Myrhaf has posted some interesting comments on the inappropriateness of psychological explanations offered by the right for the left’s extreme hatred of Bush. In short: “The left’s hatred of Bush comes from the left’s ideas, not from neurotic defense mechanisms.”
To his comments, I would add that the right’s failure to understand the left’s hatred of Bush in ideological terms reflects their own pragmatism. The right is not exactly well-glued to their own principles, so the idea of an intransigent principled stand is largely off their radar. So the right’s only explanatory recourse is leftist psychological dysfunction. Of course, the fact that the animus of the left is primarily directed against a person rather than any ideas is strange and confusing, unless you understand their Kantian preoccupation with motives mentioned by Myrhaf.
