It should surprise no one that hokey "I'm Scott Brown and this is my truck" populism and simplistic politics-as-sports metaphors have swept another charismatic politician into national office.  And it should shock no one that Sox Nation, known for its epic sulks, gloating and Tourettes-like taunts took the day yesterday.  They stuck a curling iron up her butt, all right.  Woo-Hoo!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!  U-S-A!

For her part, Coakley played into insinuations that she was an outsider, an other — In everything from turning her nose up at Brown's Fenway meet-n-greets to misspelling "Massachusetts" on a widely televised campaign ad — in an age of intense xenophobia.  It could be said that the major issues of the day all have to do with this hysterical fear of The Other — whether immigrant, minority, terrorist, homosexual, intellectual... 

At least among certain sets.  The electoral map of Massachusetts looks strikingly like a microcosm of the electoral map of the nation in '08...



Not to put too fine a point on it, but one way to look at this map is as a map of the siege mentality — of white flight further into the interior, further away from immigrants and racial minorities, from the diversity that defines urban life, especially on the coasts. Insulated in the suburban interior, with what they perceive as hostile hordes surrounding them, it's no wonder so many Americans feel like they're fighting another Battle of the Alamo.

Looking at the map of Massachusetts I immediately thought of issues like marriage equality, and how, were they to be decided by referendum — and they may yet be, even in Massachusetts, come 2012 — of course they'd go down in flames (and Tourettes-like taunts, too, it goes without saying).  And this is not because gay marriage isn't a cause conservatives can't get behind, it's because the fear factor is at play.  It's about fear of The Other, the longtime M.O. of the G.O.P.

Now, inevitably I'll hear from a Brown backer contending it was Coakley who played on fears, particularly women's fears of losing reproductive rights, in her campaign against him, and that Brown himself remained sunny and smiling to the end.  And it's true: Republicans don't have a monopoly on fear, though they specialize in a certain species of it and are better at firing up their base with it than Democrats are. 

But just as Obama was a blank slate in '08, upon which rabid, delusional supporters projected misplaced religious sentiment, Brown played the role of a symbol for his base much better than Coakley did for hers.  To them "I'm Scott Brown and this is my truck" was enough to establish his bona fides.  Coakley's gender, snooty demeanor, entrenchment in the administration of Massachusetts' first black governor (and — don't forget — only the third in the nation's history, and a FOBO to boot) represented, on the other hand, merely the starting point of her obvious otherness. 

Brown's campaign was smart enough to know that to those with a siege mentality finding an excuse to cry "victim!", however specious and lame, is vital motivation.  And his campaign only really found its footing when he came up with an excuse to.  The irony of his deploying "change" and "yes we can" (in the form of "we can do this!" — as in "we can stick a curling iron up her butt!") as his campaign clarion call was just icing on the cake.

The siege mentality on the right, with its paranoia and intense sense of victimization, is obviously the more powerful political motivator.  It's why we don't blink an eye at burning up nearly a trillion dollars on not one, but two unnecessary and ineffectual wars, and yet raise a great cry of injustice at the mere notion of universal health care. 

I only wish there was some kernel of truth to the paranoia on the right — because it would mean that the rest of us really were fighting tirelessly to win hearts and minds.  It would mean that those who clung so vehemently to "hope" were ready to fight to bring about a society in which it's more than a campaign cliché.  But sometimes it really does seem, as Yeats put it, that:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.