Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, was featured in this week’s NYT Mag Section “Questions for” section, and the piece reveals how things got so f#@ked up these past seven years. Keep in mind Norquist was a leading architect for Bushco’s America. He came within a hair’s breadth prior to ‘06, of turning America into a one party Republican industrial state, as Nicholas Confessiore has thoroughly documented.
Here’s my take-away from the interview: For the past seven years, America has been overrun by folks with the emotional intelligence of early adolescence–Norquist included. This explains an awful lot. Consider the following Q/A:
Q.Do you see your work as a kind of rebellion againt te pro-tax activities of your mother?
A. Oh no, not at all… I thought up the no-tax increase pledge when I was 14 years old.
Q. Leave us alone? Isn’t that an adolescent philosophy?
A. The state treats us like 12 year olds. They tell you how much water can be in your toilet bowl, how big your car can be.
The meaning here is obvious. If the state treats you like a 12 year old, you respond like a 12 year old. The policy and direction of the country since 2001 has been viewed through the lens of a 12 year old. This has been the problem for this particular visionary as well of course for the president himself, who, according to some, has been making policy as a response to an emotionally stunted relationship with his father, George HW Bush.
So now you have it, America has gone so far off the tracks in some significant ways because the deciders and their sycophants have never transcended teenage mommy and daddy issues. 12-14 year olds do not have the emotional maturity to drive a car let along run a country. so things never even reached the frat boy mentality level. We have been dealing with middle schoolers, and the country has been stuck in junior high. It enough to make you bitter.
