The psychological dilemma of the disillusioned Bush lovers

(Note: further down in this entry, see my discussion of the theory that it is Bush who is angry at his base, for betraying him.)

Howard Sutherland writes:

The GOP’s core voters may be waking up about how thoroughly Bush is selling them out over immigration, and starting to understand that Bush’s love for Mexicans and his preference for Mexicans over Americans have a lot to do with it. Bush cobbles together a fatally flawed proposal based entirely on his emotions, then accuses his supporters of base emotionalism when they question it! But they don’t yet see that Bush sold them out about everything else, too. So to speak; the sellout analogy isn’t very accurate.

You have a different view of this from most of us: you were never taken in by GW Bush at all. I was, at least to the point of voting for him in 2000—although I thought of that as really a vote against Gore in particular and Clintonism in general. Looking back over GW Bush’s campaigns and presidency is very hard for a lot of conservatives who supported him. They look back, looking for that point when Bush “turned against” conservatives, when he finally “betrayed” them. But what they find, if they look honestly, is that he never turned against them. He was never with them in the first place. It’s hard enough to admit someone fooled you and then sold you out. It’s much harder to admit that you fooled yourself and, effectively, sold yourself out. Most people don’t enjoy being proved stupid.

I fear inertia born of unwillingness to face this uncomfortable truth about themselves will impede mainstream conservative opposition to Bush. To salvage something of the tatters of their reputation [LA: and of their self-esteem], they may think even now that they have to find some good in Bush, some “common ground” where they can “work with the President” to help him achieve a legacy that won’t be fatally embarrassing for them. I only hope it doesn’t take the form of swallowing some diluted version of his National Suicide plan. In that vein, I hope he stays as insulting as possible!

LA replies:

This is a very interesting analysis.

HRS replies:

I think there is something to it, and, as I say, I can only hope Bush is as insulting, dismissive, “racism”-baiting—you name it—as can be in his dealings with these people. I think it’s a psychobabble term, but these GOP loyalists are co-dependent with the GOP establishment. We shouldn’t expect them suddenly to decide to abandon the establishment Republican Party. They need to be shooed away, by an insulting, self-righteous, arrogant and short-sighted GOP elite that no longer has any use for them. [LA adds: Again the analogy to King George III is appropriate. The American colonists would never have sought all-out independence without the King’s uncompromisingly hostile stand which left them little choice.]

The GOP elite has chosen Mexicans (and everyone else from the third world) over Americans—we can only hope they are stupid enough to make it blindingly obvious to their ditched supporters. How many pictures of beaming Republicans posing with a grinning Teddy Kennedy will it take? How many times do they have to listen to Republican functionaries with names like Gonzalez, Gutierrez and Martinez telling them how good a deal the border sellout is for “Americans” before they realize the fix is in for real Americans?

LA replies:

I foresaw some things about him, but not everything by a long shot. Yes, I saw he was not a conservative. But I did think he was an honorable person with good judgment and good character. Wrong, wrong, wrong. For example, I did not imagine that he would do something as gross as the Miers betrayal. Yes, I foresaw his pro-Mexican, anti-American slant (I wrote in 2000 that his support for the Hispanicization of America was something that he felt in his heart), but I did not foresee the sheer intensity and fanaticism of it.

As for the conservatives, even if in the heat of the 2000 campaign they understandably overlooked Bush’s liberalism, there was no excuse for them to continue to do so after his January 2001 inaugural address. I don’t mean to sound know-it-all, but it’s simply the case that a person would had to have lost any serious grip on conservative understandings, at least momentarily, to listen to or read that speech and not realize that this was the speech of a liberal—indeed, not just a liberal, but (to paraphrase Patrick Buchanan) a liberal of the heart.

Granted, a liberal who also had some conservative positions such as Bush’s genuine and principled opposition to embryonic cloning.

Andrew E. writes:

I wonder to what extent Bush’s abhorrent rhetoric directed at his conservative base is motivated by HIS feeling betrayed by those who voted for him. As you’ve said, he’s made no secret about where he stands on the big issues and conservatives still voted him in only to pull back anytime he tried to act in a consistent manner with his declared principles.

LA replies:

My reply to you consists of a variety of angles moving toward an answer which is not yet completely worked out.

First, remember that he went completely silent about immigration after his initial immigration proposal in January 2004 went nowhere. He said nothing about it during the 2004 campaign. Ingraham mentions this in her “gloves off” monologue, pointing out that she was at a rally with Bush in 2004 and he said nothing about immigration.

Of course, it’s absurdly naive of her to say that therefore she was betrayed when after the 2004 election he moved forward with radical legislation. His January 2004 proposal was as radical as they come. He hadn’t given up on it, he had just given up on it for the time being. Yes, it was extremely dishonest of him not to talk about immigration during the campaign since he knew that that remained one of his highest priorities. But it was also absurdly naive of his supporters not to realize that he was engaging in a political deception.

At the same time, Bush is aware that he did go silent on the issue during the campaign. So for your theory to be correct (that Bush is angry at his supporters for betraying him on immigration), Bush would have to be angry at his supporters for not realizing and accepting the fact that when he went silent on immigration during the campaign he was really deceiving them!

To get further perspective on this, look again at his August 2000 remarks which I constantly quote:

“By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.”

Of course, as I point out in that article, no one knew this at the time they were nominating him. But after being nominated, he declares like a little dictator that the Republicans by nominating him have given their unconditional support to a position he did not specifically enunciate before he was nominated. Based on that statement alone, he apparently feels that he has been completely clear from the start and that the Republicans have no excuse for not knowing what his plans are. And therefore, to recapitulate your theory, he feels justified in feeling that his supporters have betrayed him, rather than the other way around.

But, how would he then explain his utter silence on immigration during the 2004 campaign? The only possible answer (if we’re going to maintain your theory) is that he expected his supporters to engage in Orwellian Doublethink on his behalf. Or, rather, Orwellian Triplethink: He expected them to accede to his August 2000 statement that by nominating him they had signed on to a Hispanicized America, AND he expected them to be fooled into supporting him in the 2004 campaign by his silence on the immigration issue during that campaign (why else would be silent about it?), AND he expected them to realize that his silence was purely political and that as soon as he won the 2004 election and brought forward his immigration bill once again they should get behind it.

Which is what he did. Immediately after the 2004 election (the same week, as I remember), he proposed his immigration plan again!! Conservatives were shocked, shocked.

Just as now, for the nth time, they are shocked, shocked.

LA continues:

The explanation I’ve worked out above to back up Andrew E.’s theory is not as contradictory as it seems. The immigration issue as Bush understands it has always moved on two parallel tracks. On one hand, he believes that conservative Americans have atavistic racial biases which make them fear and resent the demographic and cultural changes brought by immigration; that’s what he’s constantly referring to when he says, “I know there are strong feelings on this issue.” When he says that, he thinks he’s showing a patient sensitivity to the tough time they’re having with this issue. On the other hand, he is convinced that these conservative Americans themselves know what the right path for America really is, the path of inclusion and change and an ever more diverse and nonwhite society, and that they will ultimately get over their “strong feelings” and follow that right path. So, to accommodate his followers’ vestigial atavistic fears and biases, he needs occasionally (like during a reelection campaign) to remain silent about his plans to Hispanicize America; but, in keeping with what he sees as his followers’ “higher self,” he also expects them at the decisive moment to rise above their atavism and do the right thing.

And if, when push comes to shove, they fail to do the right thing, then that convinces him that his faith in their ultimate goodness has been misplaced, because, instead of following the higher path he has shown them, they are stubbornly hewing to the old ways of darkness and bigotry. And he hates them for this.

Howard Sutherland continues:

Another aspect of President Bush’s personality that could help drive this into an irreparable breach is his response to criticism. As far as I can tell, GW Bush doesn’t respond well to criticism or correction. He especially doesn’t like to hear it from people who are supposed to be on his side. His response to reactions to his amnesty proposals (granted, an issue unusually close to his heart) is an example.

In 2001, he proposed a mass amnesty for Mexicans in the United States. He got a lot of criticism for it, and as I recall was dismissive, especially of criticism from his own side. September 11th derailed that for a time, but at the beginning of 2004 he came back with another proposal: amnesty for all illegal aliens, plus a “guest” worker program. Not only did he not listen to friendly criticism, he spurned it to propose something even more insane. We see the same pattern with the 2006 and 2007 Senate amnesty and “guest” worker bills: criticize Bush from his friendly flank, and he not only spurns you, he calls you a racist and shifts left to teach you a lesson.

The pattern over the Iraq war is a little different, but the theme of disdaining friendly criticism and then acting in ways opposed to advice from his own side, almost in defiance of friendly advice, is there. It is as Laura Ingraham points out: Bush doesn’t mind criticism from his left so much and never seems to hold their criticism against his leftist enemies, even when their attacks are vicious and ad hominem. Oppose him from the right, though, and you are a Bad Person, a Betrayer of The Decider, someone who doesn’t want to do what’s right for America.

I wonder if his reported determination to make his next Supreme Court nominee a woman or a minority, if not both, isn’t another example. Conservatives criticized The Decider when he embraced affirmative action in the University of Michigan cases and when he tried to force Harriet Miers on us, so he is going to give us more affirmative action until we get our minds right.

Andrew E. writes:

The extension to your reply, in which you articulate the parallel tracks of Bush’s understanding of the immigration issue is extremely cogent. I see now how your explanation is much more likely the truth than what I had put forward as a possibility. Thank you for taking the time to think through it.

LA replies:

But I was standing on the shoulders of a giant. :-)

Seriously, you presented it as a whimsical idea, maybe an interesting possibility. But when looked at further, it turned out to quite likely true!

Paul K. writes (June 8):

I just gave another close reading to this entry and discussion. It is brilliant. I really admire your ability to draw such fine distinctions, as well as your understanding that it is crucial to draw such fine distinctions if we are ever to arrive at the truth. I wonder how many people can really appreciate what you are getting at? I’m afraid that I myself am somewhat slow to catch on.

At any rate, it is a relief to me that you have provided satisfactory answers to some of the questions I puzzle over, sometimes for months, even years.

LA replies:

Thank you. You got me to go back and read the entry. It’s not an easy analysis to follow, and it’s not necessarily the kind of distinction that it’s crucial for everyone to get, :-) but I do think that Andrew’s idea, supported by my argument, is plausible: Busheron feels that his supporters have betrayed him, rather than the other way around. As he sees it, they “really” knew all along what he stood for, and they “really” knew all along what was expected of them, namely that they had to rise above their prejudices and follow the way of openness. Like the infidels as portrayed in the Koran, they really know the truth but out of sheer wickedness they have perversely turned against the truth, and so they deserve to be hated and punished.

But again, in order for him to maintain this view, he must engage in the most spectacular doublethink. Without the assumption of massive doublethink on Busheron’s part, the theory falls apart.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 04, 2007 12:38 PM | Send