The Psychology of Being Conservative (just a rough draft - input/feedback sought)

[Bucky]

I've spent all night writing this as a response in another thread, but now my attentions have gotten all diverted and I'd like some feedback and thoughts on this. All helpful suggestions, revisions, and corrections are welcomed.

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Why do conservatives obstruct, attack, engage in name calling, and refuse to either compromise on health care or allow reforms of any sort to move forward? Why do they behave so childishly on everything from national security to taxes to the stimulus package?

It's the win-at-all-costs mentality of the right. They start from a never-spoken-of fear that they're wrong; that their ideas might not carry the day. But for someone who can't face the prospect of losing, such a thought is too terrible to deal with. So you get the first transaction of conservatism: fear ==> denial.

They deny the reality that they might be wrong more than anything else. A healthy skepticism of one's own views is the hallmark of a mature mind. But if they can't be wrong and those who disagree with them can't see this or be won over with the simple platitudes they exert (family values, pro-life politics, anti-union biases) then those who differ from them must be villainous. The second transaction of conservatism: resistance to conservatism is rooted in evil.

What is evil? It is all powerful, demonic, elite, sneering at you with contempt and a master plan its waiting to unleash. You can get more insight on this from "the Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paranoid_Style_in_American_Politics ). In the face of such all powerful, insincere evil, any means are needed. The third transaction is paranoia ==> justification for win at all costs

Finally, you have an opponent who must be defeated, who can't be reasoned with, and who secretly surrounds you with vast and intimidating resources at his beck and call. You saw this come out when the Republicans lost the last election. Southern Republicans announced they were surrounded by pagans. Tea partiers entertain delusions that white America is losing not just its power, but losing its own country to invaders. While logic dictates that Republicans make a hard play for Hispanic votes (politically it's very doable, actually), you keep having panicky Republican pols going batshit crazy on immigration issues in a way that socially alienate the growing Hispanic demographic (and in the process turned formerly red California into the bluest of blue states).

In some ways, they can't help themselves. They've become the Party of the Id. Like an undisciplined child, they lash out, they name call, they make illogical assertions in arguments and then refuse to be reasoned with. Current Republican Senate strategy is almost a text book example of anal retention (see also Gerald Keegan's discussion of the anal stage): the child unable to express his anxieties and fearing an inability to control events, compulsively withholds his bowel movements to retain parent attention (or as an ersatz adult hoards power and access in order to prevent losing that moment of being the center of attention and obsess on that moment of limited control of events).

Now you know why it's called the Tea Party "movement." They also obsess on ridiculous and phantastic details (birth certificates, death panels, black helicoptors) and seek to obstruct all progress on the public's agenda while themselves offering zero constuctive suggestions on how to fix national problems. The name Tea Party suggests an opposition to tax increases, only Obama has only introduced a tax cut in his fiscal program. They object to any number of proposals for fixing the jobless rate or the growing health care crisis or the financial and housing crises both these problems create, yet have no solutions to offer. The point isn't to solve the problem, but rather to redirect attention onto themselves.

So why do conservatives cry out "socialist" and then "communist" and then "nazi" rather than debate their issues on the merits? Because they don't want to debate. Debate leads to solutions, to compromises, to progress--to moving on from the current moment and into the unknown and scary future. But if you can halt all progress, stay in the moment there on the potty chair, holding mommy and daddy's attention while they encourage you "that's good baby, just give it a push, I know you can sweeties, oh, mommy's so proud of you", if they can retain that moment, they can stay in that moment of pure anticipation and gratification. It's like having a party and never having to clean up the mess.

[Nay]

1. Also read "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer.

[GreenMetalFlake]

2. If you removed the right's need to base social movements on those they hate, nothing would remain

There have been many well sourced books written on this subject

[The_Commonist]

3. I think you've missed the foundation of the problem...

For the most part, conservatives are just not that bright.
When you're not very smart, you're much more likely to buy a line of crap.
Particularly from someone in "authority."
They were raised on a steady diet of fantasy and bullshit, and they simply are not that bright.
All the rest that you say follows...