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Never Smile at a Crocodile
How to avoid holiday arguments with pro-war relatives
Part II
...We who are opposed to the downward direction that our country's been taking already know this; we've seen it for ourselves. We've seen the sentimental photos of Bush standing beside Christian crosses, American flags, church pews, even halo-shaped seals. We've seen him wearing various outfits that trigger nostalgic memories of past wars and military honors. We've heard the stirring patriotic music on every newscast and seen the adoring faces of anchors, journalists, and embedded reporters who were, in bygone days, duty-bound to critique the president, but are now obliged to keep him looking good....

...When you see their W, Bush/Cheney 2004, Power of Pride, Let's Roll, and obligatory flag bumper stickers, it can be disconcerting and more than a little depressing.

These are signals not merely of opinions, but of identity. And that's where the problem lies – you can't argue a person out of his or her identity. As most of us have learned the hard way, you should never try to convince a Republican that he's a Democrat, a pacifist that she's pro-war, or a hard worker that he's a lazy bum.

Because they run deep, identities are defended tooth and nail. With the aid of sophisticated marketing techniques, the Bush campaign has made sure from the very start that support for this president wouldn't be rational – that is, based on bald facts that can easily be supported or rejected. No longer would the Republicans leave their dominance of this country to chance. To maintain support for their policies even when the terrible consequences became apparent, they'd need something a lot more reliable – they'd need us to feel as if our very identities hinge on Mr. Bush being infallible: if he's wrong, we're wrong. If he's shamed, we're shamed. If we stand by him, we're standing by us.

The "conservative" GOP that took over the U.S. in 2000 and again this year has never strayed from its original strategy: creating a new, godlike role for the presidency and a new Christian/moral/patriotic identity for the American people.

Everyone in the Bush administration and its media understands the overarching goal: to craft and continually reinforce an identity based on known demographics, religious beliefs, prejudices, and fears, an identity that would be "sticky" and contagious. This identity would prevent mistakes from mattering to Americans because they'd no longer be thinking in terms of facts, but in terms of their self-image and the way their neighbors see them. ...

...There is a sense of unreality in America today, thanks to the success of the Bush strategists' ongoing identity campaign. I've worked with many abused children, some of them horribly traumatized, who cling to the abusive parent with great zeal because "he's my father" or "I'm her daughter." For abusive families, this may be adaptive in the long run because this "irrational" bonding and refusal to criticize buys time, time in which both parties can heal and mature.

But sometimes the fear of losing one's identity as "loyal child," or of losing one's parent's identity as "loving Dad" or "gentle Mother," keeps the whole family stuck in destructive patterns and year-in, year-out misery. The inability to jeopardize those identities by saying "I'm his son and I love him, but he's violent and I won't allow him to abuse me anymore" prohibits clear thinking and ruins lives.

The Bush folks understand this dynamic, which is why they've played on it from the beginning. Some insightful writers have begun explaining how Bush's identity as the strict-but-benevolent father, the representative of Christianity, and the ultimate patriot was designed to marginalize dissent and elicit obedience, submissiveness, and unquestioning support. ...

...A pillar of the Bush/war supporter's identity is what I call "identity imagery." When we who are antiwar think of the phrase "War on Terror" or the word "Iraq," non-identity fact-based images flood our minds: photos of bombed hospitals, infant corpses, bloodied soldiers, and weeping relatives. Say the very same words to a Bush supporter, and he or she will see images of identity: President Bush praying in church or speaking to his troops in military garb, and themselves – the "true" patriotic, Christian Americans – standing up for a victimized but noble nation.

For someone who sees the latter images – which anyone relying on mainstream news and commentary naturally will – hearing your arguments against the war will conjure up the opposite images: unpatriotic, un-Christian, unpopular, and – this is critical – unsafe. Right now the terrorist threat is mainly "over there," but the threat of social ostracism or worse is right here, so it is far more influential on American opinion. ...