The personal is political

One of the reasons I'm interested in politics is that it is a fascinating way to observe both individual and social human behavior. I believe that we are now living in an era in which our behavior must evolve and adapt. That is scaring the shit out of a lot of people.

For example, Rep. Mo Brooks is scared because he's losing his white privileged position. So much so that he thinks there is a "war on whites."

This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. It’s a part of the strategy that Barack Obama implemented in 2008, continued in 2012, where he divides us all on race, on sex, greed, envy, class warfare, all those kinds of things.

Lately we've gotten used to this kind of rhetoric - the kind that says that if you stand up for people of color you're attacking white people. Never mind that Barack Obama launched his political career saying things like this:

Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

I get that Rep. Brooks is scared about the fact that soon white people will lose their majority status in this country, and that the presidency of Barack Obama symbolizes that change. But he's just going to have to adapt and reconcile himself to the death of normal.

Another example is what Rev. Mark Driscoll said in an on-line forum a few years ago. Do you think maybe he's more that a little bit scared of the role of women in todays world?

We live in a completely pussified nation.

We could get every man, real man as opposed to pussified James Dobson knock-off crying Promise Keeping homoerotic worship loving mama’s boy sensitive emasculated neutered exact male replica evangellyfish, and have a conference in a phone booth. It all began with Adam, the first of the pussified nation, who kept his mouth shut and watched everything fall headlong down the slippery slide of hell/feminism when he shut his mouth and listened to his wife who thought Satan was a good theologian when he should have lead [sic] her and exercised his delegated authority as king of the planet. As a result, he was cursed for listening to his wife and every man since has been his [sic] pussified sit quietly by and watch a nation of men be raised by bitter penis envying burned feministed single mothers who make sure that Johnny grows up to be a very nice woman who sits down to pee.

Its important to note that Rev. Driscoll was using a sock puppet in the on-line forum when he wrote that. I suspect it gave him the freedom to post his authentic feelings. Since he was outed as the author, he has apologized for his language, but not the sentiment expressed.

This season was messy and I sinned and cussed a lot, but God somehow drew a straight line with my crooked Philistine stick. I had a good mission, but some of my tactics were born out of anger and burnout...

Most people will immediately see Rev. Driscoll's misogyny in what he posted. But can you feel the fear as well? I find it palpable.

I'll grant you that Rep. Brooks and Rev. Driscoll have articulated the extreme. In doing so, they've also articulated the fear that is driving much of the reaction we're seeing politically. Republican leadership has been able to mobilize this fear to give them cover in implementing their strategy of obstruction. In many ways we're gridlocked politically because too many people are afraid of the change that is inevitable. IOW, the personal is political.