Bush’s attachment to a foreign people

Diana West writes that George W. Bush’s passion for open borders is to a significant degree driven by his sense of a patrician bond with Mexicans. I would go further and say that Bush simply likes Mexicans more than he does Americans. However we put it, it is a theme that has been developed at VFR for some time, particularly by our regular commenter Howard Sutherland. Earlier, I had been skeptical of Mr. Sutherland’s psychological explanation for Bush’s political positions. My view was, since all liberals support mass immigration on the basis of liberalism, what was gained by considering Bush’s merely personal feelings on the subject? But Mr. Sutherland’s arguments eventually persuaded me that Bush’s personal attachment to Mexicans is so inordinate and so central to his support for immigration that it cannot be ignored. Here are a few VFR entries on this topic:

Bush’s open-borders politics transcends politics;
The personal roots of Bush’s open-borders treason;
Sutherland to Frum;
Bush’s last chance for glory: destroy America.

- end of initial entry -

Roger writes:

There is another possible explanation for President Bush’s motivation on immigration which would account for what appears to be his strange attachment to a foreign people over the people of his own country whom he is supposed to serve. Many have alluded to his early personal experiences with Mexicans which could certainly play a role. However to me this doesn’t fully account for what strikes me as the intensity of his motivation and his absolute imperviousness to any rational argument. It should be noted that motivation is usually determined by more than one factor.

A possible explanation that might more adequately account for this is a not uncommon psychological dynamic in which a person organizes the world or at least certain aspects of it in terms of three roles: rescuer, victim, and persecutor. This usually involves some projection of his own deeper feelings onto the world, particularly in the form of projective identification with the victim. As one of many possible examples, this dynamic is a core feature of radical leftism in which the world is divided into victims (the third world and ethnic minorities), persecutors (Western or capitalist “oppressors”), and rescuers (the radical leftist himself who wishes to rescue the “victims” from their Western persecutors/oppressors). Of course the roles become switched with the “rescuer” actually becoming the persecutor of his own society while the designated “victims” become persecutors destroying both the original designated persecutor (Western culture) and ultimately the rescuer too (We see Europe moving swiftly in this direction).

I don’t see President Bush as a radical leftist, although his policy on immigration would be identical to that of a radical leftist in its effects. What may be happening is that he sees himself as the rescuer of the Mexican people whom he sees in the role of victims and whom he identifies with on some deeper emotional level. This would explain his intense emotional involvement and his unwillingness to consider the real concerns of the American people as to the consequences of this legislation. The people from his own political base as well as the majority of Americans are now seen as the persecutors of the Mexican “victims” whom he must protect. In fact both he the “rescuer” and the mass immigration of “victims” from Mexico will really turn out to be “persecutors” of the American people who will be the real victims. Furthermore this rescuer/victim dynamic might also extend to his feelings about Moslems. More and more his presidency seems to be about being the rescuer (or even the savior) of the Mexican people and of the Moslem world rather than serving the welfare of the American nation and the American people.

LA replies:

“He may even see himself as being victimized by his own political base.” We made that point in a recent discussion. A reader offered the theory that Bush feels that his base has betrayed him, and I argued that this made sense.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 18, 2007 11:23 AM | Send