Honeymoon for salmon-eaters (16 February 2009)

There are theories which argue that people who come out of more controlling and less loving families, tend to vote Republican. They fear Socialism, are repulsed by the idea of hippie-togetherness, and like to grand-stand Independence, because as children, being part of a family meant experiencing life as if they were mere extensions of their parents' (not just wishes and needs but) BODIES. They fear real economic and social growth, and are willing to vote for those who would destroy such, because as children they also understood that when they attended to their own needs rather than those of their parents, they were acting up as selfish, spoiled, egocentric--bad: and they are forever hoping to demonstrate themselves good boys and girls by voting for those who see life as about hardships, and by hating those they can construe as believing otherwise (i.e. democrats).

Other point: Pelosi suggests that the democrats are honeymooning right now. Their euphoria seems a bit forced, to me. And they seem more angry than island-sunners should be. How sure are we that the pains the Right is experiencing right now, aren't fundamentally related to those that are causing democrats to be somewhat less than ebulliently happy? I'm not suggesting that it's 'cause we're all suffering from the economy. Instead, I'm wondering if BOTH repubicans and democrats feel abandoned right now -- that they're both waiting for Obama to emerge as an empowered, assertive daddy. Perhaps Pelusi is happy because Obama right now still is somewhat like her mother to her, like her and her friends, in that he is the elite, polished/mannered, person-in-power, who is not yet charged-up with a nation's passion. He is the salmon-eating, ivy-leaguer, who looks trepedatiously at a coarse nation, that Hillary Clinton believed America would never be able to relate to. This won't last for long. And I suspect when things settle in, when he becomes more Andrew Jackson and less John Quincy Adams, the mannered left will feel less easy with him. Whether the Right will declare him their Omighty, I can't yet tell. But to me it is more than a possibility: I actually expect it.

Link: Salon