Another Episode in Moral Cretinism

Chantal Mouffe, from her On the Political:

...when opponents are defined not in political but in moral terms, they cannot be envisaged as an "adversary" but only as an "enemy." With the "evil them" no agonistic debate is possible, they must be eradicated. Moreover as they are often considered as the expression of some kind of "moral disease," one should not even try to provide and explanation for their emergence and success. This is why, as we have seen in the case of right-wing populism, moral condemnation replaces a proper political analysis and the answer is limited to the building of a "cordon sanitaire" to quarantine the affected sectors.

From the NY Times editorial crew yesterday (thanks to Livia, via email):

...when candidates for lower office make their opponents out to be friends of Osama bin Laden, or try to turn a minor gaffe into a near felony, that's just depressing. When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don't, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.

This is hardly the first time that Mr. Bush has played the politics of fear, anger and division; if he's ever missed a chance to wave the bloody flag of 9/11, we can't think of when. But Mr. Bush's latest outbursts go way beyond that. They leave us wondering whether this president will ever be willing or able to make room for bipartisanship, compromise and statesmanship in the two years he has left in office.

This administration has always used the language of "enemy." The flipside is that "enemy" provokes fear. They've gone quite a long way in reworking American institutions for their own benefit by cowing the citizenry of the country and leaders of other countries through the use of this kind of language and "facts" tailored to increase the fear of the enemy. I get the sense, with Bush, that the destruction he has caused really doesn't faze him much.

So, when the backlash comes, as it appears to be doing now, it comes with a vengeance. It's not only a matter of people being angry at being deceived, and being angry at seeing the carnage of failed policies all over the political battlefield, it's that they have been used in the most sensitive ways.

The administration has appealed to and manipulated their moral sentiment at that very place where morality is not only a matter of rational argument but where it meets up with sentiments. The Christian Right now sees this. The Left has long seen it. But now, importantly, the mega-middle in the US sees it. They've been slow on the uptake, but it's there and it's palpable. The unreality of the administration is that they seem to believe that the old tactics of divide-and-conquer through fear are just as politically workable today as they have been during the past five years.

I think we just might be entering an election on Tuesday where the rejection of the Republican Party is a rejection not only of intentionally divisive politics and failed policies, but also of having your deepest and dearest sentiments intentionally manipulated for political gain.

A sense of fundamental betrayal is a much stronger force than any policy difference.