Michele Bachman officially entered the 2012 presidential race yesterday with a geographically challenged speech, comparing herself to John Wayne and misrepresenting his birthplace by about 150 miles, a minor error for her. This woman is so completely crazy that it is almost incomprehensible to me that she is taken seriously by anyone. And to come from the home state of one of the great liberal voices of the 20th century- Hubert Humphrey - and the home of current Senator and one-time SNL wacky guy, Al Franken, makes it even more mysterious.
The fascinating part of her ascendancy, though, is that she seems to be immune to any repercussions from her wild exaggeration, inconsistencies, misrepresentations, outright lies and assorted hallucinations, almost as if it’s an accepted part of her persona. It isn’t enough that she is a biblical literalist who feels that she is called by God to participate in public life – and that’s not the God I know, by the way; he has far more sense than that – no, she spouts hysterical gibberish every time she opens her mouth. She has been compared to Sarah Palin in her inability to think clearly in a linear fashion and who can be counted on to say something ridiculous at any time but, where Palin is a dim witted opportunist who is wallowing in her 15 minutes like she’ll never leave, Bachman is driven by something much less identifiable – sort of like a far right Joan of Arc complete with unpredictable visions and a zealot’s single-mindedness.
She is a frightening phenomenon. She is running neck and neck with Mitt Romney, an utterly uninspiring bureaucrat but someone who isn’t likely to quote the Book of Revelation when he discusses Obama’s health care plan. Her grasp of foreign affairs is limited by her seeming to have no understanding of the world outside the US. Claiming that a single NATO airstrike in Libya killed 30,000 people and criticizing Obama for it is a measure of both her ignorance and her pit bull-like determination to trample him and kick him aside every chance to she gets, even if she’s making shit up – and scarier still because of the people who believe her or simply don’t care. Or, more likely, support her at least partly because those of us who are socialist, baby-killing, gay, non-believers laugh at her and, by extension, them.
Rebecca Costa, in her book, “The Watchman’s Rattle: Thinking Our Way Out of Extinction”, gives at least one possible explanation for the rise of someone like Bachman. She says that complexity begets irrationality – that as one’s life and everyday existence becomes more and more complex it can overwhelm the brain’s ability to process it in a linear way and so one falls back on beliefs or faith. Beliefs are cognitively economical; they don’t require much processing by the brain because there is not necessarily a rational basis for them. She cites the Mayans, who had a thriving civilization for hundreds of years, with elaborate systems for storing food and water under ground. When they had to live through a prolonged drought, they devolved into more and more irrational behavior, increasing blood sacrifice in a frenzy of killing until they completely abandoned reasoned solutions and resorted solely to killing new bornes on the sacrificial altars at the top of their pyramids and tossing them over the side. Needless to say, this not only didn’t work, it essentially ended them as a viable race.
I also heard a statistic today that dovetails neatly with this idea to further explain voters gravitating to someone who routinely blurts out irrational, illogical nonsense but who looks good:
· 42 million American adults can't read at all; 50 million are unable to read at a higher level that is expected of a fourth or fifth grader.
· The number of adults that are classified as functionally illiterate increases by about 2.25 million each year.
· 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.
Going to back to the idea that belief is comforting in the absence of real knowledge, it’s a short distance to close the loop – illiterate people sit and watch reality shows and Faux News on TV to get their information and form their political opinions, such as they are. When the volume and velocity of information threatens to overwhelm them they turn to belief and biblical determinism to bring order to their world - what’s happening is god’s will – and, voila! – here comes Michele Bachman, called upon by god to serve the public and help govern the godless masses. She is her own reality show, where she might say anything and anything might happen. As a side benefit she can explain complicated issues like global warming – it’s god’s will.
This unsettling confluence of ignorance, opportunism, religiosity, selfishness, racism and madness is all too real in the US today. And amidst a republican presidential field as bland and uninspiring as gruel, she stands out like some weird valkyrie whose hair is on fire but who doesn’t give a shit, the wrath of god writ large. And for people who truly not only believe that Jesus is coming back soon but who are waiting to welcome him, she doesn’t seem like someone who is dangerously crazy – instead she seems like the antidote to all of the chaos that modernity has brought – and in that she is a true phenomenon of 21st century America. And god help us…
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