Michelle Bachmann and the Politics of Comfort
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 7:30AM | by Otter 
Switched On Bachmann. Let the Games Begin.This year's elections are going to be entertaining.
It's hard to see how even the apolitical can keep away from this one.
With the whole wide field of conservative women to choose from, the Republican Party is enchanted with two fruitloops from Venus, Sarah "She-Shah Queen Of The Moon-Women" Palin and Michelle "Prepare To Be Assimilated" Bachmann.
Their conservatism is of that aromatic blend of policy and religion that makes the Right Wing so strikingly bizarre these days.
I can only think that the G.O.P. wanted to play for laughs in a year that Obama has fumbled enough to be vulnerable.
Palin I plan to ignore, because she's not worth a drop of ink or two electrons' notice. Not as a serious commentator, let alone a serious candidate.
Bachmann, however, is serious, and deserves some scrutiny.
Whether Bachmann is (illegally) refusing to answer her census forms or claiming the divine mandate that seems to be necessary in American politics, she's more evidence that the Right can't find its way without its Bible. (Certainly she's a failure at research, having confused John Wayne [good touch, but tough] with John Wayne Gacy [bad touch, and creepy].)
Then too she embraces the anti-intellectualism (if not outright fraud) of the Right on evolution and global warming.
Yeah, okay. Trivial, I guess. But it's the little things.
Except that they're big when you're The President of the United States.
And then there are the big things: a belief in the superiority of certain cultures over others is without a doubt something all of us subscribe to from the moment we can lisp "Nazi Germany sucked." But as an opinion, that must be carefully nuanced: to admit (as Bachmann has done) that she believes that some cultures are superior begs the question, "Which ones are superior? Which ones require aggressive defense against which?"
Some call this the politics of fear: I know too many conservatives to buy that. This is the politics of comfort for many, a return to the familiar, what worked (at least for me and people like me). I get that. It's the politics that I grew up with: a defense of the City on the Hill against the forces of chaos and anarchy and self-will that would destroy it. It's what remains in these trying, media-saturated times of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater, and Bill Buckley, their corpses reanimated by the dark magic of conservative religion in Glenn Beck's weird laboratory and staggering around wondering, "WTF?" They're here to protect you. America is not what it was.
I understand the fear, that instinct to bemoan what I agree is a frightening chaos of thought and values coursing through our society.
But as one who deeply loves the Bible, I do say that someone clutching a Bible and cultural elitism at this stage in history is worth worrying about.
She needs taking seriously, because she cannot be about "rights" in any meaningful sense. She already stands for aspects of official culture of the past, a non-recognition of the last fifty years of social and economic thought.
Yet she might well be the G.O.P.s best hope, an all-in gamble in the culture war. The apocalyptic dislike of liberalism in evangelicalism certainly finds a voice in one who has always sought the council of the divine. "Everything I need to know, I learned in Iowa," she said (in Iowa), declaring her candidacy.
Indeed? Nothing to learn from New York? From Florida? From California?
Remember that.
The Right eats that stuff up. Like Elijah throwing down to the prophets of Ba'al, you have to represent. This is no time for pragmatism for the Right, or so it apparently feels. This is the time to stand up for the true God, and for the values that worked for me, and people like me.
Listen for the thunder.
When you hear it, remember that the Prophets of Ba'al learned the hard way (1 Kings 18:40) that the politics of comfort become the politics of conformity.
Otter
Just a follow-up sent to me by my friend Steve: the hits just keep on comin'...
Money Quote:
Examining 24 of her statements, Politifact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, found just one to be fully true and 17 to be false (seven of them "pants on fire" false). No other Republican candidate whose statements have been vigorously vetted matched that record of inaccuracy.
Otter
Bruce Fein on Bachmann divorcing the Constitution.
Money Quote:
The Executive, the Founding Fathers understood, was inclined to concoct excuses for war from trifles light as air to aggrandize power. During wartime, the president enjoys secrecy, spending, appointments, and the thrill of global transformation. James Madison, father of the Constitution, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence: "The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature."
But Congresswoman Bachmann stubbornly refuses to condemn President Obama's unilateral war against Libya as unconstitutional, and insinuates the president should unilaterally invade Iran in hopes of destroying its weapons of mass destruction. Her constitutional betrayal is stunning because Obama himself, Vice President Joseph Biden, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can be summoned to denounce presidential wars as illegal.
Holy god, how does this kind of person become a serious contender?
Otter
Reader Comments (4)
<shaking my head> Really? Is that the best the GOP can do? And where are the female politicians that don't make female politicians look stupid? Or maybe it's a function of someone who says "Yeah, I can be POTUS. No problem." Just as a surgeon needs to be a tad cocky to cut into someone in order to heal, I can understand that someone running for high office needs some cockiness to say "I have the answers." But why do we have to (in our republic that supposedly values separation of church and state) hug the Bible in one hand and pretend to like apple pie?
Lately, I've taken it upon myself to actually hear what is inspiring fellow coworkers/associates to support candidates like this. I must say it has taken alot not to automatically cringe when someone references Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin as valid authorities. Everyone of them seem to be very Patriotic and supportive of the commandments, Bill of Rights, and the amendments as long as those using them have the same beliefs and value systems as they do. There also seems to be a fear of Muslims becoming the #1 religion in America. One close friend said high schoolers are not being taught history anymore ( maybe its just not the history some people want taught, but Civics and American History are still a requirement for graduation). What I've learned is for people who don't want to do the work of educating themselves, fear and media are a powerful force.
Good post, Otter! This is right on, I think:
"She needs taking seriously, because she cannot be about "rights" in any meaningful sense. She already stands for aspects of official culture of the past, a non-recognition of the last fifty years of social and economic thought."
That is a position with some serious traction in the voting public. She has a sizable (if minority) base, and she really believes in what she's promoting. She's a much more serious candidate than Palin.
TS, yes, agreed: and I think that her integrity on what she believes is worth commending. There's no double-dealing or evasion there.
Which is refreshing in a Palin-soaked world of conservatism.
But it's unfortunate that the same can be said of the world's major despots. Few of them get where they are by hiding what they believe. They get there by persuading us that the strength of belief in the face of benighted threats is warrant enough for power, that that belief should have currency because of the state of inevitable changes (many of which are good but which can be spun as bad).
If I had one question I could get a straight answer to from Michelle Bachmann, I'd ask, "What do you see as the five greatest threats to your ideal of American culture?"
And she strikes me as totally willing to tell me the answer to that question.
I bet that would be an instructive question to ask.