Identity Politics Eclipses Rational Debate About Who Should Be Our Next President

 

We are a country of narcissists indifferent to real political ideas and consumed by our irrational zeal to elect politicians who seem like reflections of our own identities while repelling those who seem like the Demonic Other. 

In this current presidential election which is fueled by the theme of Us Vs. Them, one candidate is framed as an effete elitist egghead, his brain lost in irrelevant abstractions and obscure books beyond the average person’s care or understanding. 

The other candidate is framed as a priggish, provincial anti-intellectual who embodies the most infantile, primitive strain of evangelicalism, a stalwart of Pleasantville-like homogeneity.  

Often we project what we fear may be inside ourselves onto others so that what we fear is not the person we loathe but some malignant force we’re too cowardly to confront inside ourselves.

 

Those who run for high office are often the blank slates for whom we project are most nasty alter egos.

 

In choosing a President, we must sift through the narcissistic murk and see who these candidates really are based on their ideas, not based on the dubious symbolism we associate with them.  

Comments

[Ed]

Water seeks its own level; likewise, this country gets the president it deserves. The trend has definitely been towards the dumbed-down candidate since Reagan. Practice saying "President McCain" ... or even "President Palin."

[jeffrey McMahon]

Yes, an idea George Carlin said on Bill Maher. We get the politicians we deserve.

[Tom Welch]

Carlin on voting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u6lCBnRoHQ

[jeffrey McMahon]

Yes, Tom, I remember those vintage words.

[Michael Brent]

Lewis Black says we should pick the president as follows:
Blindfold a person and have them throw a dart at a map of the U.S.
Parachute a monkey into the spot marked on the map.
The first person the monkey holds hands with, THATS the President.

[jeffrey McMahon]

I think he's captured the triviality of our culture rather well. Perhaps my melancholy from our condition impedes me from being a political junkie.