Yeah I know, this is a liberal board and various kinds of conservatives don’t feel this way, etc.
One thing I’ve seen from various conservatives is a very non-ironic fear of them being disenfranchised and persecuted, even when they themselves support the disenfranchisement and persecution of others.
Christians are a persecuted minority. White males are persecuted by reverse racist latino women like Sonya Sotomayor. Obama wants to take our guns away. ACORN is stealing elections.
What is ironic is, to varying degrees, many are promoting the same disenfranchisement they themselves claim to be victims of. ACORN is stealing elections, lets rig the elections. Blacks and latinos are oppressive racists, lets be hostile to them. Feminist women want to dominate men, lets dominate them. Christians are treated with hostility, lets be hostile to other religions. The media is liberal, but Fox News is the most popular news show and many conservative books are on the bestseller list.
So how does this work psychologically? And no, this isn’t just liberal bias. This seems to be a real thing.
Does this work on economic issues or just social issues? It seems to mostly revolve around social issues (religion, race, gender, etc). I don’t know if I see conservatives claiming the gov. is in the pocket of the poor (while they try to put it in the pocket of the rich). But I guess there is some of that with the talk of the ‘lucky duckies’ who are too poor to pay income taxes.
Is this tied to authoritarian psychology? I would doubt libertarians or republicans like George HW Bush have these same fears, it seems to be more authoritarian conservatives concerned with social issues.
Most of it I believe is psychological projection; they assume that everyone else thinks and acts as they do. With the Christianity issue, there’s the added factor that “we’re persecuted” has been a theme in the Christian narrative since the beginning.
The people who consume this mindset may well be projecting, but for those who manufacture it, it’s simply an effective rhetorical device. Someone like Limbaugh knows that his audience loves recreational outrage (which is at the heart of this fear of disenfranchisement), and consciously serves it up. People enjoy self-righteousness, and when they use it to package their own self-interests, they can ignore the true origins of their motivations.
I’m guessing that it’s just fear of change. It’s a normal human reaction.
When the future looks uncertain and likely to be very different than the comfortable world you’ve been living in for the most of your life, you get scared.
Right now, it’s the conservatives who are scared.
Not so long ago, it was the liberals. Remember a movie director named Michael Moore?
And when you’re scared, you blame all those scary-looking “other” people. You start by blaming the people who look and act different from you, and then expand the blame to people who are organized into groups that think differently than you.
Ever since the 1960’s, both sides have been convinced that they are losing.
Right wingers are scared that social values of foreigners and “secular humanism” will destroy our society.
Left wingers are scared that rednecks and fundamentalist Christians will do the same.
But somehow life goes on for everybody.
(It’s a pity that when color television was invented, some newsman decided to paint the map on election night with red and blue states. In the old days of black-and white TV, elections weren’t as scary. )
If one steps away from their own partisan viewpoint for a moment, I think it becomes obvious that this is a common refrain in all political discussions. Everyone, on every side of every issue, has a tendency to assume that
Their side/group/party is being cheated, and
The other side is somehow doing the cheating.
“Disenfranchised” or some form thereof is the refrain of everyone who loses an election, loses an issue, loses a court case or loses an argument. It’s very difficult for someone who is absolutely, totally convinced that they are correct to accept that many other people, maybe even most people, disagree with them.
And the fact that people fear and are on guard against disenfranchisement, rather than, say, being massacred, is an indicator that while our political dialogue can get heated, the system remains peaceful and orderly.
I don’t think any of this is unique to the right-wing; plenty of leftists fear being outvoted by a mass of voters they perceive as bigoted, theocratic, rednecks.
I don’t think I have ever heard a right-winger use the word ‘disenfranchisement’ seriously. It is one of those words that only liberals/left-wingers use in a serious way.
I’m a right winger and due to present time constraints, allow me to offer this. Perhaps we feel paranoid in the same way that left wingers feel paranoid when someone makes a truthful remark about minorities and then all of a sudden the person making that remark is immediately labeled as a “racist” or a “bigot” or a “hater.” FYI—it’s rather difficult for Christians such as myself to not feel persecuted due to examples like this: The National Endowment For The Arts has given tax dollars to artists who produce “works of art” such as the “Piss Christ” or a toilet with Jesus’ face on it. I dare the NEA to commission somebody to reproduce those cartoons of Mohammed with bombs beneath his turban to be displayed in any art gallery in New York City. Also I highly doubt that another work of “art” let’s say hypothetically that played on every racial stereotype of Blacks and Jews would get the green light from the NEA, and furthermore I wouldn’t be surprised if there were protests and outrage from the offended parties that many on the Left would feel is justified if such an piece of “artwork” did happen to get displayed, yet when Christians complain of such treatment, well then according to many on the left, we just feel unnecessarily “persecuted.”
[QUOTE=Mitt Romney]
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the President no matter what….There are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government…who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they’re entitled to health care, to food, to housing, you name it….These are people who pay no income tax….My job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.
[/QUOTE]
I really, really wish people wouldn’t equate “Christian” with “right-wing,” even if the majority (and the most vocal) Christians are conservative. There are plenty of individual Christians, and whole churches and denominations, on the liberal side of most issues including civil rights, gay rights, abortion rights, women’s rights, evolutionary science, social welfare, education, etc. etc.
If you’re going to complain about them (and by God I certainly do), at least use some kind of descriptor such as “ultra conservative Christians” or “right-wing Christians” or “fundamentalists” or “crazy religious whack-os” or something.
Just out of curiosity have you actually seen “Piss Christ”? Its not an anti-Christian work. In fact I could probably go to a church picnic with a the artwork printed on a t-shirt and get complements for how spiritual it is, provided I didn’t tell them what it was.
That’s true, in that the specific term “disenfranchisement” isn’t an American right-wing buzzword, but the sentiment is still there, usually in terms like “reverse discrimination” or complaining about “the mainstream media,” a term so popular it’s usually shortened to MSM. Every political group has its own term or terms for the concept, but it’s the same idea.
No, I hear it. They don’t use the term disenfranchisement, but the mentality is there.
They are taking our guns away
Southern culture is under attack
Intellectuals and Hollywood are indoctrinating our kids
ACORN steals the elections
Feminazis want to emasculate men
Reverse racism
The media is biased against us
etc.
Which is ironic because like I said, they are the ones engaging in actual disenfranchisement and I don’t get it. Some of the same people who claim Christians are under assault wanted to stop muslims from building a community center near ground zero. The people who complain about reverse racism support laws making it harder for non-whites to vote. etc.
Terms like christian, right wing, republican and conservative get all mixed together. But by and large I think I’m talking about authoritarianism. Supposedly authoritarianism is strongly correlated with religious fundamentalism and conservative politics. But as I said, a lot of conservatives are not authoritarian (libertarians are not, nor are the GHW Bush brand of conservatives). Same with christians.
Right Wing Authoritarian is probably the most appropriate term.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Altemeyer covered the fear of oppression that authoritarians have, and the mentality behind it. It has been a while since I read his book last.
In that regard yeah, you have a point. The left generally only opposes ridicule of groups who are oppressed, but groups tied to authority or tradition are fair game, if not actively sought out as targets to be brought down (the left is generally anti-tradition and anti-authority while the right is pro- those things, generally speaking). So you can ridicule christians, but not jews. Making fun of whites is ok, but not making fun of blacks. etc. etc.
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