There was a time when Coulter, Cheney, and Bush could consider
themselves in the majority. They could say of themselves that their
ideas and policies had found public favor, and so they must be right,
or at least popular. Those times are gone. Bush's ratings are in the
twenties, Cheney's are around fifteen or so, and Coulter has been
criticized over and over by her own allies for going too far with her
trademark hate-speech. But Coulter, Cheney, and Bush just stick with
what they know. They do the very thing that gets them in trouble over
and over, and, if possible, they intensify or expand it. We know of
Bush that he is no longer looking for the approval of us, his
contemporaries. Now he is looking for the approval of history--somehow,
someday, he plans to be vindicated, and he reads plenty of presidential
biographies to bolster his nerve. Talk about betting on a longshot!
Cheney, who is reported to carry a hazmat suit with him everywhere,
seems positively delusional. As the situation deteriorates even further
in Iraq, he travels around the world, telling people who know better
that everything in Iraq is great, and that the administration's
policies are a big success. And you have to agree with him--the war on
terror is certainly working, if representatives of the Taliban can get
close enough to try to assassinate him--not! Coulter, who drew serious
fire last summer when she attacked the 9/11 widows, is back at CPAC
using her influence to undermine any Republican presidential hopeful
who supports her. McCain, Romney, and Giuliani can try all they want to
distance themselves from her, but she is going to stick to them until
they all go down together. No, Bush, Cheney, and Coulter haven't
learned, and yes, they can't learn. What they demonstrate is that their
brand of "conservatism" is beyond reason and learning, and is, in fact,
an uncontrollable pathology. It will not be Cheney and Bush who refrain
from attacking Iran because they have realized that it is beyond stupid
and well into suicidal to do so, it will be others who prevent it. As
for Coulter, she will continue to invite her supporters to mock and
disdain those she disagrees with until she has no more supporters and
becomes simply a freak show.
If you look Coulter up in Wikipedia, you will see that she makes a
revealing remark about her "faith": she believes Christ's message is
that "People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky
day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it,
and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it." "According to
liberals," though, "the message of Jesus ... is something along the
lines of 'be nice to people.'" In other words, Coulter embraces
Christianity as an expression of absolute shame and humiliation and
Christ as primarily a victim.
One thing that was astonishing about the Bush administration between
2002 and 2004, when it had, to all appearances, a lock on political
power in this country, was that this sense of victimization was
pervasive. Victimized by Joe Wilson! Victimized by the press (who
actually collaborated with them in hiding all their crimes)! Victimized
by Saddam Hussein! Victimized, according to Coulter, by the 9/11 widows
and by people who don't want to be called "faggots"! Victimized by the
captives in Abu Ghraib and the detainees at Gitmo! Victimized,
according to Dinesh D'Souza, by those families who don't look or act
like traditional nuclear families!
Things that D'Souza says are also telling. How is Osama Bin Laden like
American liberal culture? You or I might not see any similarities at
all, since Bin Laden is a militant Islamist who would like for America
to get out of Afghanistan and for American liberals to abide by sharia
law. To American liberals, Bin Laden represents every atavistic,
violent social dynamic that they have tried with all their might to
leave behind. For D'Souza, though, liberals and Bin Laden are the same,
because they victimize him equally. These feelings of victimization
(which are evident in the tone of grievance that these conservatives
habitually voice), are the key to Bush/Cheney/Coulter conservatism
because it is these feelings that are never assuaged or satisfied in a
society where all citizens are created equal.
The liberal ideal is that the marketplace would be level, the law
would work impartially, and the rules would be the same for everyone. Some
liberals additionally believe that historical crimes should be
rectified, and that the state should provide the same services for all
citizens (in fact, this latter policy was shown, a couple of weeks ago,
to produce considerably better lives for the children of Scandinavia
and the Netherlands than those of the more conservative US and UK). One
rationale behind liberal social policies is that they are just, but
another is that they work better to prevent disaster--children whose
mothers get excellent prenatal care, for example, have a better chance
at being born healthy and living healthy lives, and therefore of
costing less and producing more.
What we notice among conservatives like Coulter, Cheney, Bush, and
some Christian groups is that "equality" means nothing--they feel
victimized if they are not dominant and if challenges to their
dominance are not suppressed. Bush and Cheney want unfettered power;
Coulter wants to incite explosions, murders, and hate-crimes. Any
attempt on the part of anyone to diminish their power in any way they
perceive as an attack on all of their power. This is what makes them
dangerous, in the same way that killers and abusers are especially
dangerous when they are challenged by their potential victims.
People like Cheney, Bush, and Coulter always present a problem to the
societies they live in, because they are hair-trigger aggressive. Their
"fight or flight" instincts are easily aroused and they cannot perceive
the actual degree of danger in any situation--all dangers are equally
overwhelming, and so must always be met with an overwhelmingly forceful
response, which is as likely as not to get them into even more trouble.
Cheney's hazmat suit and his refusal to discuss his daughter's
lesbianism show the same terror as Bush's constant use of the word
"terrorist" to describe those who disagree with American aims in those
"terrorists'" very own countries. The terms Coulter is always using to
disparage perceived rivals--terms having to do with sexuality, gender
roles, and looks--show where her terror lies.
As their supporters desert them and they come to feel more and more
endangered, the question becomes one of containment. We have all
noticed that Bush and Cheney are more dangerous. Quietly subverting
them has become a Pentagon project; whether it can be done is an open
question, given that they still have a core of true believers.
Fortunately, Coulter doesn't yet have her finger on the red button, but
looking at her, you can begin to understand some of the female crazies
we have known--Madame Mao, Imelda Marcos. The best thing about
them--maybe the only good thing--is that as they become increasingly
ridiculous and frightening, they demonstrate for all to see that they
are exactly the sort of persons our society needs to innoculate itself
against.