Let Them Eat War

In an AlterNet essay, UC Berkeley Sociologist Arlie Hochschild speculates about why so many blue collar white males support Bush against their own best interests:

Whether strutting across a flight deck or mocking the enemy, Bush with his seemingly fearless bravado--ironically born of class entitlement--offers an aura of confidence. And this confidence dampens, even if temporarily, the feelings of insecurity and fear exacerbated by virtually every major domestic and foreign policy initiative of the Bush administration. Maybe it comes down to this: George W. Bush is deregulating American global capitalism with one hand while regulating the feelings it produces with the other. Or, to put it another way, he is doing nothing to change the causes of fear and everything to channel the feeling and expression of it. He speaks to a working man's lost pride and his fear of the future by offering an image of fearlessness. He poses here in his union jacket, there in his pilot's jumpsuit, taunting the Iraqis to "bring 'em on"--all of it meant to feed something in the heart of a frightened man. In this light, even Bush's "bad boy" past is a plus. He steals a wreath off a Macy's door for his Yale fraternity and careens around drunk in Daddy's car. But in the politics of anger and fear, the Republican politics of feelings, this is a plus.

In other words, white American men secretly fear that they're just a bunch of big wussies: supporting the Grand Old Badass Party makes them feel like hot shit. Insane, isn't it? That's the USA in 2003.

For more, click here.

Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link.

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