A research study publicized in July claimed conservative Republicans have worse dreams than persons of other political persuasions.

Maybe it’s due to the ol’ “angry white male” syndrome, in which rabid-right commentators try to whip up their secular congregations into all number of extreme fears (including but not limited to fears of women, gays, blacks, English professors, big cities and the people who live in them, civil servants, immigrants, nasty music, and any politician who doesn’t toe the GOP party line).

Or maybe the wealthy individuals who comprise the Right’s real beneficiary caste have more stress-related nightmares due to their supposedly more complicated lives.

Whatever the cause for this situation (if it even really exists), it’s a cool excuse to fantasize about what dreams and/or nightmares might typically befall humans of various political persuasions:

• The pro-business Democrat: Dreams of conviving over fine food and beverges at a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser. Speakers wax elequently about why mergers are good for consumers, clearcuts are good for the environment, and media conglomerates are the greatest defenders of free speech.During the subsequent meet-‘n’-greet, she sparkingly chats up with many well-dressed, beautiful, affluent people. She and they jointly pooh-pooh the idea that the Democrats had forgotten any past commitments; why, the party’s at the forefront of defending the rights of affluent women, affluent gays, affluent blacks, and affluent left-handed people. They also discuss the best foreign countries for importing well-hung houseboys.

  This person’s nightmare: That someone might start taking that line about We The People seriously.

• The law-and-order Republican: Dreams of standing tall, tough, and proud. His whiskey gut is clad by a tan microfiber suit; his fingers are clad in three or four gold rings. He’s at the lectern of his beautiful church in his beautiful gated suburb. He’s exhorting his congregation of The Select to remain steadfast in the knowledge of their special status with God, as exemplified by their abundant material blessings.At this same time, his strong-but-submissive wife is taking off her multiple platinum necklaces and earrings. She’s driving toward the main gates of the prison camp that used to be the central city, to perform her volunteer mission work. Her sermon has a Pentacostal aesthetic but a classic Anglican theology—that her charges are doomed sinners, who can only attain a blessed afterlife by selflessly working themselves to death here on earth.

  This person’s nightmare: That someone might start taking that line about not serving both God and Mammon seriously.

• The militia member: Dreams of looking out stoically over a decimated landscape from the safe vantage point of his compound. Wrathful disasters have destroyed all cities and crushed all governments; but he, his comrades-in-arms, and their multiple wives have survived to build a new world built upon the law of the gun.This person’s nightmare: That nothing sufficiently disastrous ever happens.
• The still-believing socialist: Dreams of a society still dominated by heavy industry (coal mining, iron smelting) and mass agriculture; as maintained by a cadre of hearty, proud workers who fully share in the fruits of their labors.Our dreamer, however, doesn’t have to break his back at such toil. He’s on the planning team, crunching the numbers and tweaking the blueprints for ever larger and more efficient factories to produce improved industrial implements.

  This person’s nightmare: That too many workers might not want to remain workers.

• The anarchist: Dreams of a peaceful and harmonious life in a communitarian village, in which most work is performed for barter and the private accumulation of wealth is severely restricted. All TV stations have long ago been signed off; the Fortune 500 companies have all been dismantled; and all sorts of voluntary associations are either mandatory or close enough.Our dreamer works in the local Hemp Research Center, testing new organic strains of the plant that has become the mainstay of the world economy. The results of his diligent research are freely shared with other centers developing new varieties of hemp clothing fabrics, hemp motor-scooter fuel, hemp construction plastics, hemp breakfast cereal, hemp guitar strings, hemp furniture, hemp wine, hemp dog food, hemp cologne, hemp bicycle helmets, hemp condoms, etc. etc.

  This person’s nightmare: Either a hemp boll weevil or the threat that someone, someday, might actually want to live any differently.

• The eco-militant: Dreams of awakening to a perfect morning in a perfect world reclaimed by nature, following some unspecified event that had removed most of the earth’s human population. The trees gently bend in a warm breeze; the birds chirp; the whales and dolphins cavort; the minks and mollusks scamper freely. Our dreamer is among the few remaining humans, who spend their days fixing the ecosystem damaged by their insensitive forebearers. Her day will be spent tending an organic garden, on the reclaimed site of a former strip mall.This person’s nightmare: That the few remaining humans might not include her.
• The techno-Libertarian: Dreams of a 21st-century version of the old Greek philosophers’ salons, in which men of social standing and property (the only full citizens in that old “democracy”) civilly debated the issues of the day while enjoying the finest wine, food, and women (or boys).In the modern dream incarnation, this soiree takes place in the daylight basement of a $3 million beachfront “cabin.” During all-night rounds of networked shoot-’em-up computer games, various members of the Cardmember Caste (all bearing the platinum credit cards required for citizenship) discuss new router technologies, the latest plans to privatize the Supreme Court, and other weighty topics. Players who temporarily tire of this routine can enjoy a glass of wine, a snort of coke, or a blow job; all expertly served up by contract-servants from the Permatemp Caste.

  This person’s nightmare: Finding himself in the Permatemp Caste.