Not to be mean-spirited about this, but it’s at times like this that Arianna Huffington demonstrates that she has a black-box approach to understanding Americans*.  In discussing the inexplicable (to her) attraction so many people have towards THAT WOMAN, Arianna wrote:

It’s not Palin’s positions people respond to — it’s her use of symbols. Mama grizzlies rearing up to protect their young? That’s straight out of Jung’s “collective unconscious” — the term Jung used to describe the part of the unconscious mind that, unlike the personal unconscious, is shared by all human beings, made up of archetypes, or, in Jung’s words, “universal images that have existed since the remotest times.” Unlike personal experiences, these archetypes are inherited, not acquired. They are “inborn forms… of perception and apprehension,” the “deposits of the constantly repeated experiences of humanity.”

…and then goes on to compare said mama grizzly video with this Reagan campaign video, which is apparently also ‘policy-free’ (that’s the latest progressive buzzword for ‘black magic’). And oh, yeah!  That has a bear, too!  That’s Jungian!  And it links Old Devil Figure to New Devil Figure, so that’s a plus!  Yes!  IT ALL COHERES!

Yes.  It makes Allahpundit’s head ache, too.

You have to wonder whether Arianna actually believes this stuff, or whether she’s just trying to brace her readers for a scenario where Sarah Palin actually runs for President, thus forcing progressives to discover that their collective misogynistic loathing of THAT WOMAN is not generally shared by the general population.  You don’t need the ‘Jungian collective unconscious’ to explain why the woman is popular on the Right; you just need to be able to grasp that conservatives have emotional connections to their policy positions, just like progressives do.  And that when a politician appears that shares both those positions and those emotions, conservatives will identify with that politician.  Again, just like progressives do.

But that would require empathy, and we all know that the Left hates to waste empathy on the Right.  Which is actually fine: what those folks come up with they’re trying to ‘engage’ is usually more annoying than their open contempt…

Moe Lane

*Not to be further mean-spirited, but I always got the vibe that becoming an American citizen was mostly part of Arianna’s ongoing campaign to rise in global social circles.  I know that this sounds odd, but you can’t be a serious political player in this country unless you’re a citizen.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.