Mitt Romney and the "Narcissism of Minor Differences"

I just heard the news that Mitt Romney announced at the big conservative confab that he's cutting his losses and pulling out of the 2008 presidential race. That's too bad because all along I thought Romney was actually the least odious of the Republican presidential contenders.

Romney is not 110 years old like John McCain and not from Arizona, a state where a significant contingent of the Republican Party would love be able to shoot Mexicans for sport.

And unlike Mike Huckabee, Romney believes in evolution, isn't a NASCAR aficionado or a former clergyman, and doesn't roam with Chuck Norris when he's not playing the bass at cracker rallies.

Romney at least heralded from Massachusetts, a state where he had to work inside a political milieu that didn't see gays and lesbians as "abominations," and there's a disproportionate number of people who actually went to college.

But as with the case of trying to explain George W. Bush's irrational hatred of his father's failed presidency, or the Republican Right's obsession with bashing gays and lesbians even while its own ranks team with closeted gay people, we have to turn to Sigmund Freud to really understand Mitt Romney's downfall. When people who have much in common culturally or ethnically butcher each other in bitter disputes like Hutus against Tutsis, or Shias against Sunnis, or Israelis against Palestinians, Freud called this tendency the "narcissism of minor differences." Mitt Romney ran up against this with the right-wing Christian evangelical base of the Republican Party.

To secularists, right-wing Mormons (think Orrin Hatch) and right-wing evangelicals (think James Dobson) appear to be almost identical. They're homophobic, fiercely anti-abortion, wish to eliminate the line between church and state, and are as generally militaristic as they are misogynistic. But 39 percent of Christian evangelicals inside the Republican Party have told pollsters pretty consistently this election season that they would never -- ever -- in a million years vote for a Mormon to be their party's candidate. It's pretty weird, but right-wing Christian home-schoolers and their ilk really have it in for Mormons. Call it the "narcissism of minor differences."

You see, I saw this tendency first hand when I visited Lander, Wyoming last summer. Some members of my wife's family are straight up home-schooling right-wing Christian evangelicals. They're great people, they love their children, and they want to see the society embrace moral values. They subscribe to World magazine. They will always vote Republican based on a single issue: abortion. To them the Democrats are the party of baby killers and that's the end of it. I think the gay issue doesn't even register either way with them. But they save their greatest contempt for the Mormons in their community and the Mormon Church in general. The see it as an aberration, as heretical, they see Mormons as apostates the same way some Sunnis view Shias. It's a divide that can never be crossed no matter how many issues they might agree on. It's a doctrinal and cultural schism. They particularly don't like the fact that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young bogarted so many young maidens back in the day to father over 50 children each. There's just something unnatural and weird about one man, and a "man of God" to boot, siring over 50 kids. And they have "saints" and "elders" and rituals and "garments" in the Mormon Church that most right-wing Christian evangelicals just can't deal with.

So no matter how much Mitt Romney tried to pander to the base of the party and move away from his Mormonism as an issue, using JFK as a model, it was all to no avail. So Mitt Romney, probably the most capable and least horrible of the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, was done in by the intolerance of the evangelical base of the Republican Party. Praise Da Lord!

Comments

[Cathexis]

Those who live by the Bigotry, die by the Bigotry.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Romney is definitely a Stepford candidate, but he seemed to be more willing to flip flop than the others -- I never liked Mitt -- but can you imagine listening to grandpa McCain's voice for 4 years after we've had to endure Bush's for 8 years? Please make it stop!

[darcy]

Excellent analysis!!

[mommadona]

On this one, I have to agree with the Christian perception.

The Mormon church is literally a theocracy with Utah as their base/state.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Maybe he finally realized, 'hey, I can't just buy this job, anymore, I might actually have to DO it. What's that guy barking about with the Constitution bit? That's just a piece of paper, that's what George said! I never read THAT stuff! I just read about all that fat defense money!'
Something like that...

Maybe they ought to make that job be by mandatory appointment...you get called, like for jury duty...if you're a citizen, and have not been convicted of a felony, and are of sound mind and body, eligible age, you have to go to the thing...THAT would open up the field quite a bit, don'tcha think? Make it a WRITTEN test, like 10 pages! Failure/refusal to appear= automatic year in jail.
Guy opens up the letter, 'greetings', oh CRAP, I got called for the presidential vetting process!

There'd be a run on 1-way plane tickets to bora-bora, I think...whaaat? You gotta memorize the Constitutioner and the minmits, and know the names of all 50 states and their capitals, the Stamp Act, whaaat!?!?! SONOFA...operator? Get me the Smith n Jones travel agency right away!

[ShawnMichel]

I have trouble with the idea of fundamentalists being "great people." Rather oxymoronic, really.

SMdM

[Optimist]

You don't need to turn to Freud; you only have to watch Mitt for about 1 minute to understand why he lost: the man is totally plastic, phony, insincere, fake, and ungrounded in any stable principles.

[pfc1369]

Romney "at least hearlded from Massachusetts" ?

Perhaps "hailed," but that would not be entirely accurate either.

[Querent]

"Hailed" would be the usual diction, but in the absence of flag-stop passenger train service, would also be literally non-descriptive. "Romney at least was from Massachusetts" seems to do it, although I'm not sure being from Massachusetts merits an "at least". Odd diction for odd observations.

[WyomingYouth]

I laughed when I read about the evangelical home-schooling people;mostly because it describes my sister and her husband to a t. My sister considers the Mormons a cult and despises Romney as does most of her church.

[Querent]

Mormonism IS a cult. It's a paternalistic hierarchy which aims to be the primary social context, even displacing family. Hard-core evangelical Christians may be as regimented as Mormons, but at least their hierarchy is more egalitarian, usually including adult male family heads who profess membership, and tends to be centered on the local level. Plus, among fundamentalist protestants, family takes precedence over congregational relations. Sometimes cultic behavior arises in non-descript protestant variations, but it rarely occurs in mainstream denominations.

Fortunately, Mormonism outside of Salt Lake City tends to be like conventional protestantism in other ways. It gets lax. It is honored mainly in the breach. It has more ceremonial than real authority in most contexts. In other words, most Mormons are not only not completely controlled by the cult, they also are not "real" Christians. Just like most other protestants.

[DoninJoisey]

Romney was the male version of Hillary (but without a famous mate).
Mr.Spin. That his transparency was recognized gives me hope that the erosion of support for the vacuous Hillary will continue.

[MsLiz]

The Republican party has fostered intolerance for so long it was bound to turn inward.