In psychology, projection is defined as an effort to deny those things people find disagreeable about themselves by blaming other people of having those same disagreeable things. Sometimes this happens consciously within an individual, sometimes not. In politics, projection is used as a tool to create divide. And nobody is more skilled and adroit at creating a sense of divide than the Republican Party and right-wing neo cons.
There certainly have been times when the US was politically divided; the Civil War coming to mind. A national war aside, I do not believe that the US has ever seen so many instances of violence perpetrated by, mostly, white men, against, mostly non-whites. In every single one of these instances, especially the more so during Obama's tenure as president, right-wing mouth pieces are quick to step up and deny any culpability for whites, neo-conservatives, guns, Christianity, or right-wing politics. However, how that is done is not as obvious as denying culpability.
I was watching "Thank You For Smoking" last night, a brilliant and wickedly funny movie about advertising and marketing. In the movie, Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Taylor, spokesperson for Big Tobacco. In one scene, he and his son, Joey, are talking about argumentation. Nick asks his son to defend his choice of ice cream and Nick argues against his choice. Only, Nick does not exactly argue against joey's choice, Nick argues for "liberty" and the freedom to choose. Confused, Joey tells his father, "...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...", to which Nick replies, " I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right."
All of this has reminded me of something George Lakoff argued about in his book, "Moral Politics" which is, essentially; by claiming that you are not something, you have just admitted that you are that thing. He pointed to Nixon's claiming, the he was "not a crook" and how that claim made Nixon a crook in nearly everyone's eyes.
I often peruse right-wing talk radio and chat sites to keep my finger on the pulse, so to speak. As Michael Corleone said, "...keep your friends close but your enemies closer." and in less than 48 hours after the shooting at the Emanuael AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and just hours after President Obama's speech regarding that shooting,, headlined, front and center on the Sean Hannity Show's website, is a picture of a dejected looking Obama, to the right, a title that reads, "Dividing America".
In the article are statements such as these:
"Senseless acts like what we've tragically witnessed this week in Charleston have unfortunately become touchstones to divide us, thanks to quick politicization of the issues."
"The instantaneous politicization of tragic events has become par for the course."
and it ends with this:
"The victims and their families deserve time to grieve, before they become the latest pawns in the liberal attempt to divide Americans over our Constitutional rights."
As PT Barnum said, "Always leave 'em wanting more."
I will tell my students, friends and family members, that I have what could be considered a perverse view of the world. I admire people who some people might find loathsome. But I am not admiring the person, per se, but rather, what they've done and how well they've done it. From Albert Speer, to Joseph Stalin to Silvio Belusconi, I begrudgingly admire certain people for the astonishing things that they have done and said. In this case, I really have to hand it to whomever penned the article linked to above. Literally, the bodies are not even in the ground and the Right has figured out a way to blame the incident on Obama.
See, the Right has to shift focus away from the obvious: a deranged white man killed a bunch of people, in this case, black, and that man was clearly a racist. It is in the best interests of the Right and everything and everyone they represent, to deny that racism exists. If nobody believes that racism exists, then focus can shift away from hate crimes. Because if there is no racism, then there can be no hate crimes, and if there is no hate crime, then focus shifts away from guns and onto the person who used the gun. Or maybe not.
Shortly after the shooting and subsequent arrest of Dylann Roof, Fox News host, Megyn Kelly urged her audience, and all of America, that people like Roof who commit such heinous acts should never be named; it give the murderers what they want she argued-fame and notoriety. Kelly's pleadings for anonymity was nowhere to be found after the Tsameav brothers killed three people and injured another 264 at the Boston Marathon finish line. Kelly, and all of Fox News, were at the head of the charge to find out as much as possible about the brothers and their family. Shortly after Dzhokhar Tsamaev was sentenced to death for his role in the bombing, Kelly Tweeted about it:
Kelly does not want anyone knowing Roof's name because she does not want them looking into his past and discovering that he is an out-and-out racist:
And then, well, cat's out of the bag.
But Kelly wasn't alone in her push to obscure the facts. KABC 710 AM radio host, Larry Kudlow, staunch conservative and former Reagan Associate Director for Economics and Planning, urged his listeners to stop referring to acts such as Roof's as "hate crimes". Doing so, he said, was a tool of liberals who, he claims, are trying to divide the country by blowing racism out of proportion. For Kudlow, much like Nancy Reagan and drugs, if nobody says a thing, then the thing does not exist.
Never an organization to let an opportunity slip by, the NRA was up to bat very quickly, claiming that had the people who had been shot and killed been allowed by the pastor of their church to arm themselves and bring guns into their church, then they would be alive today:
So the NRA pulled a very neat trifecta there: With one statement, NRA board member, Charles Cotton shifted focus off of the killer, onto the pastor, a black man, and made the issue a pro-gun issue. Pretty neat.
If you clicked on the first link in this essay which takes you to the Sean Hannity Show, and you click on the embedded You Tube video from Hannity's show on Fox News (the number one cable news program on the number one cable news network, Hannity continuously reminds his viewers), Hannity and his guests cannot deny that racism played a part in the killings, but Hannity spends the entire first half of that segment discussing the possibility that Roof was taking some medication or other. So, it wasn't that he was a racist or that he used guns, it was the drugs. In fact, were you to read that article, you might notice, towards the bottom, along with not-so subtly placing the blame for the murders on Obama, the Left and Democrats' "racial politics", the article also dismisses Obama's attempts at stricter gun laws, citing an article from The Las Vegas Guardian Express that, yes, America does lead the world in incidents of gun violence, but "that if one were to exclude figures for Illinois, California, New Jersey and Washington D.C., the homicide rate in the United States would be in line with any other country and – of course – the nation’s capital, along with these three states, have some of the strictest gun laws in the country.” That's right; just ignore certain aspects of evidence and it's all OK.
Just like if you ignore the fact that Dylann Roof was a racist white man who murdered eight people with a gun, then basically, nothing happened!
