I was in Boulder last week at the University of Colorado. While
there I attended a live broadcast of Anderson's Cooper's CNN show, 360
Degrees. Forming the backdrop to the outdoor set were the sign waving
supporters of John Kerry and George Bush. Kerry's supporters were
typically well ordered, and spanned several age generations. The Bush
crowd were more boisterous, mostly college students, and mainly young
white men. Several, directly behind me appeared to have spent
considerable time in the weight room. Their enthusiasm was marked by
crude behavior characterized by their frequent use of the word "fuck:
or one of its multiple variations to emphasis a particular point they
were making to the crowd. I am no stranger to the word and find its
use comforting in certain, select situations. But these testosterone
ladened lads didn't seem particularly concerned about the number of
grandmotherly types surrounding them, nor for that matter anyone else.
They were satisfied to assert their position in whatever bullying
fashion that appealed to them, oblivious to their impact on others.
From their behavior I began to understand some of the appeal that Bush
and Cheney might have for them.
Bush is a master bully, and most of the world holds him in contempt
for his condescending behavior. His bravado is propped up by a web of
lies so cunningly spun that he now believes his own propaganda. On the
campaign trail, unable to run on his grim record of the last four
years, he uses fear mongering to stimulate his crowds. In the taunting
voice of the village tyrant, he harangues his carefully screened crowds
into a frenzy by carefully manipulating their own insecurities with
imagined fears that the world is on the brink of Armageddon. Many on
the evangelical right love this rhetoric because it fits with their own
convoluted interpretation of parts of the Bible. Living in fear is the
motivating force in their lives and Bush loves to give them a good
verbal whipping as any good minister will do to shore up the faith of
his flock with threats of damnation. For the rest of the crowd, the
phony strength projected by Bush offers a temporary palliative against
the real threat they face in this new century. These threats are like
wolves lurking in the shadows of their consciousness and threatening to
devour their American dreams.
In the dark corners of their minds the Bush crowds have begun to
recognize that their jobs are no longer secure, and like most of us
they are beginning to realize that in this corporate world we are all
expendable. They have noticed that their healthcare insurance
coverage is being watered down and eliminated when possible. They are
becoming aware that their meager retirement funds are in jeopardy
either by fund managers who misrepresent the worth of the assets, or by
companies that have failed to keep their contractual agreements with
employees. They have begun to notice that the social security net has
big holes in it, and may be shredded by the time they reach that fabled
retirement date. While these wolves are menacing, the really big bad
wolf that's about to huff and puff at their doors is the burgeoning
federal deficit which just added another 413 billion this year, to top
out at 7.4 trillion. When the full effect of the reckless tax cutting
and spending of the past four years is felt, most will have to
significantly alter their consumptive lifestyles, if there are any
lifestyles left to alter. This is the real horror that confronts them
and one in which Bush offers absolutely no solutions other than the
escapism of his phony war on terror.
To mask these real economic problems, Bush and Cheney exaggerate
the threat from those dark, Middle Eastern bogeyman who, they say,
want to devour our children. In his stump speech the president sounds
tough and looks menacing as he attacks those who challenge his world
view, and his authority. He threatens the world with an endless future
of war to spread his version of freedom abroad while his reckless and
careless fiscal policies threaten freedom at home.
Bush and his crowds share the illusion of the world out there as so
scary and menacing that no measure of fact can penetrate the fear. They
pretend that the president's fearful and contrived view of reality and
the simplistic solutions he offers to that reality will bring some kind
of imagined security. George Orwell got it right when he said, "We
are capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then,
when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as
to show that we were right." However, no amount of twisting or
fanciful thinking can hide the realities that hang over all of us.
To temporarily keep the distractions going, at least until after
Election Day, Bush and the bullying boys of Boulder offer lots of loud
noise and bravado. But lurking just beneath the surface of that
puffery are their own deep seated fears. Fear of a dramatically
changing multi-cultural world in which the white man is being displaced
as king. Fear of the aforementioned economic insecurities that are now
reaching into the white man's world and threatening him with the same
financial anxiety that most others have faced for decades. Mostly,
it's the ultimate masculine fear of being exposed as impotent and
helpless and knowing deep in your being that there is nothing,
absolutely nothing you can do about it, except to act tough. Let's
get rid of the bullies on Tuesday!
Bud McClure is Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at the
University of Minnesota Duluth. He can be reached at bmcclure@d.umn.edu
###
