The Freudian Melodrama of the Republican Party

It was inevitable that some segment of American society would embody its adolescence but not that it would end up concentrated in a political party. That concentration was an accidental occurrence, I think, due to the opposite of serendipity, whatever that is, though it makes sense that our growing-up would include confronting the original sins of racism, segregation and slavery.

So now we have an angry, adolescent Republican Party having gone juvenile delinquent and wanting to be reassured of the strength of its guardian institutions or see them destroyed. The Democrats won't step in and aren't up to the challenge out of cowardice or poor resolve or a lack of understanding. They are weak and indulgent parents. To be fair it's not their role and responsibility.

But the animus underlying the wedding of the old, white, privileged elite with the racial resentment faction has resonated with the displaced working class and the otherwise dispossessed. What a mess. Anyway, they are hell-raising in search of reassurance of the resiliency of our social institutions. They crave manly heroes of the greatest generation-type to reign them in and make it all okay.

That isn't happening so they are following cardboard heroes for something to do until the roof falls in, fake men's men and pathetic, hollow substitutes who parade their machismo around, though the latest one isn't from Texas, at any rate, and like any wantonly destructive teenager they won't wonder what they're doing until they're standing in front of a heap of rubble feeling stupid.