold.
Funny but rightwing christians and democrats both seem to be driven primarily by fear......
Coincidence? I think not.
RE: is only possible if one shares his nostalgia for the chauvinism, authoritarianism and unbearable whiteness of the 1950s.
Well, I would have to say that borders on racism. Could the author provide some facts to how he arrived at that other than just hateful speech against a person he disagrees with?
Adorno and colleagues that have expanded his pioneering work have offered a specific formulation regarding a likely origin point for “the authoritarian personality.” Their theory suggests that rigid, punitive parents, by definition, cannot tolerate any expression of a child’s powerful, spontaneous, and natural sexual and aggressive impulses; in fact, parents responded to them with an exaggerated punitiveness; and this parental reaction leaves the child no alternative but to repress those impulses - that is, to ban them from consciousness.
However, our knowledge of the psyche tells us that emotions banished into the mind’s basement - remain disturbing and tumultuous, whether or not “the owner of the house” is aware of their existence. Repression alone, as a defense against feelings, is rarely completely successful. To guard against the anxiety that these emotions might break through into conscious awareness - additional defenses must be erected - much as one might pile larger and heavier pieces of furniture against a door to keep out an insistent intruder.
It is understandable that a child will respond to his parents’ excessively punitive reactions with feelings of rage. But this very emotion is one the child dare not allow himself to acknowledge - or at least must not connect with his parents’ behavior. This is not unusual, for we can recall that a child, who is completely dependent on his parents, will, if forced to submit to abuse, deny parental abusiveness, and continue to idealize them.
Adorno (in Milburn, The Politics of Denial, 1996) also theorized that the beginnings of the formation of the authoritarian character style can be found in these humble and poignant origins. Since unresolved feelings do not simply “go away” with the passage of time and physical maturation, the original sexual and aggressive emotions (and especially those feelings that arose following parents’ suppression of those emotions) - far from becoming extinct, grow into a major determining force of adult outlooks and beliefs. Aspects of themselves that the individual “disowned” so long ago are “transformed” into a more “acceptable” form: they are “projected onto” (unconsciously attributed to) others - commonly members of a despised outgroup.
(con't)
Milburn asserts that: :
"The beauty of projection lies in its psychic economy; once one has projected one’s own 'bad' impulses onto women, Jews, or African Americans, it is only reasonable to take out one’s rage against them. After all, they are the ones who are oversexed, aggressive, sneaky, and so on. Individuals of this personality type, in addition to venting their anger on minority groups, find their own children perfect targets for displacement, and [often] treat their children the same way their parents treated them.”
(con't)
If one estimation - that nearly 80% of people in the modern world manifest more authoritarian than nonauthoritarian traits - is even remotely accurate, a number of implications naturally follow.
First, authoritarian (dominator-model) ideas, emotional patterns, and rationales for action will continue to be regarded as “simple, common sense” to large numbers of people (as did, for example, the denouncing, hunting, and burning witches in the 16th century).
Secondly, countless voters can be predicted to demonstrate active support for public policies such as the death penalty, the use of military force, punishment in schools, and building more and harsher prisons. This overt support will likely be combined with an indifference (or covert opposition) to concerns having to do with racism, genocide, environmental degradation, and general humanitarian issues connected with “foreign” countries.
Naturally, it can be expected that many political leaders will do their utmost to exploit these punitive political attitudes, and in the process support what Milburn describes as “denial as a way of life."
Thirdly, even those of us who aspire to bring a more democratic worldview into being can anticipate finding - within ourselves - manifestations of the “dominator-submission” style of thinking.
Thanks for presenting that meme.
What a circus. Republicans condemn condoms! Republicans praise rape as a gift from God. Republicans endorse trans-vaginal probes. Republicans hate women (and men who want to plan their families). What’s next? Republicans mandate missionary-position only? Hey, Newt was right. ‘Cause Newt and all his Republican friends SHOULD set up a moon colony.... AND GO THERE! Then, they could tell each other what to do and how to live and who to love.... while leaving the REST of us alone, here on Earth. Newt, I always KNEW that you were a problem-solver. Unfortunately, you and your Republican friends ARE the problem...
I live on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and most of the people I know think it is irresponsible to not use birth control, contrary to Santorum's beliefs. You must remember that Mississippians voted down the "Life Begins at Conception" referendum by a fairly large margin, to the extreme amazement of Conservative groups who thought that the referendum would certainly take the day in this state above all others.
The Deep South is a sleeping giant that I feel is slowly beginning to wake up to the modern world. People down here, particularly fundamentalists, have been taught from birth to obey all rules without question. When you couple that with poverty, poor education and continuous brainwashing by conservatives, who only have their own self-interests in mind (to get rich at the expense of everyone else), it's no wonder that so many Southerners vote as they do. We must not forget the leftover racism either.
Most of the people I know think that Santorum is crazy, but the Coast is a little more liberal than the rest of the state. (Personally, I think he belongs in a straight jacket). He may very well win the primary in Mississippi, but not by as wide a margin as people might think.