Paranoid, American Style

"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind."

- Richard Hofstadter, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics"


It's hard to look, from a perch up in Canada, at the mass bad craziness surrounding the American health care debate and not think, "WTF is wrong with these people?". Y'know, the ones who benefit from Medicare who are out there decrying any public involvement in health care as Nazism, Socialism, or cause for 'the tree of liberty to be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants'.

But as Hofstadter pointed out (47 years ago), there is a strain in American politics, that while thankfully small, is nonetheless loud. And koo-koo (Scott Horton, writing in Harper's over two years ago, concisely pointed out the symptoms of the current strain of Amerinoid Psycho-Pathology). And, in the age of YouTube and ratings-crazed cable news. the kooks make good pictures. What's going to lead the newscast, the Preznit's sober explanation of the reasonable-ness of a public option? Or an incensed 'patriot' loudmouth screaming, "Don't Tread on Me(dicare)!"? Exactly.

Thing is, this probably ain't about Health Care. It's more about The Fear of Now on the part of angry, white folks facing irreversible demographic change. And that fear manifests itself in the willingness to believe, in the face of all factual evidence to the contrary, that the President isn't a natural born American. That he wants his 'Death Panels' to 'pull the plug on Grandma'. That he's a Nazi. Or Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot or some toxic hybrid of all-of-the-above. Mostly, though, it's likely due, in large part, to the fact that his skin is brown. And that, increasingly, so is a large part of the U.S. population.

Of course, similar ravings about government over(goose)-stepping were heard from the left end of the spectrum during the eight-long years of Bush 43, especially the fulminating about fascism. However, at that time, the fulminators, when depicted in the media, were done so in an incredibly unfavourable light, their patriotism questioned. The current bunch are, more often than not, described as 'ordinary citizens' 0r, (on Fox, say) as patriots.

Jon Stewart and his writers ably skewered this glaring relativity and pointed out the inherent irony of the New Victim-hood by describing these 'conservatives' the 'new liberals'. In deft juxtaposition, they did a 'What they said then, What they say now' segment which was, while hilarious, incredibly incisive in exposing the hypocrisy of the right-wing punditocracy. They are ideologically consistent but morally relativistic (strangely enough, one of the fundamental criticisms leveled against 'Teh Left' is moral relativism).

The most baffling thing is that those griping the loudest seem woefully ignorant that they live in a nation whose government is constrained by what is probably the most elegantly designed and fully considered political document ever, The Constitution of The United States of America. That, and the fact that those most loudly defying a public;/single payer option in health care are also the same group who are safely ensured care under a public;/single payer option in health care: It's called Medicare.

But then it's not really about health care. Rather, it's a manifestation of fearful nativism which is as American as apple pie. Or the right to take a semi-automatic weapon to a presidential town hall.

Facts be damned. Fear the future. Where paranoia is powerful, there is no place for facts.

Update: The Globe's Konrad Yakabuski took on this very subject, Hofstadter and all, on the last day of last year. It's an excellent piece and highly recommended. But, as the folks in the comments say, "First!" Anyway, I am a bit chuffed with my 'ahead-of-the-curve'-iness and all.

Is that so wrong?