Republican’s for Voldemort?

I saw that on a bumper sticker the other day and after a brief second of laughing at the moonbat mentality I began to think more about what this is actually saying about the public political debate.

[Warning if for some reason you aren’t a fan of the Harry Potter series or for what ever reasons have not seen any of the movies much of this will make little sense to you. I highly recommend the series if for nothing else their entertainment factor alone. Also note, minor spoiler alerts included if you haven’t finished reading the series yet.]

The obvious connotation is that the sticker owner equates Republican’s with the Death Eaters, the followers of Voldemort in the Potter series. Of course that means that the sticker owner believes whole heartedly that the Republican’s are bent on destroying the world and claiming absolute power for themselves, since this is the plot line J.K Rowling uses in her story as Voldemort’s goal. And while Voldemort is not based upon real-life tyrants, he exhibits many of the same traits; Rowling describes him as "a raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering, and there ARE people like that in the world.” [1]

So there we have our first real insight in to the far left, they must obviously believe that Republican’s are incapable of being responsive to peoples suffering, and are psychopaths bent on obtaining absolute power. But let’s analyze this line of thinking a little more. If Republican’s are the Death Eaters and Voldemort is their leader; which in turn makes George Bush – Voldemort, what does that make the Democrats and the netroots crowd?

Following the story line and the philosophy that we can only assume that the netroots see themselves as the Order of the Phoenix, the champions of righteousness in the series, who are out to save everyone from the evil that is the Republican Party, I mean, Voldemort. Of course since the netroots are the saviors, the Democrats must obviously be the Ministry of Magic, the misguided but well meaning leaders of the wizarding world. And the rest of the world is well the rest of the world. But that is the simple mind thinking, for if we analyze the allegorical meanings in the series and assign them to real world events and people we can come up with a much more realistic assessment of our current political parties and their place in Rowling’s story, or is that Rowling’s world in its place in our real world?

Let us begin with Voldemort.

Voldemort is regarded as highly ruthless and sadistic even to his own henchmen who serve him out of a mixture of fear and respect. Rowling described him as "the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years" [2] She elaborated that he is a "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering" [3] who is able to attract cowardly, but cruel minions like "Wormtail, who out of cowardice will stand in the shadow of the strongest person. " [4] What seems to drive him is his megalomaniacal sense of entitlement. He believes he is superior to the point that he will frequently refer to himself in the third-person as "Lord Voldemort." Rowling alluded to this saying that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really" and holds human life in utter disregard. Rowling has also stated that if Voldemort looked into the "Mirror of Erised" (i.e. the mirror which reflects a person's greatest wish), he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants." [5]

For anyone that has ever met George W. Bush, listened to him speak or read his words, this is as far from a description of George W. Bush than ever there was. In point of fact this description of Voldemort is more in line with a description of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Osama bin Laden than Bush. Only someone so convinced in Bush as Evil Emperor could equate Voldemort with Bush. Voldemort then can not be George W. Bush but has to be those “petty dictators” and megalomaniac fundamentalist tyrants that currently terrorize the world with their suicide bombers and medieval thinking.

So with the premise that Voldemort is representative Muslim Extremism and Racism, the two biggest threats to world harmony, the followers of Voldemort - the Death Eaters are logically alQaeda and the Taliban as well as other Muslim Extremists the world over.

But what of the Ministry of Magic who do they represent?

Following the same line of reasoning let us look at Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for our clues as to their representative in today’s world. Throughout much of that book, the Ministry of Magic undertakes a campaign of silencing and hounding the members of the order of the Phoenix as well as Harry Potter personally, because they insisted that Voldemort had returned, and the time to fight is now. To accept this fact would have been detrimental to the Ministry of Magic and result in a serious loss of face and power. The Ministry thus spends the entire book denying his return and rise to power until the end when Voldemort is physically seen by the members of the Ministry of Magic and his return can no longer be denied.

Sound familiar to anyone? The Ministry’s platform sounds vaguely familiar to the Democrats platform that Muslim Extremism is not a threat to the world, that simple dialogue can solve it, and I fit is a rising threat its only because of Bush’s meddling in their business, besides if everyone would just stay in their place we wouldn’t have these problems. We can only hope the Democrats have their epiphany before their policies allow the enemy to gain any more power on our own shores.

This brings us to the Order of the Phoenix (OotP) and their “place” in our current political climate.

In don’t think you can make an argument that the Republican’s are the OotP, and neither is Bush, but perhaps specific members of the party could be. What we do know about the OotP is that they are a determined group, willing to die to protect their fellow man from the travesty of Voldemort’s return. They are demeaned and attacked by the Ministry as often as possible as ignorant, misguided members of society, and belittled in public. For some reason I see the OotP as our US Military, for they are the true bearers and champions of freedom from tyranny, who continue on in the face of indomitable odds and public criticism not for their own sake but for the sake of their brothers in arms and their fellow man.

So far we’ve identified the primary movers and shakers in the Harry Potter world and their comparable counterparts in the real world which leaves us with Harry Potter and who represents him in our current landscape. While many people could fill the shoes at different times throughout the series, I think the most locigal conclusion is the person who has been attacked the most recently by the misguided Congress and netroot crowd. The man that has been branded a liar before he has even been able to speak and who in the face of contempt for his character sat in front of the “Ministry of Magic” and gave his testimony: General David Petraeus.

Thus we are returned to the original premise of this post: how is the bumper sticker Republican’s for Voldemort an accurate portrayal of our political landscape? Fortunately Harry Potter is a fictional series with heavy allegorical themes and those who believe that Voldemort could be anything other than the evil that resides in the world is either incapable of rational thought or refuses to live within the realm of reality. To be able to believe that Republicans are only interested in supporting evil in all its forms, and its obvious converse that the Democrats stand for all that is good in the world is to live in a world of fantasy.