May 10, 2004
NEUROTICS IS US:
America's barbecue vote: They work longer hours than Dad did, regret not having wives who stay at home, and hate seeing those minorities getting uppity. Meet the angry white men Bush can rely on. (Becky Tinsley, 10th May 2004, New Statesman)
By any rational measure the average white American male enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world. The United States is consistently near the top of the UN's Human Development Index measuring quality of life in 175 countries. Yet white men across America are mad as hell, and George W Bush's campaign strategists are counting on their anger to keep their candidate in the White House in November. [...]A recent National Science Foundation/National Institutes of Health study found that conservatism in America can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity". The AWMs want a "return to an idealised past", they "condone inequality", and cling to "premature conclusions", "simplistic cliches and stereotypes". [...]
If they believe they are much less well-off than their fathers, then logically they should vote for the party that best represents their economic interest against the ruthless, downsizing corporations and the greedy medical insurance companies screwing them out of healthcare.
But, defying all Marxist analysis, AWMs are crazy about the sedated frat-boy from New Haven, Connecticut; the under-achieving, privileged scion of those Washington insiders, the Bush dynasty. The AWMs obligingly rally behind this petulant former drink-driver who describes individuals in his cabinet as "fabulous" - not a word an AWM would ever use.
Karl Rove, the brain behind the Dubbya brand, perfectly understands the anxieties of the AWMs. He knows they feel patronised by the bicoastal metrosexuals who describe Middle Americans as "the people we fly over". He also knows they want their president to be "the kind of guy you can talk to while you're standing around the barbecue", as Dave, the furious architect, puts it. They don't want to feel threatened by some sophisticated, egghead, liberal "jerk" from Georgetown, Boston or San Francisco.
For AWMs inarticulate equals sincere, and AWMs feel "comfortable" with the tongue-tied Bush and his black-and-white world-view. During the Iowa caucuses a conservative group, the Club for Growth, spent $100,000 on an ad campaign that perfectly captured the essence of the America so distrusted by AWMs. It described Democrats as a "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show". By contrast, the Middle American AWM is an uncomplicated retrosexual, freed from Nineties exhortations to find his feminine side, comfortable with his hairy chest and sagging jeans.
AWMs are further nudged into the Republican fold by the unsubtle use of wedge issues such as gay marriage, abortion, gun control and patriotism. (This is where the gender gap comes into play: in opinion polling, American women cite defending abortion laws and the need for gun control as important reasons for supporting the Democrats.)
The Dubbya brand is carefully aligned to the Church, and particularly the born-again evangelicals, of whom there are 70 million. These wedge issues are raised repeatedly in the broadcasts that give AWMs their daily reinforcement: on Fox News, and by the talk-radio hosts Rush Limbaugh (who has an audience of 20 million), Michael Savage and former Watergate felon G Gordon Liddy. A glance at their websites illustrates how the AWMs' indignation is stoked with tales of "the liberals' increasingly destructive influence on America's cherished institutions . . . seeping into America's churches, schools, even its families", as Savage puts it.
Okay, we'll assume that "defying all Marxist analysis" is said with tongue in cheek, but it's just as revealing that she believes religion, abortion, homosexuality, guns, patriotism, etc. to be peripheral issues that the GOp uses cynically. Apparently only make-work job programs and National Health are legitimate core issues? These folks really just don't get America at all. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 10, 2004 10:16 PM
I hereby create a stereotype: EELs. Enraged Elite Leftists. Exhibit A is the laughable author of this piece. I very much hope "EELs" catches on.
EO
Posted by: EO at May 10, 2004 10:33 PMWhite male conservatives are purely motivated by anger? Riiiight....Show me a politician who's a screamer and I'll bet you he's got a (D) after his name.
Posted by: brian at May 10, 2004 11:02 PMThis article reads like a parody - it's unbelievable! I guess she thinks none of us middle class, upper income, professional women could possibly support Pres. Bush. How clueless! And give me an AWM any day over a pathetic "metrosexual."
Posted by: Kay at May 10, 2004 11:25 PMDoes this person have an editor? You can pretty much discount this entire article and its author when she states that: "AWMs are crazy about the .... the under-achieving" President.
How's that again? In my world, pretty much by definition anyone who becomes President of the United States of America is ... well... achieving.
Posted by: AML at May 10, 2004 11:52 PMLeaving aside the fact that many Bush Voters actually do fall into her simplistic scenario, the fact remains that I, the other posters and readers of this list, and OJ in particular, could eat your typical "leftist intellectual's" lunch in our sleep.
Now if only we could teach (or train) all Bush's supporters to be as erudite and well-read as we are......
Posted by: BB at May 11, 2004 12:42 AMShe is one angry lady.
Perhaps because SAHMs are happier?
Posted by: Sandy P at May 11, 2004 3:03 AMSimply another example of the timeless anti-democratic rant projected, as always, on the States. They started around 1776. This one reveals how Euro leftists really feel about their own middle and working classes.
As with marxists and darwinists, these types will go to amazing lengths to make the evidence fit the theory. In the last line of this article, Sen. Kerry is lionized as a Vietnam war hero and fan of extreme sports. Now there are a couple of time-honoured progressive causes.
Posted by: Peter B at May 11, 2004 5:59 AM
It's not the men who are alligned
with Christianity that she should be concerned about. Modern christianity is way to touchy
feely to allow a man to exhibit genuine rage.
It's also not joe six-pack that she'll need to
worry about since he's too concerned about the
NFL to care about the disintegration of America.
But it is the generation of college-educated people who watched affirmative action students
sleep through class and get a 'B' for showing up.
Who realizes that his kids know more about the
great M.L.K. than the founding fathers put together (and can no longer sing Silent Night
at Christmastime). She should be worried about the man who has woken up to the fact that in a span of about ten years MTV and other mainstream "entertainment" outlets have become
a venue for anti-white misogynistic pro-homo ghetto trash.
She should be concerned about those who
see Bush for the multicultural globalist liberal that he is.
Bush is a multiculturalist alright. He has shallowed the ideology whole and it is devouring him from the inside.
Posted by: Paul Cella at May 11, 2004 11:35 AMPaul and JH are exactly right, and 20 years from now the Republican President will be criticized for not being as compassionate and amiable as President Bush.
Posted by: David Cohen at May 11, 2004 12:45 PM>But it is the generation of college-educated
>people who watched affirmative action students
>sleep through class and get a 'B' for showing up.
>Who realizes that his kids know more about the
>great M.L.K. than the founding fathers put
>together (and can no longer sing Silent Night
>at Christmastime).
Aside -- it's no longer "Christmastime", it's "Winter Holidays". Separation of Church and State (We've Evolved Beyond That)...
>She should be worried about the man who has
>woken up to the fact that in a span of about ten
>years MTV and other mainstream "entertainment"
>outlets have become a venue for anti-white
>misogynistic pro-homo ghetto trash.
And then the Fuehrer comes in on a White Horse, promising It's Payback Time:
"RULERS OF TOMORROW!
MASTER RACE!"
Paul:
Be very afraid--they're coming to marry your daughters and you'll have little brown grandchildren.
Posted by: oj at May 11, 2004 1:41 PMOJ, they'll also make his grandkids play soccer. I would think you'd be at least a bit perturbed by that prospect.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at May 12, 2004 2:02 PMAs long as they produce some shortstops too.
Posted by: oj at May 12, 2004 2:12 PM