PrintAugust 13, 2008
Nemesis stalks the Democrats
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti were three paranoid hospital patients in the early Sixties, each of them completely convinced he was the true incarnation of Jesus Christ. The psychologist Milton Rokeach put them all together in group therapy, thinking that they would argue each other out of their messianic beliefs. The good news is that they didn't try to kill each other. The bad news is that they didn't change their messianic delusions one little bit.
It reminds me of the Democrats. I mean, what happens when they put Algore, Obama and Jimmy Carter together in the same padded room? Do they all come down with Prophet Envy? Do they have hysterical cat fights, and need emergency resuscitation if they faint from the vapors? Does Michelle call in big muscle from Louis Farrakhan to keep the peace?
Just look at the liberal list of Planetary Saviors:
- Jimmy Carter, now living as an international nag, to loud cheers from the sneering snobs of Europe and the UN, Iran and the Arabian deserts;
- Al Gore, driven mad by his Florida loss to George W. Bush, who got so snippified that he sued and sued until the US Supremes slapped him down, then carried his rage around the world until he became the superfatted incarnation of international eco-fury;
- John Kerry, who accused his Vietnam buddies of rape and murder, and then went around for forty years with his Swiftboat Navy hat folded in his briefcase;
- The Clintons with their folie a deux, determined to get four presidential terms, two for him and two for her;
- and finally we have today's popular extravaganza, Senator Barack Obama and his Flying Circus. There was Senator O, taking his self-congratulatory victory lap three months before the US election, in front of 200,000 Citizens of the World in Berlin -- while disdaining the chance to face his Republican opponent in town hall meetings in front of American voters.
What do all those Democrats have in common? They're infected with Savioritis Pestis, a generally harmless disorder which explodes into a global pandemic when it is caught by ambitious pols. For some reasons Republicans never catch this disease, possibly because they would be laughed out of town before the sun goes down. But when Nancy Pelosi was asked the other week why she shut down any House debate on oil drilling, her Frisco airhead answer just came out, "I'm just trying to Save the Planet." Don't bother me with grubby facts, I'm busy being Jesus. And nobody in the mainstream media even snickered.
Al Gore is now hailed around the world for the global warming fraud, working hard to forge a really big ball and chain to drag down the American economy. Jimmy Carter is currying favor with terrorists and their thug sponsors, and telling us just to get over 9/11, for goodness' sake; it's not like it was Pearl Harbor or anything. John Kerry has never gotten over his personal JFK Complex, though Kennedy was a real war hero, while Kerry is a proven fraud.
And then there is Senator O and his Lady Michelle, who have so little control over their blown-up egos that they have already lost the polling bump that comes with a solid media slobber from the Left.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad, said the sly old Greeks. The madness they were thinking of was hubris, of course, "overweening pride," which was destined to bring forth the divine revenge of Nemesis. The Greeks believed in hubris and Nemesis because they saw a lot of egomania in their world.
American politicians are trying to catch up with the ancients. The Democrats are infested with hubris like lice on a mangy dog. It's not just one swelled-head politician; it's a whole parade of them.
American voters have quietly noticed all that. That's why John Kerry and Al Gore lost. It's why Hillary and Bill were thrown over by the Left as soon as a fresh new savior showed up. It's also why Dukakis, Mondale and McGovern crashed and burned, one after the other. Most Americans would rather keep their Savior for religious worship, thank you.
Egomania has always triggered a backlash from Americans. It makes us different from Europe. George Washington was honored for retiring to his farm after two terms, not for grabbing more and more tyrannical power like Napoleon. Thomas Jefferson made a point of humbly walking on foot to his inauguration; he knew his fellow countrymen. Abe Lincoln told corny jokes and started the whole born-in-a-log-cabin tradition. Harry Truman started as a small-town haberdasher, and was happy to leave Washington, D.C. and go back to Independence when he was done.
Reagan was a big Hollywood celebrity, but blessed with humility -- not something we get a chance to see much of these days. Our movie actors have caught the messiah bug just like the leftie pols. It's a cheap ego trip, and it takes zero talent.
For two centuries American politicians were expected to eat humble pie to get their votes. An overblown ego was the road to political death. While Europe had its Napoleon invading every country from Spain to Russia, Otto Bismarck starting the Franco-Prussian war of revenge, Queen Victoria conquering the oceans as the Empress of India, the Habsburg Kaisers and the Czars of Muscovy, tens of thousands of preening, goose-stepping soldiers, the King of Belgium and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and the whole shebang coming to a disastrous climax with Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin.
Meanwhile, American presidents desperately tried for the common touch. Yes, we had big egos in Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and FDR. But Teddy got his boots dirty hunting bear in the West. FDR had his fireside chats, and the voters revolted against his effort to pack the Supreme Court. FDR's four terms scandalized even Democrats, and led to the 22nd Amendment. Woodrow Wilson just burned out trying to Save the Planet.
Not any more.
The rising tide of leftist egomania has burst its banks at last and is now rising all around us. Senator O and his lady are now the biggest snooties in American politics. It's possible that the American people have changed, and that we have just learned to bow down to our political class like the Europeans. Certainly liberals love to smooch the clay feet of their idols -- Al Gore, Jimmy, and now Senator O. Democrat politicians keep morphing into pop idols, flaunting their gauche caviar snobbery like Hollywood stars visiting Paris.
American conservatives still hang on to rugged individualism. George W. Bush takes pride in cutting dry brush on his dusty Texas ranch, dragging along the complaining Washington press corps to Crawford. Bob Dole never said a word about his lifelong injuries from the Italian campaign in World War II. John McCain comes from a family of Navy admirals, but he's had the shine rubbed off by years of flying carrier aircraft, followed by the Hanoi Hilton, chronic injuries and a quarter century in Washington politics.
Individualism puts conservatives at a huge disadvantage, as the Left swarms through the big institutions they love so dearly: The education bureaucracy, the colleges, all the layers of government, institutionalized science, the liberal media. The only thing that saves conservative politicians is the American people. If they happen to feel like it.
Talk radio, computers and the web have empowered independent-minded individuals -- for now. Rush Limbaugh is the quintessential rugged individual; he runs a small-business radio show, not a messianic circus. It was independent bloggers who nailed Dan Rather and CBS News, and who just unmasked Senator O's dubious Hawaii birth certificate. John Edwards is out of politics because he was exposed by a tabloid, a story that was sneered at by our corrupt and incompetent professional media, but amplified beyond supermarket checkout stands by the blogosphere. John Kerry was "Swiftboated" in liberal martyrology, though a proven military fraud, and Al Gore couldn't steal Florida because the alternative media were watching.
Even Bill Clinton was taken down by the alternative media, known to liberals as the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy. But it's all just the inevitable rise of Nemesis, as American voters rediscover their power to bring our would-be-royalty down to earth.
Still -- the Obamas are ridin' high today. If they falter, the Hillary coronation will start again. It doesn't matter who it is; on the Left, the lust for frail human idols to worship just keeps going.
It is the perhaps the most fundamental difference between leftists and adults. Long may it live.
James Lewis blogs at dangeroustimes.wordpress.com.
