What is the anger really about?

[Lesleymo]

Frank Rich has an excellent op-ed piece in the NYT this morning, called "The Rage Is Not About Health Care." Here's a little snippet:

"If Obama’s first legislative priority had been immigration or financial reform or climate change, we would have seen the same trajectory. The conjunction of a black president and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay Congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play. It’s not happenstance that Frank, Lewis and Cleaver — none of them major Democratic players in the health care push — received a major share of last weekend’s abuse. When you hear demonstrators chant the slogan “Take our country back!,” these are the people they want to take the country back from."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28rich.html?hp


When my right-wing friends and family rail about health reform, they sound terrified. Which I totally don't understand. What IS all this anger and fear about? Is it racism? Or something else? What are they afraid of?

[old mark]

1. They are afraid of anything different - a black president terrifies them,

especially when they are repeatedly told lies about him, where he iw=s from, what are his intentions...I am reading a few articles lately from people who hated Obama, only to gradually begin to wonder what the hall all the fuss was about...He is a nice, smart kid from Chicago by way of Harvard.

People are being sold this fear and anger by people who make tons of money on it, and use it to gain political power and don't really care about who gets hurt.


mark

[ThomWV]

2. They are angry because their entire lives they have been told work produces wealth

And what they are waking up to is they have been played for fools and they are striking out at the very largest target - Government.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Part of it stems from the fact that the word liberal has been demonized by

the right for some time now. They were also sure that they had a permanent majority and would be making all the rules. Now that's fallen apart and the liberals are in charge and the President is black. Not to mention that the loudest voices on the right are playing on those fears and trying to increase them and corporate media gives them so much coverage.

I know that's oversimplifying the matter, but I believe that's the basis of it.

[doc03]

4. They are afraid Obama will take what they have in

benefits like SS, Medicare and their employer paid health-care and give it to people that don't work or those Mexicans (someone not white) in other words. If you came here from say Russia they don't really care it's those other people. Rush Limpballs says it is(Reparations). I say this as a white person myself, this is what I hear every day from other white people.

[handmade34]

5. Excellent article by Frank Rich

Fear stems from lack of understanding and fear causes people to do horrific things sometimes

[dynasaw]

6. It's About Fear

Frighten people often lash out against what they see as threatening them. These people are frightened by change: their America, the America of white people is overwhelmingly being replaced by people with whom they don't appear to have any clue about. Their dreams of wealth, their jobs, if they still have them, are seemingly receding from their reach. Powerlessness is sometimes manifest by rage and this is a raging bunch.

[ChicagoSuz219]

7. They are low -information voters who get their 'news' from

Rush & Pox News. They've been frightened into believing all the horror stories & misinformation they've heard. The repub party has been feeding them & their fears to try & push thru their own agendas. So far, it's failing. Still, they can be scary. And, I suppose, some really are racist, sexist, homophobes, as well.

[Lesleymo]

11. Or mis-information voters, I suppose

My son-in-law has all kinds of "information" - but it's all totally right-wing. He loves to read IBD Editorials like that scary-looking Krauthammer guy. He has all kinds of supposedly factual information, and yet when he talks about politics all I hear is fear. Not really anger so much, and definitely not a rational debate over facts. Just fear.

He's in his early 30's, doing pretty well for himself but not wealthy, covered by a basic health plan that he thinks will be fine and dandy if he ever gets sick. So I think to myself, what does he have to fear here? I don't think it's all racism. I guess I need to ask him what the worst-case scenario is, which he has convinced himself will be so awful. But I hate to even bring up the subject.

[ChicagoSuz219]

14. Does your daughter go along with it? n/t

[Taitertots]

8. Don't cheapen the debate

People were just as mad when white people advocated these policies.

Just because you don't have the intellectual rigor to understand their incorrect ideological positions enough to understand them doesn't mean anyone who disagrees with you is racist. Then maybe you could convince them why we are correct instead of just sounding like you don't know what you are talking about.

[rucky]

10. Here's how my *ahem* discussions usually go:

They: Make a wild and false statment.

I: Correct the statment with facts and references to the facts.

They: Attack the source of the facts or the people presenting them - whether it be a newspaper, an expert, a government source document, left-wing blog (ok), etc.

The argument ends there - and that's because it comes down to trust. They don't trust anybody but the people lying to them. How do people pick what to trust and mistrust when they've already rejected any sources that could provide evidence to the contrary? If the facts aren't analyzed, it comes down to an emotional connection to WHO is presenting the information. The source must reflect something they identify with to even consider that the content coming from it is valid.

So prejudice does play a role in this. In absence of objective analysis of information that's out there, there's not much else to go on.

[Lesleymo]

13. Right. I do this myself, I must admit.

I have a long list of people I don't trust (Limbaugh, Beck, John Cornyn, Boehner) and I automatically assume they're lying because I've flat-out heard them lie so many times. It's impossible to have a dialogue if I'm quoting Rachel Maddow and the other person is quoting Glenn Beck. For the most part, I just avoid having the conversation altogether. But that's frustrating too.

[rucky]

16. When a source is inaccurate...

that's a good reason to write it off. There are plenty of unreliable sources that have a leftward bias. I try to avoid them, and they don't carry much weight here, either.

[Taitertots]

20. You shouldn't quote political pundits anymore than they should

Corporate media shills are probably the last people you should take into consideration.

[TreasonousBastard]

9. I'll read the full article later, but I've seen for years that...

people get very upset when the world they fantasize exists gets destroyed.

The teabaggers are middle-aged and older, white, and and holding on to their middle-class dream by a thread. Most of us don't like change, but these people, coming from their isolated little worlds, are more afraid of change than the rest of us.

They thought they built a dream, but it is is turning into their worst nightmare.

[KharmaTrain]

12. They're Sore Losers...

...and winners as well. Their bitch is they don't have any power...that the world doesn't dance to their beat and they're starting to realize this. They figure they can intimidate the world back "to order" with their tantrums and lies. It's all about power...to be able to control and dominate and since they can't do either we get to see the basic hatred that is the glue that holds most of these people together.

It doesn't matter what the issue is, if Democrats or President Obama are for it, they're against it. He could offer everyone $1 million dollars tax free and they'd be against it. Yes, there's the racist factor, but that mixed in with all the other hatred that is the modern rushpublican party. Since they can't have their way, they're stomping their feet and standing in everyone elses' way.

[TransitJohn]

15. They did the same shit when Clinton was in office, albeit less vehemently.

It's because politics to them is a football game, and their team is losing.

[UTUSN]

17. ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8034760

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

But my man Frank seems to set the begining of wingnut rage to be racism against OBAMA. I believe that rage is a core value of wingnuttiness, along with racism, and that all their talk of constitutionality, "freedom," and capitalism is ALL window dressing. They were shunned and looked down on from the '40s through the '60s or even into the '70s and therefore have a gigantic chip on the shoulder, hence the rage. Why is one of LIMBOsevic's biggest bugaboos the Boomers, a generation of which he is a member?!1 Their rage was having their NIXON bear the ultimate shame, while they claim hypocrisy in JFK and CLINTON. Racism towards OBAMA is certainly a facet, but their rage goes WAY back.

[MajorChode]

18. Because America is full of useful idiots

...and wingnuts have honed demagoguery into a fine art. It's not that hard to channel rage or any other base emotion in those who are on the far left side of the bell curve.

[CanonRay]

19. I've been trying to get my RW friend to answer that since the election.

What are you so afraid of? I never get an answer because they can't admit they are afraid.

[lxlxlxl]

21. Its 1) Ignorance 2) A Changing World 3) Selective Attention

You can't possibly fix these people

[pipi_k]

22. The only thing I can come up with is that

they're angry because they think they're supposed to be.


I honestly don't think they even know what they're pissed off about.


Just...because.

:shrug:

[Cresent City Kid]

23. The anger is a tool for the ones provoking it

It's about getting asses into voting booths to defeat Democrats. It includes but isn't limited to racists. When you're preaching lies, your followers tend to be gullible. The fears that are being stoked have always been there, but generalized and dormant. They're being told that their worst fears are coming to pass, bringing outrage to the surface.

It takes deceit to get 50+% to vote for those who only want to help the top 1%. When the right was in power, the lie was that things were better than they were, now the lie is that things are worse than they really are.