Stockholm Syndrome (n): the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor.
I’ve recently begun watching The Americans on FX, which focuses on two KGB sleeper agents living in America during the tail-end of the Cold War era. One of the more fascinating aspects of the show is how it essentially forces you to root for your enemy. It’s not a novel concept, plenty of dramas feature characters towards whom we apply a sort of cognitive dissonance – one laudable aspect of their life makes it okay for us to sympathize with them, despite a life of relative wickedness (think Omar from The Wire, or Tony Soprano). The difference in The Americans, though, is that the Russians and the KGB were, quite literally, our biggest enemies. I never lived through the Cold War era, I but I imagine that, for those who did, watching The Americans would be akin to my watching a drama centered on an al-Qaeda cell in Yemen, and somehow rooting for the Yemeni terrorists.
I missed tonight’s episode of The Americans, though. I happened to be at work, but I usually DVR it and watch it once I get home. I missed it tonight because I found myself captivated by Senator Rand Paul’s (R-KY) nigh thirteen hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA directorship. Now, admittedly, when I’m at work I waste most of my night on Twitter, and following truly social events like this can make me horribly, horribly unproductive. Unfortunately, for me, I had no way of watching the filibuster while at work (my wi-fi connection was far too slow) and so I really had no way to comment on the action myself, but during my dinner break I decided to tweet out a few thoughts. Little did I know that, about three hours later, @bhavinforapples would suddenly enter the congressional record.
Apparently Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), being the brilliant Harvard graduate that he is, began reading Rand Paul-supportive tweets during the filibuster…and the rest became congressional history. For the record, the quoted tweet in question was this one:
https://twitter.com/bhavinforapples/status/309457048721043456
Of course, what Senator Cruz forgot to mention was the tweet that directly preceded it:
https://twitter.com/bhavinforapples/status/309456834320809985
Or even my two (non-RT or quote-tweet) tweets directly after it:
https://twitter.com/bhavinforapples/status/309457119663501315
https://twitter.com/bhavinforapples/status/309462059509223425
I really, truly dislike Senator Rand Paul, and even Senator Ted Cruz. I believe they’re the elected representation of a very loud, very dumb minority of Americans who have managed to take the American political process hostage since the 2010 midterm elections. These two senators, and the Tea Party movement they champion, are the single most important reason why American politics, today, are as divisive as they are – not just between left and right, but between right and right-er. Every major political battle, or political catastrophe – the sequester, the fiscal cliff, etc. – can, in some way, be linked to this fringe right-wing of the Republican party, through the fear of the less-batshit Republicans facing a primary from the right. We are all, in a sense, the captives of the Rand Pauls and Ted Cruzs and Jim DeMints (and, of course, the Koch brothers) of the world.
I disagree with these men on nearly 99% of all policy matters. Rand Paul once said that he disagrees with the Civil Rights Act of 1964; he told Rachel Maddow that he believed private business have the right to discriminate against customers based on race. It’s shit like that that makes me despise the neo-conservative movement. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, and people like them, are – in every sense of the term – my political enemies.
I had written prior to November’s election that I had believed that Mitt Romney missed an opportunity to attack President Obama from the left on the topic of drones. Had he properly educated the American voters about President Obama’s drone policy, and taken a stance against it, it’s entirely possible Romney could have gained stronger support from the neo-conservatives, the libertarians, and certainly some liberals. It was a wedge issue that was ripe for exploitation, and he passed. And it was his effective endorsement of these drone strikes that had made President Obama’s policies the undisputed standard for American foreign policy. Until now.
When I came home from work and was finally able to watch Senator Paul’s filibuster, I couldn’t help but think that this is what our government should be like – that this is the debate we should have been having last fall. Rand Paul’s filibuster was passionate, politics-free, and it was 100% about policy – there were no gimmicks and no phonebooks anywhere near his podium. At its most Sorkian level, the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives are supposed to be about ideas and debates, not about politics, and that’s what the American people were finally given tonight. Except in this twisted Sorkian dialogue I found myself rooting for the Republicans, the same Republicans whom I’ve grown to dislike passionately over the years.
Tonight, Rand Paul and I (and I’m sure millions others) found a little bit of common ground – and, no, we don’t agree entirely on drone policy, being that he never really addressed targeted strikes overseas – and for thirteen hours, I found myself sympathizing with, and truly supporting, someone who I believe has been implicit in the hostile takeover of the American political process. I truly believe that I, and every other American citizen, have been held captive by the political motives of the fringe right-wing, and for a long time one of the faces I applied to my captors was that of Senator Rand Paul. In a few weeks, probably even a few days, I’ll return to my general state of distaste for Rand Paul and his movement, but tonight? Tonight, I #StandWithRand.
bhavin's mind grapes. 