Scott Walker, Projection, and Mental Health!

This week, we all did a coffee spit take over Scott Walker’s mind blowing tweet that defied the reality of his last 8 years as governor. Is it a total lack of self-awareness or just an outright lie to nonchalantly revise history?

It’s the most extreme case of projection I’ve seen from this guy, and here’s why it matters:

The reaction was swift from startled critics who thought Walker was a the least aware of his one party dictatorial style of government. We’re finding out his silence and use of spokespeople was just one way of covering up his disconnect from reality.

Let’s look at the facts about how the “left” supposedly has divided communities while Walker and the majority Republicans watched helplessly on the sidelines. Would Walker deny such an achievement never seen in Wisconsin before…

The partisan gap over Walker in Wisconsin was the largest for any governor in any state where exit polls were conducted last month. And it was the biggest partisan divide in any race for governor or U.S. Senator in Wisconsin on record, based on exit polls dating back more than a quarter-century.

Over that time span “crossover” voting (Republicans voting for Democrats and vice versa) has all but disappeared.

Walker thought he could replace a dysfunctional reality with a right wing dream-verse based on theories that would simply make problems disappear. And like Trump, Walker’s followers are on board that sinking ship:

Anyone else see such profound projection, ever? Here’s something I think we can all agree on:

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi (said), ”I think (Wisconsin Republicans) made a deliberate decision that their main goal, despite the stated goal of creating jobs, was to destroy their enemies.“ 

Conservative Paranoia Exploited: Fear of the “other” is now a huge category. Here’s what my Trumpian conservative friend in Milwaukee texted me the other day:

“I think you Democrats are hell-bent on destroying the Republican Party and the Constitution so keep it up. Yes, I think saving innocent babies lives is important … protecting our country against illegal aliens and our tax dollar because without a border we don’t have a country… I’m enforcing the Constitution and keeping the Second Amendment …global warming is the biggest fraud perpetrated on the world against the American people … John, you’re a lemming who walks in lockstep with the Democratic Utopia machine …you hate America, you hate the Constitution, you hate Israel.”

…and yes, he’s a friend. It’s all about fear, about losing control, about change, about resentment:

1. Psychologists have found that conservatives are fundamentally more anxious than liberals, which may be why they typically desire stability, structure and clear answers even to complicated questions … “helps to protect people against some of the natural difficulties of living … if I can impose this order on it by my worldview, I can keep my anxiety to a manageable level.”

2. To maintain the coherence of their worldview, post-modern conservatives transform the foreign/cosmopolitan/wealthy “others” into a unified enemy the purpose of which is to infiltrate, steal from, disenfranchise, or terrorize “us” … the logic of post-modern conservative positions is contradictory, yet itself a symptom rooted in something immune to logic … post-modern conservatives are heroically fighting a war on all fronts. To their peril, rather than adapt their worldview to the changing world, they seek to politically reform the world so that it better resembles the worldview.

3. When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal; when they feel threatened, they become more conservative … psychologist Jaime Napier found that asking Republicans to imagine that they possessed superpowers and were impermeable to injury made them more liberal. 

A former liberal radio talk host who likes to ask the “follow-up question” at Democurmudgeon.blogspot.com