I've never understood Charles Krauthammer's conservatism.

[Ken Burch]

Krauthammer is Jewish(a member of a highly gifted cultural/religious group that has suffered deeply through this country's and this world's history, and never deserved any of their suffering, and this is a country that has never treated religious minorities of any stripe well) and partially paralyzed. If the political and social views he now champions had held sway when he was growing up, Krauthammer would never have had any access to physical rehabilitation, would almost certainly have been denied entrance to medical school, would have had trouble getting to admitted to most post-secondary educational institutions at all(there USED to be quotas limiting the number of non-Christians admitted to major universities in this country). In all liklihood, if Charles Krauthammer had grown up during the Harding/Coolidge era, the time he now seems to see as "the golden age", he'd probably have ended up selling pencils on a street corner in a segregated neighborhood all day until somebody carried him down to the soup kitchen. That is, if he hadn't just been left to die.

Why does Krauthammer not understand that, if the people he allies himself with had had their way then, he'd never have had a chance in life at all, and that the only reason he's ever been able to achieve anything was due to the work of liberal and even radical activists, who devoted years to removing the barriers that traditionally stood between people like him and the opportunity to succeed in this country? Why doesn't he get it that, if the people he supports now get their way in the future, those in the future who face the obstacles that liberalism took out of his way will probably have those obstacles put back in their place and will have no hope at all of a decent life in this country?

Why, instead of feeling solidarity with all those who have been left on the outside due to being "different" would a person who's life has been defined by that difference ally himself with those who, historically, are committed to marginalizing and excluding people like himself?

Am I the only person who's ever wondered about where Krauthammers coming from on all this?

[tularetom]

1. Nah, he's just a miserable unhappy human being born without an empathy gene

Not worthy of further analysis.

[woofless]

2. My first thought is he's a star fucker.

He likes to be near power and privilege and this is how he gets his strokes. Sad little man, really.

[leveymg]

3. Charles is a neocon. A "Reagan Dem", he was much more of a self-described liberal earlier in life.

He's partially paralyzed after a diving accident that occurred while he was in medical school.

From his Wiki:

In 1978, Krauthammer moved to Washington, D.C., to direct planning in psychiatric research under the Carter administration.[citation needed] He began contributing articles about politics to The New Republic and in 1980 served as a speech writer to vice president Walter Mondale.[citation needed] In January 1981, Krauthammer joined The New Republic as both a writer and editor.[citation needed] In 1983, he began writing essays for Time magazine, one of which first brought him national acclaim for his development of the "Reagan Doctrine."[9]

Like some other successful Jewish-Americans in policy circles, he moved hard right in the early 1980s, sensing that the future for elite privilege, personal profit and political power lay with patrician Republican Cold Warriors of the George HW Bush, Sr. type. He never looked back.

Personally, I have watched and liked him along with the others on Washington Week, where "Charles" is engaging, sharp, and has a twisted sense of irony. He adds to the show. I also find him to be at times tendentious and intellectually insincere - he's smart enough to know that some of his arguments are veneer thin and without substance. But, that's the corner he's carved out for himself.

[Ken Burch]

5. I've corrected the reason for his paralysis.

Thanks for clarifying that.

[leveymg]

6. Some of the paralysis is inside. He strikes me as essentially decent, but deeply unhappy, and

someone who despite all his advantages and gifts still feels victimized and vulnerable. That accounts for much of his personal defensiveness, brittle humor, and "prickliness". Those feelings of vulnerability also go to his politics of reaction, I believe. It's a character trait that I've noticed among others from the same ethnicity and social background.

[CTyankee]

7. I haven't noticed that at all. I think Krauthammer is an outlier for his ethnicity and social

background and I attribute that to bitterness over his accident which has put him in a wheelchair for life. It's just my observation, though...

[Ken Burch]

8. You may have something there.

n/t.

[leveymg]

9. I find those characteristics and his neoconservative politics not uncommon.

Melancholy underlying an argumentative tendency certainly isn't rare. Nor is neoconservatism - tolerant and liberal social views accompanied by economic conservatism. Another hallmark is foreign policy hawkishness, along with a selective liking for humanitarian intervention, particularly with regard to countries in or near the ME. That's just my own observations, of course.

[COLGATE4]

4. It's called 'pulling up the ladder

after yourself ', a/k/a the Rethuglican credo of "Fuck you - I've got mine".

[closeupready]

10. It's identification with oppressors.

He's a minority member who believes if only he was more like those who kept him down, he'd be personally exempt from oppression.

Kind of Stockholm Syndrome, or some other term like that. Gay people do it, too.

I think that's what it means when a black person is referred to as "Uncle Tom", as in "Uncle Tom's Cabin."

[leveymg]

11. That also shows up in abused child syndrome - those who have been abused as children have a strong

tendency to display the same behavior toward their own offspring. There is a political correlation to that, as well, and it shows up on the national scale with countries whose leaders or citizens have a experienced deeply shared trauma and victimization.

[closeupready]

13. Right.

Well-known tragic pattern of self-perpetuating abuse.

[leveymg]

14. It's a difficult cycle to change. eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Both liberal and conservative leanings might be biological

Look into it, because they are actually looking into this.

[McCamy Taylor]

15. He makes a living doing what he does. I think that is the explanation.

After he was paralyzed, he may not have been able---or felt able--to practice medicine.

[KamaAina]

16. There are lots of Jewish conservatroids.

Bill Kristol. Sheldon Adelman. Eric Cantor.

There are even a few conservatroids in the disability rights movement! Krauthammer, unsurprsingly, is not one of them: he's said that access such as wheelchair ramps should be "unobtrusive".