We're all George Bush Now

In keeping with my slowly developing cognitive insight into emotional matters that to a non-dope should be instantly obvious, I don't think that the hostility I suffer from Obamabot friends has anything to do with me. The very opposite; they don't see me, they see George Bush. --Of course, they never saw George Bush either. He was merely the enemy they could hate. Because he wasn't really there, but merely held the power they wanted for themselves, their hatred didn't have to have any truth to it, or fairness or balance or any connection to reality at all. He was merely a power to be destroyed. The usurper of their power.

Hatred is a habit. What George Bush suffered so viciously and unfairly for eight years I suffer now, but not for any power I have but for my threat to the power that now is theirs. That this makes no sense, being that I'm just a guy who engages in conversation, doesn't matter at all, the habit has formed the mind, and where power is the consideration, hatred is the expression.

I shouldn't be surprised. This is just a simple transference. In political conversation these last years, any defense of Bush led to a vicious outburst against him. They were very angry at me, of course, but it was Bush they attacked. Bush isn't there now when I attack Obama, but the hatred is, so they attack me. --There is some restraint yet, but I'm sure it will pass.

Is there anything optimistic in this? Possibly one thing: There is no cost to attacking a President, especially since most of the people you know are going to agree with you anyway, but there is quite a cost to attacking a friend. They won't be your friend much longer.

I see some value to this. The people who so viscerally support Obama are going to become a closed group. That means that while they might be thugs, at least their numbers won't spread. They will encyst themselves... at least until they get their brown shirt Civilian Corps, when they can add fear to their bad manners.

The problem of course is that there are so many of them. They will have the power of the government, which is so utterly immense, and they have the press, whose function anyway is to offend the inferior (so they can't be deterred by losing the friends they don't have anyway.) I'm not saying we're not in for a very hard time, only that the hate-the nonbeliever phenomena, considered as a social disease, is to some degree self-limiting.

--It is interesting. He's only been just President Elect for one week now, and in my judgment he's already stacking up negative chits for his handling of the economy. Thank the Lord for irrationality, it can have it's utility.

--The people who don't like him now because he's a Democrat, are going to like him even less as time goes on. Bad times create anger, and the bad times haven't really yet hit. It takes awhile for Wall Street to trickle down to Main Street.

--My immediate concern these last few days has been personal, just how to conduct myself as the daily arguments arise. I still don't have the response fully worked out, because the element of personal attack is new... --I am wondering what part of the Barack coalition will crack first? There always are fringe groups. When the left has power the left fractures. Since Republicans are so weak now that might be their greatest strength. The Obama team is disciplined, they're Chicago. I'm not sure about the expanded team. After all, there is no vision other than government power; but it's clear, power is meant more for me than thee.

--(At some point I'll consider the Obama/Axlerod intent: New Russian or Old Soviet?)

--I am curious how academics are going to respond, because, while they now have "one of their own" it's "not really", he's affirmative action. I'm wondering when the snottiness and snark will start.