Eric D & Paul
The Dems analysis, still, as it always has been for every election as long as I’ve paid atention, is that they always lose because they don’t know how to be as mean as the Republicans. I’m utterly gobsmacked by the fact that they think this, and I have no idea how or where they got this idea, but they really do think this.
Absolutely, this is a core Democratic belief.
I have heard this exact line from my husband over and over and over again—–and in fact, our “Conversation Breakthrough” happened over this exact issue.
I told him Democrats will get nowhere until they stop seeing themselves as the innocent victims of evil, lying, smearing Republicans; the Democrats will get nowhere until they “own” their own acts of aggression, lying, and smearing, until they stop telling themselves, “The mean Republicans made me do it.”
I think I’ve said this to him before, though maybe not so clearly or directly.
In any case, this time around he suddenly had a look of recognition on his face. He stopped arguing the point, and he hasn’t said a word about evil, lying, smearing Republicans since.
This meme is a huge weakness for the Democrats.
Whenever you consciously define yourself as an innocent victim you’ve given up he game for lost.
The problem goes deeper, though.
A couple of days ago, in response to something Samuel said about how it’s puzzling how often Bush does not jump into the fray and defend himself, I had a moment of recognition.
There is a famous study of dominance, aggression, and serotonin in vervet monkeys, done by Michael Raleigh & others at UCLA. I heard Raleigh talk about it.
He found that the dominant monkey always has the highest levels of serotonin.
AND: the dominant monkey does not have the highest levels of aggression.
The lower-ranking monkeys are more aggressive.
(I don’t know whether this is true of other animals, but I wouldn’t be surprised.)
Also: at this point I’m having to rely on memory, so take this with a grain of salt. But I’m 99% sure I’m remembering correctly.
The dominant monkeys were high in effective, targeted aggression.
If someone threatened the troop they responded rapidly, forcefully, and effectively.
But the rest of the time the dominant monkeys were cheerful and good-natured and peaceable, which is consistent with having high serotonin.
The lower-ranking monkeys showed a lot of impulsive aggression. They lashed out at other monkeys, got in fights, got hurt, hurt others, and so on, all without good reason.
And they never moved up in the ranks.
The Democrats think they have a problem with “aggression.”
What they really have a problem with is “dominance.”
The dominant animal in a group of primates uses aggression sparingly, effectively, and only when he has to.
The subordinate animal flails out wildly and unpredictably.
Last night I heard two men on NPR discussing the Democrats’ meanness deficit.
The interviewer sounded weak and almost foppish (I’m not using “foppish” as code for gay). He used phrasing like, “Kerry supporters do not feel pleasure in Kerry’s campaign. So what can be done to increase the pleasure Kerry supporters feel in Kerry’s campaign, or to decrease the lack of pleasure they feel?” He must have said the word “pleasure” about 10 times.
That’s not guy talk.
The guest’s answer was, and I could have written this out on an index card for him, “When Kerry gets hit he has to hit back hard.”
Democrats are obsessed with that.
“Hitting back hard.”
Well, of course, that’s the exact problem we all had with Kerry’s convention speech: If attacked I will respond agressively, or whatever it was he said.
The point being: I’m giving the bad guys the first swing.
Democrats seem to have almost no concept of staying on the offensive. To them, aggression is defensive.
And they seem to have almost no idea how to use aggression effectively.
Even the Clintonistas don’t have a clue, ultimately.
Look at Susan Estrich’s column.
If she were a male vervet monkey, she’d be at the bottom of the troop. Her column is the ultimate example of impulsive, unpredictable, and ineffective aggression.
She even starts out that way: “My Democratic friends are mad,” she says. “So we’re going to get nasty.”
That’s not a dominant animal talking.
It’s entirely possible that a dominant animal doesn’t really get mad, but instead uses a kind of rational, or cool, aggression. (This isn’t fully established, but there is research showing that “intermale aggression” doesn’t activate the rage circuits in the brain.)
The Democratic notion of aggression is akin to a tantrum. You get furiously angry, you pick up your machine gun, and you just start shooting.
That’s why we keep seeing so much collateral damage in the Democratic campaign.
Smear the bloggers!
Smear the Right Wingers!
Smear the experts!
That’s a whole lot of folks to smear in one story cycle.
CBS is flailing.
Terry McAuliffe is flailing.
Bush is way at the top of the dominance hierarchy, and he’s using aggression the way the dominant animal uses aggression.
Sparingly, and effectively.
I haven’t found a good link for Raleigh’s study, but this discussion isn’t bad.
http://nazaggression.tripod.com/brainfunction.html
