August 21, 2004

The Spite Vote. "IT CAME ON suddenly and without warning. Fuck the Democrats. Fuck the liberals. I hope Bush wins. I hope Bush steals another election and urinates into everyone's wounds…" A wonderfully spiteful rant by Mark Ames, link coutesy of the equally vicious Steve over at Ethel the Blog.

"The underlying major premise of humanist-leftist ideology states that people are intrinsically sympathetic. If people are defiantly mean and craven, the humanist-left structure falters. "Why the fuck should I bother fighting for Middle Americans," they ask, "if they're just as loathsome, in their own petty way, as their exploiters, with whom they actively collaborate?" "Rather than grapple with that dilemma, the left pretends it doesn't exist. This is why they will forever struggle to understand the one overriding mystery of why so many working- and middle-class white males vote against their own best interests. "I CAN TELL YOU WHY. They do so out of spite."

posted by John Hardy 20 years ago
  • Great rant! I just hope he isn't right.
  • I think the word we're groping for is ressentiment.
  • So many words, so little to say...
  • So many words, so little to say... That about sums it up.
  • Fuck the Democrats? Come on, Donny, I can tell we're not wanted here. Friends like these, Gary...
  • So many words, so little to say... After almost four years of Bush, that's pretty much status quo.
  • Well, that was completely incoherent.
  • I kept hoping he would come to a point that I could argue with. Perhaps he's saying, that the poor want to be enslaved, that they desire an industrial feudal system. If this is what he means, then there's no hope, because it's an absolutely mad philosophy. In whichcase: It comes from a toxic mix of thwarted expectations, cowardice and anomie that is unique to the white American male experience. is a valid statement. Even so, I don't think rage is the solution, he should say "strong, assertable opinions", but judging by his article, the average American wouldn't understand that.
  • Yup - I think we have a winner. This really would explain everything. I had a friend who observed something similar, though he was thinking primarily of professionals. It seemed to him that those who liked their jobs and were happy felt lucky to be in their lives, and wanted to help others. But those who felt like thay have to slave to have a good life - they felt nothing owing for their priviledge (despite the fact that those not in priviledge slave merely to keep a roof over their heads). But this explanation of how those at the bottom might feel similar resentment, even spite - this makes a lot of sense. Sad sense, but sense.
  • I don't think he saying that the poor wish to be enslaved, niccolo - he's saying that they are so blinded by resenment and rage that they don't even think clearly about their place in society, but vote for the person who gives them vicious satisfaction - as he said "the most misery at the Saradon-Robbins dining table". (Are those guys actually married, or is it just rhetoric?) I've encountered this feeling before - People who respond to a strike by other people to gain a wage raise by saying "What are they complaining about, I make that much!" when really what they make is crap, and their lives would be much better if wages went up in general. But god forbid any else do better.
  • Excellent.
  • I love Mark Ames.
    Americans hate themselves for the way they behave in public, always smiling and nodding their heads with accompanying really's and uh-huhs to show that they're listening to the other person, never having the guts to say what they really feel. So they vicariously scream and bully others into submission through right-wing surrogate-brutes.
    For those of you who are having a hard time calibrating your sensors, think of him as the quonsar of the outside world. If you don't like/get quonsar, I can't help you.
  • Brevity is the soul of rants. quonsar is brief. quonsar is funny. Mark Ames is logorrheic and unfunny. He also appears to expect us to take him seriously on some level, which imposes on him an obligation to make sense, do due diligence on his facts, and so forth. languagehat, the passage you quote is a good example of Ames' failure to make sense. The behavior he attributes to 'Americans' has nothing to do with Americans, but is human and universal. Let him watch two Japanese in conversation, one talking, the other murmuring 'naruhodo' at intervals. Probably all languages and cultures have similar mechanisms. The idea that Americans secretly hate each other, and want to 'bully others into submission through right-wing surrogate-brutes' is entirely Ames' fantasy, which he pulls out of thin air.
  • なるほど...
  • Wow- this is fucking brilliant! He's not trying to be logical, guys. This is writing from the gut. He's pointing out, I think accurately, that most people don't really think about why they vote. They respond unconciously to symbols, or emotions, or weird associations. The right has become good at manipulating these symbols, while the left hasn't. And what jb said... (Bush reminds me of all the smug jocks I hated in school, and part of my dislike is based on that. It ain't logical, but it's there.)
  • Slithy, listen to zed. Naruhodo.