Scott Walker, Projection, and Mental Health!

This week, we all did a coffee spit take over Scott Walker's mind blowing tweet that defied the reality of his last 8 years as governor. Is it a total lack of self-awareness or just an outright lie to nonchalantly revise history?

It's the most extreme case of projection I've seen from this guy, and here's why it matters:

The reaction was swift from startled critics who thought Walker was a the least aware of his one party dictatorial style of government. We're finding out his silence and use of spokespeople was just one way of covering up his disconnect from reality.

Let's look at the facts about how the "left" supposedly has divided communities while Walker and the majority Republicans watched helplessly on the sidelines. Would Walker deny such an achievement never seen in Wisconsin before...

The partisan gap over Walker in Wisconsin was the largest for any governor in any state where exit polls were conducted last month. And it was the biggest partisan divide in any race for governor or U.S. Senator in Wisconsin on record, based on exit polls dating back more than a quarter-century.

Over that time span “crossover” voting (Republicans voting for Democrats and vice versa) has all but disappeared.

Walker thought he could replace a dysfunctional reality with a right wing dream-verse based on theories that would simply make problems disappear. And like Trump, Walker's followers are on board that sinking ship:

Anyone else see such profound projection, ever? Here's something I think we can all agree on:

Dane County Executive Joe Parisi (said), "I think (Wisconsin Republicans) made a deliberate decision that their main goal, despite the stated goal of creating jobs, was to destroy their enemies." 

And if you weren't convinced yet about Walker: 

...bills in several states would allow doctors to decide if an abortion was medically necessary later than is generally currently allowed.

Not quite the same as Walker's version, but...

Conservative Paranoia Exploited: Fear of the "other" is now a huge category. Here's what my Trumpian conservative friend in Milwaukee texted me the other day:

"I think you Democrats are hell-bent on destroying the Republican Party and the Constitution so keep it up. Yes, I think saving innocent babies lives is important ... protecting our country against illegal aliens and our tax dollar because without a border we don't have a country... I'm enforcing the Constitution and keeping the Second Amendment ...global warming is the biggest fraud perpetrated on the world against the American people ... John, you're a lemming who walks in lockstep with the Democratic Utopia machine ...you hate America, you hate the Constitution, you hate Israel."

...and yes, he's a friend. It's all about fear, about losing control, about change, about resentment:

1. Psychologists have found that conservatives are fundamentally more anxious than liberals, which may be why they typically desire stability, structure and clear answers even to complicated questions ... "helps to protect people against some of the natural difficulties of living ... if I can impose this order on it by my worldview, I can keep my anxiety to a manageable level.”

2. To maintain the coherence of their worldview, post-modern conservatives transform the foreign/cosmopolitan/wealthy “others” into a unified enemy the purpose of which is to infiltrate, steal from, disenfranchise, or terrorize “us” ... the logic of post-modern conservative positions is contradictory, yet itself a symptom rooted in something immune to logic ... post-modern conservatives are heroically fighting a war on all fronts. To their peril, rather than adapt their worldview to the changing world, they seek to politically reform the world so that it better resembles the worldview.

3. When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal; when they feel threatened, they become more conservative ... psychologist Jaime Napier found that asking Republicans to imagine that they possessed superpowers and were impermeable to injury made them more liberal. 

Here's a tip to get even frightened conservatives on-board with climate change:

4. Conservatives also emphasize loyalty and authority, values helpful for maintaining a stable society. In an ingenious experiment, the psychologists reframed climate change not as a challenge to government and industry but as “a threat to the American way of life.” After reading a passage that couched environmental action as patriotic, study participants who displayed traits typical of conservatives were much more likely to sign petitions about preventing oil spills and protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Dean wrote this about Scott Walker back in March of 2012, believe it or not:

My focus here is on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who strikes some as a “double high” authoritarian; and the type of person which I described in my book as a conservative without conscience. 

There are many examples of Walker’s harsh and uncaring treatment of those whom he does not believe to be entitled to equality. 

Desirous Of Personal Power: As governor, Walker sought to remove civil service jobs, in order to make them political appointments, and thus subject to his control. He has increased his personal power over some fifteen state agencies ... Walker’s push to get Act 10 passed into law was done in about as authoritarian a fashion as you will ever see, outside of a dictatorship.

His lying is notorious. Politifacts Wisconsin finds Walker to be an accomplished falsifier. I watched a video of a Walker speech at the Goldwater Institute.  He’s slick; fast-talking, confident, and dishonest—I watched him distort facts with which I was familiar.  He spoke in mostly half-truths. About twenty-five percent of the population has, in varying degrees, (a) disposition to follow a double high authoritarian, many blindly or simply because it assuages their fears.