Andrew
Schmookler: Well, people say that getting
Democrats to work in line together is like herding cats. Among our vulnerabilities is not the
vulnerability of being ready to follow our Peerless Leader; with idolizing him,
like they did Bush when he was in his full strut, and talked about him as
"God's Anointed," and as happened in Germany in the 1930s and various other
times when people turned to this "Strong Man on the White Horse," and have
often been lead astray into very dark places.
Rob Kall: Well, it seems like that's the history of
monarchies: monarchies claim to be descended from and imbued with their power
from God.
Andrew Schmookler: The
monarchies are one thing, but I'm talking about more modern phenomenon. having
to do with politics where the power of the people gets expressed. Under the monarchies the people were subject,
and in modern times you don't get a Hitler without their being -- what was it,
he got 33% of the vote? In 1932? He never would have become leader unless he
had millions of people who were seeing him as a virtual God. "Heil Hitler!" as the salute -- you could never
do that with a bunch of Unitarians! The
people on the left have their own vulnerabilities, but the people on the Right,
they can be led astray, and they can therefore do very ugly things as a
collectivity, like a lynching.
Rob Kall: Are Republicans - with this hierarchical,
cultural nature - so different from Democrats?
Andrew
Schmookler: That's what I've been saying. I
think that in an ideal society everybody would have the ideal balance between
respect for authority (which I think is a plus more than a lot of Liberals
recognize) along with the critical examination of authority to hold it
accountable, which the Left is very good at; the Right is good at the
other. In an ideal society, everybody
would have them in the proper bounds.
But in a society that gets polarized like American society is polarized
on almost every axis - by this sick and broken spirit - if a society that's
polarized like ours, you've got one side that is vulnerable to too much respect
for authority, and the other side whose mistakes tend to be in the direction of
not respecting it enough.
In our times in America right now, the Republicans are manifesting,
like never before in American History, a pathological turn to the exploitation
of their worst elements, by a leadership which is basically a vehicle for a
sick and broken spirit that just damages everything it touches.
Rob Kall: Wow.
That's quite a mouthful.
Andrew
Schmookler: Is it a good "Wow?"
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
