The Psychology of the Right-Wing's Anti-Government 'Death-Panel' Delusions

By Michael Bader, AlterNet
Posted on September 5, 2009, Printed on September 5, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142439/

A lot of heavyweight thinkers have offered explanations of the irrationality of modern political behavior -- you know, behavior like Medicare recipients at town halls screaming about the evils of government-run health care, or otherwise-reasonable people likening President Barack Obama's plan to Nazi eugenics.

George Lakoff theorizes that conservatives interpret reality through metaphors and meta-narratives modeled after authoritarian family structures.

Drew Westen argues that they interpret facts according to emotional investments in conclusions they already hold, bypassing cortical centers of reason altogether.

These and other analyses are powerful and helpful. But they aren't satisfying to me because they aren't specific enough to account for both the passionate urgency and self-destructiveness of the right-wing rejection of a program that will obviously benefit them.