The Republican death drive: Refusing to sacrifice anything means sacrificing everything

[Celerity]

Why are they killing themselves? Let's turn to Sigmund Freud.

https://www.editorialboard.com/the-republican-death-drive-refusing-to-sacrifice-anything-means-sacrificing-everything/



More Americans are dying from the Covid in states run by Republicans than in states run by Democrats. In terms of cold political calculation, Democratic governors are striving to save supporters from death. Yet Republican governors seem content hurtling supporters toward it. Why would they do that? When the former president refused to help “blue states” battle the new coronavirus, it was disgraceful and sadistic. Yet it was understandable (again in cold political terms). You’d think the Republicans would want to help their base. But thinking that would mean you’re thinking like a liberal. Republicans don’t do that.



When Republican leaders hurt their own – for instance, by fining business owners for asking customers to mask up, thus spreading the plague more widely – they are not undermining themselves. They are in fact fuelling an already established story about “real Americans” being the “real victims” while the real victims perpetuate political evil. How do sadist policies work with masochistic outcomes to not undermine the GOP project but instead deepen the commitment of Republican supporters to the cause of restoring America to greatness?

For an answer, I turned to Casey Ryan Kelly. He’s a professor of rhetoric and public culture at the University of Nebraska -Lincoln. His latest book is called Apocalypse Man: The Death Drive and the Rhetoric of White Masculine Victimhood. In it, Professor Kelly applies Sigmund Freud’s concept of “the death drive” to understanding not only the former president’s incendiary rhetoric but also GOP incoherence. How do you square that circle? I asked.

Casey Ryan Kelly: For nearly 40 years, conservatives have forged their political identity on the assumption that they have been exiled from politics and marginalized by changes in the culture. The problem is you have to square this idea with the fact that conservatives have made huge political gains that have ostensibly resulted in minority rule. So they have to reconcile this contradiction. There is so much legitimacy in being able to claim one is a victim that conservatives are often manufacturing their own marginalization with trivial “culture war” issues: “critical race theory,” confederate monuments, Antifa and Black Lives Matter and so on.

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[LastDemocratInSC]

1. In the movie "No Country for Old Men"

the Anton Chigurh character, an assassin, asks one of his victims "If your values brought you to this place and situation, of what good are your values?"