On Self-Hatred and Deception

From The Daily Show: “When Obama says this stuff, I don’t think he really means it…and that gives me hope!”

When I ask Obama-supporters just why they’re so in thrall to his hope-and-change mantra—usually after they’ve finished deriding me as some kind of maladjusted cynic— I’m told, over and over, that they “like what he says.” Whether or not you acknowledge the massive PR and marketing efforts behind the recent presidential campaign, in light of our country’s history, the gullibility at work is simply breathtaking. As Glen Allport puts it in “Why Does the World Feel Wrong?”, “the same populace that has intimate experience with lying politicians appears utterly smitten with a smooth-talking new president promising change and demanding sacrifice.”

A few nights ago in the Castro district of San Francisco, I saw an Obama stencil for sale in a shop window, presumably for spray-painting the visage of Our Dear Leader wherever one goes. Very practical: you can make your own t-shirts, for example, or perhaps spray Obama’s face over your partner’s. And there was other Obama merchandise in the vicinity.

Now, the Castro is famous as the gay hub in an ostensibly gay-friendly city. Earlier that evening I had even wandered into an area bookstore where a reading was taking place on the subject of gays “learning to love themselves,” build their self-esteem, and resist a culture that tells them that their very existence is wrong.

Which is why the uncritical support for Obama from so many gays and their straight supporters absolutely blows my mind. Perhaps gay self-esteem is in even bigger trouble than anyone expected, if gays are so willing to lie to themselves about the predominant culture’s attitude toward them: one in which both major presidential candidates voice categorical opposition to gay marriage. From the Raționalitate blog, in “Obama on gay marriage: for it ‘fore he was ‘gainst it“:

Via the Huffington Post, Barack Obama told reporters for the Windy City Times during his 1996 Senate seat campaign that he “favor[s] legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Funny, because he told MTV during the election that he is “not in favor of gay marriage.” There’s not even room for linguistic weaseling – he didn’t just say that he wouldn’t support it politically, he said that he outright does not favor it.

Also, back in 1996 he said that not only does he support gay marriage, but that he would fight those who oppose it. Which leaves me a bit puzzled as to where he was when California was debating Proposition 8, whose anti-gay marriage outcome was at least in part influenced by the votes of Obama’s most loyal constituency, African-Americans.

As I’ve mentioned previously, even those who are usually politically apathetic were taking pains to oppose Prop 8 in California—and show their love for Obama. Why doesn’t anyone acknowledge the cognitive dissonance? Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe everyone else has internalized the old Fitzgerald mantra, that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” The problem is that I don’t think anyone’s actually acknowledging the conflict, or that ideas are even involved; they’re rationalizing it away by saying that they think Obama’s just “saying it to get elected,” to avoid political suicide. In other words: they are willing to cast their vote for a liar, and indeed hope their candidate is lying.

Yet this would appear to conflict with the claim that they “like what he says.” What is one supposed to make of this mass of contradictions? That Obama was telling the truth about things they do like and agree with, and just happened to be lying about all the things they didn’t like, and, additionally, that it’s virtuous to lie for the sake of attaining power? Why would Obama be lying about gay marriage, and other issues dear to liberal hearts—just to appease Republicans, and not lying when he says things aimed explicitly at appeasing Democrats?

Okay, perhaps I’m ignoring the bigger picture: that Obama was a peace candidate, and would redistribute income—both issues supposedly dear to the socialist-minded. Well, as numerous bloggers have warned, Obama immediately proved himself a capable war criminal, and he certainly endorsed the redistribution of income—but from poor to rich via the Wall Street bailout, not via the embodiment of some Robin Hood fantasy. (See Justin Raimondo’s Inauguration Day, 2009: A Day of Mourning and Arthur Silber here, and here.) And, for those few left (left?) who profess concern over “civil liberties,” he also endorsed warrantless wiretapping.

Basically, I’m resentful that I must be on the defensive—from liberal hostility—because I didn’t swoon over a liar, homophobe, swindler, and war criminal. If anything, shouldn’t I be resenting the people who went out and voted for a man while earnestly hoping that he was lying on the most important issues, and who betrayed them on every matter they allege to hold dear? I’m sorry, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. And if I seem hateful, I think it hardly compares to the degree to which the cheerleading Democrats hold their own intelligence in contempt.