Tea-Bullies

Posted on September 15, 2010 in Campaign 2010 Scoundrels

Politics is a topic forbidden to me by my psychiatrist. Especially in times like these, I depend on others to put out the facts. It discourages me when people write off the Tea-baggers as mentally ill because not only are they not this, but it allows people to not take the election itself seriously.

The Tea Baggers are not mentally ill, but they are intent on causing mental illness, specifically anxiety and depression, among their opponents. It is often said that the heart of their objection to Obama is racism, but I suspect something very different. We can apply here the viewpoint of a British site on bullying:

Bullying is persistent unwelcome behaviour, mostly using unwarranted or invalid criticism, nit-picking, fault-finding, also exclusion, isolation, being singled out and treated differently, being shouted at, humiliated, excessive monitoring, having verbal and written warnings imposed, and much more.

I suggest that the Tea-Baggers like other members of the conservatively politically correct squad do these things to annoy and hurt. Why choose the Democrats? It has nothing to do with their positions (other than no tax breaks for the wealthy), but with the fact that they strive for integrity and truth. It annoys the Tea-Bullies (as they could properly be called) that Obama is competent, that people like him, that he has a well defined set of values that defend women and other non-rich members of society, that he makes up his own mind. It enthralls them that he happens to have an exploitable feature in his race. In true bully style, they refuse to discuss what they actually stand for aside from tax breaks and refuse to understand other points of view. At the heart of it is a deep fear of their own inadequacy as evidenced by their relentless pursuit of money and defense of the possession of large amounts of it as an indicator of human value. They belittle because they lost the election. They do not compromise (observe the Republican lock-step which only recently gave way when five of the party voted for a jobs-bill) because they find the sharing of power unsettling.

They, too, are part of America, but the problem is that they want to be the only definition of America. It is important to vote them down in the election to come not only because their values are out and out evil and predatory, but also because it is important to send the message that this kind of politics — backed as it is by corporate interests who are widening the gap between the rich and the rest of us — does not make for a United States, but a fragmented one easily susceptible to the viruses of jingoism and despair. They want an unhappy America so they can feel valued. We must not let their sickness become our governance in the years to come.