Have you ever had a song lyric, word, or phrase rattling around in your head that you can’t explain and can’t shake? I have, and recently too. The phrase, ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’ for some reason just pops into my mind at the oddest times. Along with it sometimes I hear the phrase, ‘lie down with dogs and wake up with fleas.’
Unlike most people who just get frustrated when this happens, being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I try to figure out why it’s happening. In the case of the ‘bedfellows’ quote, I think I figured it out, too—and it was the ‘dog and fleas’ quote that was the key to figuring it out.
The term ‘strange bedfellows’ was coined by William Shakespeare. In his play, The Tempest, he wrote ‘Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows,’ a phrase that has come to mean that some situations are so difficult we are forced to associate ourselves with those who we would not normally have a thing to do with. The phrase ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’ originally meant simply that sometimes, when political interests in specific instances were shared, those who were normally on opposing sides found themselves in agreement.
In today’s hyperpartisan, winner-take-all political environment in most countries, strange bedfellows are the norm, and some of them are really, really strange.
Take the rightwing parties in the United States for example. Strongly pro-Israel, they are quick to paint as anti-Semitic anyone who criticizes or disagrees with anything the Israeli government does. At the same time, they are often in league with extremist groups in the U.S. who are blatantly anti-Semitic, such as white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups, with senior politicians appearing at these groups’ events and otherwise socializing or associating with them. This—to me at least—contradiction seems to be lost on these politicians and their supporters in their zeal to defeat their left-leaning opponents. Evangelical religious groups are another example of ‘strange bedfellows.’ While they espouse piety, chastity, and family values, they lend their financial and vocal support to many politicians who have long records of behavior that is the polar opposite of piety, chastity, and decency, if those same politicians support their interests.
When the contradictions are pointed out, or when the association creates problems (legal or otherwise), these groups and individuals bemoan the fleas, as if they’d never heard the phrase ‘lie down with dogs and get up with fleas.’
Now that I know the why of this phrase popping up in my mind, I’m faced with another conundrum: what causes this situation, and is there a cure for it?
I mean, really folks, how can otherwise rational people in good conscience ally themselves with someone who is repellent and repugnant simply because they’re in agreement on a single issue? Anti-abortion evangelicals support anti-abortion politicians who are serial liars, misogynists, and con artists. Israel supporters who oppose recognizing the rights of LBQT+ people ally themselves with anti-Semitic skinheads who advocate violence against LBQT+ people. It has to be a disease, physical, mental, or spiritual, but is there a cure?
I’m afraid I’ll be up ruminating on that one for a long time tonight. – NWI
