Bingo*

[*Bearer not entitled to claim prize beyond indication of agreement. I’m on a precision-in-language diet.]

Surfing more than ever before along both shores of the blogosphere, I am impressed with what strikes me as a complementary pattern, peculiar to this election cycle:

In posts on the 20 or so progressive sites I check in on more-or-less regularly, and to a greater degree in reader comments, there appears to be a markedly higher frequency of the word “fear” being invoked in reference to what’s being felt by the Right.

In posts on the 10 or so Winger sites I check in on [with similar regularity, but greater efficiency; I attribute that to the dramatic contrast in respective demands on the intellect], over the past two weeks in particular I’ve seen that same word invoked [a] less in reference to their enemies, the Moonbats on the Loony Left, and [b] more in reference to their own feelings.

Also, I think I’m seeing a heightened tone of frustration, certainly, and of anger, with the latter trending towards increasingly detailed violent images, along with more assertions of intent to bring violence to bear.

[It may say speak to the breadth of support for Obama that the more generalized anger seems to directed less at the traditional Anti-Christ Soros, and more at a veritable host of evil enemy identities, most prominent among them being Kos and Olbermann [and, in rare sign of national consensus that might bear some hope for our species, Chris Matthews].

[I expect Rachel Maddows to be added to those most conceded as deserving recognition on the Wing’s enemies list, but assuming no improvement in the quality of neuronal firing on that side, probably long after the election].

Professor Bob Altemayer of the University of Manitoba, John Dean, who credits Altemayer’s findings as enlightening him on this, and more recently Rick Pealstein in Nixonland, have all written on the role paranoia plays in various ’schools’ of American conservative political belief systems, and the movements that have captured those and in turn animated the Republican party to edge past, successively, decency, tolerance, humanity, reality and sanity, to the full range of Axis II personality disorders to which it must pander in order to have any hope of keeping the White House.

My own feeling is that Gerald Ford, who after all came to the vice presidency directly from the 92nd Congress and so knew better, and to some extent the 93rd Congress as a body, failed to recognize the need to confront the trend by bringing the full force of law to bear on Nixon.

Ford didn’t end what he called “the long national nightmare” by pardoning Nixon. In effect he pardoned the sickness that held Nixon in its thrall, the one that allowed Nixon to succeed in politics to the point where it could take him down, and that has allowed Cheney to succeed in politics and “business” beyond the point I think Nixon would have imagined.

In the 8 presidential terms since then, 5 have been under Republicans whose election depended critically on paranoia, and the other 3 were under 2 southern Democrats, the first of whom recognized the problem but not the full extent of the danger, and being taken down by it, and the second of whom recognized the problem but figured he could work around it, and ended up being damaged and almost being taken down by it.

We may end up watching Obama doing something along the same lines. But Wingers, being by nature paranoid, are betraying their uncertainty in that regard.

Paranoids see bargains as pledges to be broken, and trust as something to be betrayed.

What animates the behavior of paranoids in any relationship is the unknowable answer to one big ticking question, from which all other questions flow:

Will he succeed in betraying you before you can betray him?

At what point will he have extracted the most he can from the relationship, and from the other party, without risking making himself vulnerable to being “stabbed in the back”?

Will he be able to recognize that momement when it arrives?

Thus paranoids simply don’t enter bargains with any sincere intention to keep to either the spirit or the letter of them. They see the implied trust in bargained relationships as contemptible, with the only practical benefit being that they might by feigning commitment be presented with an Achilles heels they can employ to get close enough to inflict more damage when they choose to betray the spirit. They see the letter of bargains as not applying to them, for being no more worthy of respect then terms extorted from a hostage; and otherwise as roadblocks and obstructions to throw in front of you if and when you protest the breaking.

I think all things has much to do with what appears to be a determination to go down with Captain McCain: identification with the grievances of a hostage. It’s very easy for them to identify with his sense of entitlement.

Paranoids regard civility as a tolerable degree of clear hypocrisy in an ally, but as a sure sign of inherent weakness in an enemy. Whether another person is an ally or enemy depends critically on how blatant is the hypocrisy. Success and survival depend on the ability to tell the difference – particularly since one’s ally is no more than one’s inevitable future enemy.

In all these observations, IANA psychiatrist or psychologist, except to the extent the practice of law requires it. I would be happy to bow to the superior view of an expert.