Barak Obama did a bit of analysis. He proposed that the middle class voters had retreated into Religion, Guns, and Racism because they were "bitter" about their plight. The spinmeisters accused him of being elitist. I presume they played it to mean that Obama was putting this group down – saying they were less than. I think, in the context it was delivered, he was actually defending them, but that’s neither here nor there.
In psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, what Obama did is called an interpretation, assigning a meaning to something that is different from the one presented. He was saying that the people who seem like religious zealots, gun nuts, and racists are really acting out an emotion, bitterness, at how they’ve been treated in one way or another. In my profession, one doesn’t throw interpretations around lightly – for many reasons, but up front, you’re saying to a person – "you don’t know what you’re doing!" In addition, you’re saying, "I know you better than you know yourself." Therapists in training often learn to sleuth out hidden meanings long before they learn when and how to deliver them in a helpful way. So they bludgeon their patients with premature, unwanted, or downright wrong interpretations [accounting for their inability to hold onto their early clients, who leave saying "he was a know-it-all snob"].
Obama broke some of our rules with his comment, to be sure. Maybe it was even elitist, but that’s not my complaint. I think he was wrong. The hyper-religious, and gun toting, bigotry comes from much more primitive sources – greed, envy, power, fear, hatred, paranoia, aggression, group narcissism. Obama was being naive. Human beings are Xenophobic [fear of strangers], banding together against "the other" by nature. It is only a civilized lot that can rise above it. If Obama wants to address these darker places in the human psyche, he would do well to learn more about them.
In fact, I hope does. In this case, he could’ve stayed on the surface – religion, guns, racism and simply pointed out that those are strong currents right now – something that needs to be understood more fully. And left it at that. One cannot interpret a reason for something until it has been established as existing. On the other hand, he could’ve said that there is a lot of bitterness right now, probably a lot of it is justified, and that the bitterness needs to be better understood if we’re going to move forward. People can relate to feeling bitter [because they feel it]. But hooking up bitterness with their religion, guns, and racism seems like an accusation and a put-down – and his opponents jumped on it like locusts.
What does a therapist do when there is a reaction like this? Says, "You know I connected A to B, and it’s obvious that what I said hurt you. I’m sorry. I guess it felt like an accusation. Which part hurt? Which part did I get wrong?" Obama might even say, "If I were white, I think I might feel bitter about affirmative action and some of the other programs that came out of the Civil Rights Movement. Is that not right?"
Karl Rove: I don’t find a lot of people in rural America, I certainly don’t find the dominant view to be — “I’m so bitter that I’m going to hold on to my gun or I’m gonna” — You know, it was almost Marxian in this they cling to their religion. I mean, you know, it’s sort of like it’s the opiate of the masses.
Glen Beck: I hope it doesn’t matter to Barack. But he has heard the message of Jesus that shared prosperity is the thing to do. Hope, change, Marxism. This guy is a socialist and all you have to do is listen to his words.
I know this is off your topic and I apologize for that, but I thought you might find the article on the website Our Future.org/thebigcon about the Keating 5 legacy might be interesting to you. John McCain is one of the Keating 5 and if that doesn’t bring some fear about McCain and the common folk I don’t know what will. He and 4 other senators met with Charles Keating and instead of helping the people they helped the crooks in high places. It happened about 21 years ago. Is McCain going to use that it was because of his youthful indiscretion (he was about 50)that he mishandled the explosive banking scandal. Boy, if that doesn’t tell you that he told the truth when he said he wasn’t that knowledgable about economic issues. before he said that he didn’t say that I don’t know will.
Concerning McCain and Obama, Clinton, a new Reuters/Zogby poll says that McCain would do better than Clinton with the economy issue but that Obama would be tied with McCain. Do you think the poll numbers would be the same if the people knew about McCain being one of the banking scandal Keatings 5? I don’t think so.