In the midst of the current battle between the "leftist" grassroots and the "moderate" DLC, this article interjects a missing link. Political leadership is not about mimicry of "tough" positions, nor is it about reactionary complaints and bomb-throwing. It is about the attitude of power.
The attitude of power has an evolutionary basis, one that is rooted in the signals of alpha masculinity, and it is sorely missing from both the Democratic establishment and the liberal rebels. This isn't about policy positions or ideology. It's about something more fundamental. It's about biology.
Call it toughness or brashness, chutzpah or machismo, iron guts, brass balls or just plain alpha maleness. Whatever you want to call it, to paraphrase Potter Stewart, you know it when you see it, and you know when it's not there. The time has never been more critical for liberals to defy expectations and show they've got it and attack conservatives for having none.
Since Election 2004, liberals have been agonizing over the shape of the Democratic Party and the fate of liberalism itself. Should they look for new policies or new personalities? Is the right demographic the "security moms" or the "values voters"? Is their salvation in the framing, in the heartland, or in the Bible?
For a moment, liberals may want to put aside all the abstract political analysis and poll-data parsing and consider something far simpler. A basic fact of nature gone underappreciated for a very long time. Something fundamentalist conservatives won't believe and enlightened liberals don't like to acknowledge.
People are animals.
Animal House
All it takes is one Sunday morning recuperating with the Discovery Channel to learn that in every animal population, there is a hierarchy. At the top is the "Alpha," who, among mammals in general and primates in particular, is usually the male. At the bottom, happy to get the scraps, are the "Omegas."
Alpha males continually communicate their dominance to the Omegas: They grunt and growl; they pound their chests; they emit unpleasant yet dominating odors. Omegas routinely defer to the Alpha's displays of dominance: They let the Alpha eat first; bow and cower before him; and flee from his potent stench.
This social structure helps animals build and maintain group strength. It's time-tested, it's hard-wired, and it works. Alphas are the leaders; Omegas are the followers.
And in between the two are the Democrats.
In the animal kingdom of American politics, there is one population that truly gets the Darwinian truth of human nature. Ironically, they are the same folks who want to ban it from schools and whose leader thinks "the jury is still out" on evolution. They are the conservatives.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Herb Martin
A good article -- you are right on the overall theme but your essay is marred by the seeming endless ability of so many non-military folks who failed to understand that the Swift Boat Veterans had one very important thing that prevent Kerry's defense:
They were telling the literal truth.
This is no mere opinion -- Kerry and Campaign admitted five separate lies that Kerry had told. Adding to the list of admissisions following the four lies they tried to tell on just "Christmas in Cambodia".
Kerry's own home movies show he lied about at least a sixth item when he claimed that he used a 50 calibre at the order of superiors because they gave him nothing else -- anyone can see Kerry carrying an M-16 and anyone who was actually interested in truth would know that the swift boats carried a variety of small arms.
Kerry lied even when the truth would server. You cannot recover from that when the press and the nation is paying attention, even if you can do it for 30 years while no one is looking.
Likely Kerry had lied to his "handlers" so long that he could not even admit to them that he had lied to them as well - perhaps he himself had come to believe his own lies but this made a defense strategy impossible just as the guilty man who lies to his lawyer is asking to be convicted when the lawyer has no prepared AND suitable defense.
2 - Dave Nalle
IMO the tedious, played out bush/chimp joke also trivializes the article.
Dave
3 - lefty
and the point is, where exactly was bush, that supposed tough guy checked the box saying, no thanks, im a pussy, i wont fight for my country in vietnam, ill let john kerry, the true alpha male fight for me, ill just play one on tv even though im a wimp, and ill fool the herb the omega loser into believing the swifties, even though bush is the real pussy. and bush can get drunk and work on political campaigns while kerry risks his life because he knows omega losers like you will do his bidding. nice try.
4 - m.g.
"50 calibre at the order of superiors because they gave him nothing else -- anyone can see Kerry carrying an M-16"
Why would this matter? The only thing Bush was carrying around that time was a 50 caliber beer mug and an m-16 coke spoon.
Even in the worst light, Kerry did more than Bush. Bush just plays a tough guy on tv and people believe it.
5 - gonzo marx
good Article...good points...astute analysis of the matter at hand with very few caveats from this humble Narrator...
/golfclap
refuse to be shouted down or belittled
the only answer to someone attempting an emotionally baed "alpha" display is to piss on him in return, all the while explaining why...then defy the bully to either do something about it, or to exlain himself rationally...
Bog knows i deal with it enough around here at BC
some good lessons here, folks
Excelsior!
6 - Nancy
Love the chimps! Spot-on comparisons w/Smirk. And he doesn't believe in evolution...obviously Smirk never looked at photographic proof or followed comparative hominid sociostructure, LOL. So...Kerry told 5 lies? IF he in fact did lie at all? Well, that's a helluva lot less than SmirkCo.'s compulsive, constant, & gratuitous lies have spewed so far, and any lies Kerry may have told haven't caused the slaughter of US soldiers while he's busy lying, either, unlike Smirk & friends.
7 - billy
i get it. the only way to beat down the alpha male bush type republican is to beat him down like an old silverback whose time has come and gone. the problem is, you never beat down a silverback when you mimic him like joe lieberman and are afraid of who you are. you need to say, "im a liberal, and im here to beat you down" after that its a ballgame.
8 - Nancy
No - Dems need to get someone who can out-Rove Karl Rove in order to perpetuate dirty tricks, lies, smears, & rumors, so that the Dem party can win at all costs, just like the GOP.
9 - billy
well, that wouldnt hurt either. there is some truth there though that gop discipline is why they display dominance over dems, while dems split up on issues, claim their nt liberal, apologize for things they shouldnt, etc. it makes them appear dominated.
10 - D L Ennis
It’s a shame that you cheapened this article with the photos!
D L
11 - Balletshooz
Sorry. Maybe ill take some out. They werent in the original post.
12 - Aaman
How/why did you change the publishing timestamp??
13 - Balletshooz
i didnt. i just removed some pictures. im not usre what happened.
14 - JR
Damn, I thought you were joking about the apology and retraction. You really are a Lambda, aren't you?
15 - Ballethshooz
Man, you got me there. Oh well, at least I'm above the omega-con's, like you, ha ha.
16 - Margaret Romao Toigo
The use of the microcosm of partisan politics as an analogy for human social hierarchy makes for a fascinating -- and unfortunately accurate -- study of our nature as beasts as well as a plentiful resource of good advice for the DNC.
17 - billy
yeah. somebody give them a psychologist, or maybe a zoologist, over there at the dnc so they can start figuring this stuff out. it isnt that hard.
18 - Nancy
This is SO pitiful....
But, if ranting & posturing & shouting are good, then why didn't Dean work out for the Dems - or did they just blow that one?
19 - Dave Nalle
Lefty wrote:
"and the point is, where exactly was bush, that supposed tough guy checked the box saying, no thanks, im a pussy, i wont fight for my country in vietnam,"
Displaying the remarkable good sense that makes him well qualified to run the country.
Are you old enough to remember Vietnam? I'm guessing you aren't. Anyone who had half a lick of sense knew it was a clusterfuck from 66 on and did anything they could to avoid serving. What you're saying is that Kerry had more ambition and/or balls than brains, so he went there. Then he came back all scared with his tail between his legs and started preaching against the war.
The key thing here is that humans have evolved beyond apes. We don't have alpha males as such anymore. We have much more complex social relationships. We'd rather have the shifty, maybe a bit cowardly, but survival-oriented leader who's good at manipulating the alpha males to protect himself and his people.
Dave
20 - Nancy
Oh, cripes, Nalle, talk about twist & spin. As IF Smirk & his henchmaggots didn't try desperately to make him appear to be a macho war hero, even to the extent of that stupid, pathetic exercise of dressing him up in a flight suit & landing him in front of that banner on the carrier that said, "mission accomplished"! And have we forgotten the infamous Alpha macho shithead comment, "bring it on!" - a cheap, easy trick when he knew damned well he'd be shielded from all danger & even inconveniences for the rest of his pathetic, miserable, cowardly life, & it would be other people & other people's kids who would be bleeding & dying for his swagger? Yeah, Bush was smart - like the weasel or rat that he is; he joined the combat typists of what in those days was the Texas Boys' Club for Overprivileged Rich Boys, which would have been sent to war right after the local boy scouts; but he wasn't patriotic, and he wasn't brave, and he proved in business & in Texas govt. that he can't run anything worth shit without destroying it.
21 - Dave Nalle
>>but he wasn't patriotic, and he wasn't brave<<
I don't believe I said that he was either of these things. But he also didn't lend aid and comfort to the enemy or turn on his wartime comrades after the war was over.
>> and he proved in business & in Texas govt. that he can't run anything worth shit without destroying it.<<
Actually, he was quite a bit better than our current governor at resisting the corrupting influence of big business, and he did do a fine job with the Texas Rangers.
I might also point out that as president his efforts to engineer an economic recovery have been remarkably successful.
Dave
22 - Matt
"he did do a fine job with the Texas Rangers."
How many WS?
23 - Dave Nalle
He got something almost as good, the best and most profitable baseball stadium in the US.
Dave
24 - MCH
"But he (Bush) also didn't lend aid and comfort to the enemy, or turn on his wartime comrades after the war...Then he (Kerry) came back all scared with his tail between his legs and started preaching against the war."
- Dave Nalle
John Kerry...Three Purple Hearts, One Silver Star, One Bronze Star;
G.W. Bush...AWOL his final two years of Guard service (1972-74), constituting Desertion;
Dave Nalle...never served.
25 - MCH
"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam?"
- John Kerry, 1971
"I was opposed to the war in Vietnam, and even had I been old enough I would not have served, because I'm not going to die in a war I don't believe in."
- Dave Nalle, January, 2005