In a previous blog posted on October 16, 2008, I described how racism in the 2008 presidential campaign is largely the result of a hatred and fear of "the other" that is deeply embedded within the human psyche from birth. "The other" is often an ambiguous stimulus upon him we can project disowned, hated parts of our selves and hated internal parental figures. These psychodynamics also apply to the hatred between Republicans and Democrats, evidenced by the venomous stereotyping of Republicans by Democrats and Democrats by Republicans. For example, Pat Buchanan on the Chris Mathews Show, largely attributing Collin Powell's support of Barack Obama to racism.
Even mental health professionals, most of whom are liberal, often cannot believe how Republicans can possibly think and feel as they do, hatefully stereotyping them as virtual Nazis, and have used conferences to scapegoat Republicans in the name of deepening psychological understanding of political processes. This is amazing since psychotherapists are professional empathizers, who put themselves in the shoes of others every day. Yet so many have difficulty placing themselves in the shoes of nearly 50% of the American population. And I am as guilty as anyone. The Simon Weisenthal center for the study of intolerance points out that we are all prejudiced, and must accept this fact in order to confront it within ourselves to modulate its toxic influence.
However, the motivation for the hatred between Democrats and Republicans, in addition to the dynamic of "otherness" is also the result of a profound internal conflict within America's psyche. On November 26th, 2000 when the two houses of congress were equally divided between Democrats and Republicans and the presidential election between George W and Al Gore was virtually deadlocked, quite similar to today, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed piece of mine in the Sunday, "Opinion" section which addresses the psychodynamics of this conflict.
In the article I said:
"Broadly speaking, the Democratic Party's vision of government is roughly equivalent to a powerful, nurturing mother figure protecting and caring for the needy and downtrodden. By contrast, the Republican ideal embodies a strong father figure who rewards people for taking responsibility for their own lives and who supports independent initiative. The Democratic "breast-mother" government satisfies the basic human need to be taken care of by a loving, tolerant parent; the Republican father figure fulfills the need to break from parental domination, to have control over one's life and to pursue one's fortune.
"Psychologically, the basic human need of maternal nurturance often conflicts with the need for autonomy. During adolescence, this conflict plays out: Children struggle to liberate themselves from their need for parental care by rebelling against parental authority and trying to assume personal responsibility for their lives. However, even after the adolescent has attained adulthood and become more self-reliant, the psychological need to be taken care of persists to varying degrees and remains in conflict with the need for separation and autonomy. In the political arena, Americans try to resolve this personal conflict by voting for the party that represents their strongest internal need.
"Americans who have traditionally been more in need of help or care-women, the working class, the aged, the disabled, immigrants, certain racial and religious minorities, gays, etc.-and Americans who support them are more likely to vote Democratic. For these voters, liberal means the generosity of a nurturing governing structure. In contrast, they view Republicans as uncaring, hardhearted and greedy, a party of the rich and powerful demanding that government support their aggressive, self-serving (often entrepreneurial) needs.
"For liberal Democrats, conservative is often equated with depriving the hungry and poor of government support through tax dodges, paying employees the lowest wages and benefits they can get away with, exploiting "Mother Earth" for profit and risking gun violence for the "macho" preference to hunt. They view the Republican stance against abortion as a willingness to ruin a woman's life in favor of the right of a fetus to live, again supporting the vital interest of the "child's" autonomy against a "murderous" maternal authority.
"In contrast, Americans who live according to an ethic of self-reliance and subscribe to an individual's right to control his own life, money and property with minimal interference are more likely to vote for a paternal Republican government. For these voters, government represents a powerful, controlling parental figure, a necessary evil that potentially threatens individual autonomy by "stealing" earned money through excessive taxes. The ideal Republican governance does not spoil or infantilize the people with nurturing, protective handouts but requires them to be responsible for themselves and supports independent initiative through tax breaks" and protects home and hearth with guns.
"If Democrats and Republicans signify the human need to be taken care of versus the need for autonomy and control, then the nearly fifty-fifty split in Congress and in the Presidential election, suggests that these basic psychological needs are exceptionally well represented in the American body politic." In most presidential and congressional elections, the results are very close. "A fifty-fifty split means that the only way for each party to fulfill its political agenda is to compromise with the needs of the other. Ideally, this would lead to more balanced political programs and great psychological satisfaction for the American people."
"But government might also remain stalemated by partisan politics" as it has been for the last eight years in the Bush administration. In other words, elected politicians might self-destructively choose not to compromise, as they did in the bailout vote. One- hundred and thirty-three Republicans in the House of Representatives initially voted against the bailout because it compromised their principles of deregulation and personal freedom. Ninety-five Democrats voted against it largely because they didn't feel that the average American on Main Street was sufficiently protected. This vote led to the 777 point plunge in the Dow and frustrated most Americans who feared economic catastrophe. They regretted electing politicians unwilling to make the concessions necessary to fulfill their needs.
"Unfortunately, America cannot avoid this conflict. U.S. politics will inevitably be divisive because of the inherent unconscious conflict between the need to be taken care of, as represented by Democrats, and the desire for autonomy and control, embodied by Republicans. It is the dynamic struggle between these two competing psychological needs that serves as a major catalyst for human growth, both individually and politically. Ironically, the most representative election outcome, a fifty-fifty split provides the greatest opportunity to fulfill the psychological wishes of the American people while also leaving them ripe for political deadlock."
Let us hope that the catastrophic domestic and world situation confronting the new President and Congress is sufficiently motivating to repair America's devastated psyche by overcoming the vitriolic hatred of "the other" and by ameliorating the self-destructive conflict between dependency and autonomy.