AmbivAgain
By amba | Related entries in Elections, General Politics, Partisan HacksI always seem to feel this way just before an election, as if the forces tearing the country apart are tearing me apart. Call it (small-d) democratic participation mystique*.
If the Democrats really do retake control of Congress in two weeks (WaPo is saying it looks increasingly possible for the Senate as well as the House):
- Part of me will be feeling Schadenfreude because the Republicans have really, really asked for it with their winning combination of arrogance and incompetence. According to the laws of behavioral psychology, if you want your dog to learn anything, such behavior should not be rewarded with the treat the pup loves best: power.
- Part of me will be feeling nausea and dread at the Democrats’ glee — because if they win, it’s not them winning, it’s just the Republicans losing. But instead of infusing them with sober responsibility for cleaning up the mess they’ve inherited, I fear a win will make them drunk with an arrogance of their own, and that they will go on a rampage of revenge and blame at a moment of grave national danger.
- And part of me will be feeling a neutral, Olympian bemusement at the whole tragicomic spectacle.
A term derived from anthropology and the study of primitive psychology, denoting a mystical connection, or identity, between subject and object.
[Participation mystique] consists in the fact that the subject cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity. ["Definitions," Collected Works of C.G. Jung]
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 22nd, 2006 and is filed under Elections, General Politics, Partisan Hacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 23rd, 2006 at 6:05 am
Exactly, amba-. Part of me shudders at the thought of Speaker Pelosi and Chairmen Conyers, Rangel, Frank, Waxman and Hastings. Who will I be punishing? The GOP? Or me? The aforementioned gang will read my vote as an endorsement, not an anti GOP cast. It’s a brutal choice.
October 23rd, 2006 at 7:47 am
How best to resolve the choice? The Assistant Village Idiot reduced the quandry to a simple equation: Conservative issues don’t attract me as much as liberal idiocy repels me. Presumably, the converse will be true for others. It’s a matter of fine-tuning one’s disgust.
October 23rd, 2006 at 11:01 am
Sadly, we’ll just move from arrogance and incompetence to vitriol and incompetence. Either way, they don’t listen to us.
Oh for the days when something as simple as a Whiskey Tax was a call to arms.
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:11 pm
“Fine-tuning one’s disgust!” That’s what it’s come to! Indeed.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:55 pm
I for one am wriggling with eagerness for the corrupt Republicans to get knocked on their asses. I also can’t wait to see what truly independent investigations will turn up about Republican lies and criminal conduct. I also see nothing wrong with impeaching the man directly and indirectly responsible for causing more problems for the world than any president in history.
Sure, our country is in the midst of a bunch of crises – guess who led us into them? You think their “stay the course” rhetoric will do anything but lead us deeper into the shitheap?
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:17 pm
I am in total agreement with your disgust for both sides.. fear & loathing sums up my position towards Dems AND Repubs. However, my fairly consistent votes for independents has never paid off, in all these years… since Anderson. Sheesh!
Just found unity08 and will be examining it closely to see if there is some hope on the horizon.. an alternative with enough punch to make a difference. Hell, I may even send them money, if they make some bloody sense in their approach. Please, God… make it happen.. Those of us with common sense who love America have suffered a long time now.. from the extremists and the intolerant on both ends of the scale. *sigh*
October 23rd, 2006 at 8:17 pm
I am in total agreement with your disgust for both sides.. fear & loathing sums up my position towards Dems AND Repubs. However, my fairly consistent votes for independents has never paid off, in all these years… since Anderson. Sheesh!
Just found unity08 and will be examining it closely to see if there is some hope on the horizon.. an alternative with enough punch to make a difference. Hell, I may even send them money, if they make some bloody sense in their approach. Please, God… make it happen.. Those of us with common sense who love America have suffered a long time now.. from the extremists and the intolerant on both ends of the scale. *sigh*