NRO: Obama Submits To Dominant Males
Is it just me or is there an awful lot of this kind of thing over on the right? I don't mean just the ODS / frantic spinning out of any anti-Obama tall tale they can imagine... And I don't mean the ad hoc pseudo-scientism (in this case anthropologism)... I mean the weird stories about dominance and submission among dudes in the context of foreign policy...especially when Putin is involved. In the link above, we see two fever-swamp themes come together: Democrats as submissive wimps and Putin as "alpha male." I don't think I know anybody who thinks or talks like this about humans in real life, though I do see such stuff on the interwebs. Do folks over on the right really tend to think like this? Or is it just more feverish, opportunistic anti-Obama nonsense? The latter is weird but familiar...the former is downright bizarre and grotesque. The conservatives' man crush on Putin was weird enough before this latest turn...
Another weird thing about all of this seems pretty consistent on the right: the view that macho posturing is a sign of strength, while a calm, cool disinterest in any of that stuff is a sign of weakness. Which is exactly the opposite of the truth in my experience. Is there some deep psychological difference between conservatives and others on this score? I'd say that the simplest explanation is that it's all just bullshitting aimed at denigrating Obama. But it wouldn't be astonishing if it were something more than that.
Of course the NRO is typically a pretty nutty place, so one expects frequent nutty--and occasionally very nutty--stories. But for my money one of the creepiest things is the consistent wingnuttery in the comments. Here's a patently cracked article, and I find no comments pointing that out. Nobody? Really? That's some unusually groupy group-think right there...
Another weird thing about all of this seems pretty consistent on the right: the view that macho posturing is a sign of strength, while a calm, cool disinterest in any of that stuff is a sign of weakness. Which is exactly the opposite of the truth in my experience. Is there some deep psychological difference between conservatives and others on this score? I'd say that the simplest explanation is that it's all just bullshitting aimed at denigrating Obama. But it wouldn't be astonishing if it were something more than that.
Of course the NRO is typically a pretty nutty place, so one expects frequent nutty--and occasionally very nutty--stories. But for my money one of the creepiest things is the consistent wingnuttery in the comments. Here's a patently cracked article, and I find no comments pointing that out. Nobody? Really? That's some unusually groupy group-think right there...
posted by Winston Smith at
9:05 AM
3 Comments:
It's like these people are trying (unwittingly, I presume?) to confirm the least-charitable interpretation of their behavior.
Does this mean we no longer need have any qualms over believing that modern conservatives are largely a bunch of posturing lackwits whose behavior extends only trivially beyond that of the lower animals?
I mean, here they are, regularly fuming over the perceived submissive behavior of their leader. They want a big strong monkey who will beat up any other monkey who even looks at him cockeyed. Anything less scares them. What are those cockeyed monkeys going to do if they aren't thumped good?
I mean, the theory has a lot going for it...many conservatives themselves seem bent on confirming it, and it provides a general explanation for the last decade and a half of American politics.
I guess any further inspection of this sort of thing requires some sort of statistical verification or rejection of the hypothesis that this sort of sentiment is representative of modern American conservatives. I do fear the effects of Internet amplification.
Incidentally, your "conservative's man crush on Putin" link is identical to the "this kind of thing" link.
I'm awaiting the explication of how Obama is both a tyrannical autocrat with no respect for any limits on his powers and a trembling coward. Should be a good read.
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