Zach Fansler's Self Deception

A very recent example is one about a former Alaskan legislator named Zach Fansler. As The Juneau Empire attests, Zach Fansler was praised as “...one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party’s rural wing”. He is from Bethel, Alaska. He was definitely considered a good guy from democratic standards. Before he became an Alaskan legislature, he was involved in the Women's Coalition, an organization aimed at reducing sexual assault against women, and Teens Acting Against Violence which served the same purpose with the difference of the message coming from teens. Unexpectedly, on January 15th, 2018, a very recent ex girlfriend of Zach Fansler had told the Juneau Empire that Fansler had struck her. Just a few nights before, she had been in a hotel

room with him and he was making drunken sexual advances on her. After she resisted, he smacked her twice in the head, rupturing one of her eardrums.
This is a clear example of reaction formation self deception.

Whether or not he had had previous experience with abusing women, he likely harboured those tendencies and instinctively knew that he had to hide it. His reaction, in turn, was to be the opposite of an abusive person, by being involved in anti-violence organizations and by running as a democrat. Democrats are typically more strict when it comes to their politicians exhibiting gender equality. Zach Fansler’s violent tendencies and the subsequent self deception did indirectly have an effect on his policy and his values as a legislator. It is possible that Zach Fansler may not have run (or been successful) as an Alaskan democrat if he had not been involved in the organizations that he had. His self deception actually caused him to make positive change before he was a legislator. It is possible that he could have made more positive changes in regard to gender equality had his true tendencies towards hitting women not come

out.
This next example is somewhat polar to the previous one. Roy Ashburn was a Republican senator from Bakersfield, California. He did not stray too far from the ways of a typical Republican politician. He represented the conservative Bakersfield area in California by voting for lowering taxes and voting against gay rights legislation. He was actually outspoken about his feelings against gay rights and he voted against everything in favor of gay rights. The Los Angeles Times reported on March 9th, 2010 that Roy Ashburn had admitted to being homosexual. It had begun with Roy Ashburn being pulled over drunk after leaving a popular gay nightclub with another man in the passenger’s seat in Sacramento. He was arrested for a DUI and then what had just happened got out to the public. He pleaded no contest to the DUI charge. Shortly after rumours began to run rampant, he did an interview with the Los Angeles times where he admitted to being homosexual. Over his fourteen years as a senator, he always voted against gay rights whenever the issues came up; including gay marriage. There was of course huge confusion and a huge backlash from Democrats and Republicans in the public after this news came out.
This is another good example of reaction formation. Roy Ashburn very likely grew up with the traditional religious ideas that gay people are not supposed to have a place in this world. At some point in his life he must have had a terrifying realization that he was gay. Then in response, he did his best to hide it from others and himself by being 100% against the rights of people who are gay. If it weren't for Roy Ashburn’s self deception, then he very likely wouldn’t have voted completely against gay rights. It depends heavily on your view of gay rights issues when it comes to determining whether this is good or bad. From a progressive civil rights standpoint, this self deception did have a negative effect on his policy and consequently on to society. The Zach Fansler and Roy Ashburn cases are almost mirror images of each other on the political spectrum, but they both demonstrate the extreme irony that can be found when looking at these cases of reaction formation.
The next example will be an example of projection rather than one of reaction formation. Mark Sanford was a Republican governor of South Carolina. In 1998 and 1999 during Bill Clinton’s sex scandal, Mark Sanford was outspoken about his disapproval towards Bill Clinton’s affair as Sam Stein from the Huffington Post reported. “Sanford Was Harsh Critic Of Clinton Affair, Called President A Rascal” (Stein, July 25, 2009). It was very understandable to criticize the scandal, but Mark Sanford turned out to be somewhat of a hypocrite ten years later in June of 2009. Jim Davenport from The San Diego Union Tribune reported that Sanford suddenly disappeared from his home. He was gone for several days, having no contact with anyone close to him. Eventually he did contact someone and he mysteriously claimed that he had decided to go on an Appalachian Mountain hike. Eventually the true story came out that he had really been involved with an affair with an Austrian woman that he met online. Some news outlets like the Huffington Post ridiculed him for his hypocrisy.
This is a typical example of projection. Mark Sanford easily ridiculed someone else for behavior that he himself was willing to perpetrate. Sanford’s conservative values towards marriage may have made it harder for him to do this than some other people. Therefore his projection of these tendencies came from the discomfort that he would have felt when he thought about himself having an affair. Unlike the examples of reaction formation, this self deception did not result with Mark Sanford taking direct action towards anything. Therefore it did not have any effect on policy or decision making.
The final main type of self deception is repression.

Unfortunately, there really are no examples of repression in politicians available to the public. As discussed in Neel Burton’s book, repression is the subconscious forgetting of undesirable memories. The resulting exhibits of repression can be “...a range of psychological problems such as difficulty concentrating, irritability, anxiety, insomnia, nightmares, and depression...” (Burton, 18). Those things can also be caused by many other psychological problems making it hard to tell if any given person exhibiting those things actually represses some memories. It can be even harder to tell while looking at politicians because they are always attempting to hide things like depression and anxiety from the public. Even if one could pick out which politicians were suffering from things like depression and anxiety, they would then have to find out what caused the repression to occur in the first place, like sexual or physical abuse, in order to determine if that is the cause of repression. At that point, if there is some kind of abuse, it would be highly unlikely that the public would know about those events while the politician has forgotten and is completely unaware of them due to repression. Therefore it is nearly impossible to find credible examples of repression among

politicians.
Just because it is impossible to look at examples of repression is politicians, that doesn’t mean that it is not still important to discuss the effects that it could have on political leaders. Things like depression, anxiety, irritability, etc… can surely have an impact on the effectiveness of a politician. It seems very likely that the only effect on decision and policy making that those would have would be a lack of enthusiasm and effort for one’s policy and decisions. Repression does not shape one’s general views about the world and others. Therefore, it does have the ability to change policy. It is hard to make decisive claims about something without concrete examples, but it appears that repression does not have an effect on policy and decision making.
Politicians almost always aim to only show their good side to the public eye. When they have a problem with themselves, the resulting self deception that can occur matches the huge ego that they need to protect. Self deception among political leadership in America does have an effect on policy and their decision making. Reaction formation has the greatest effect on policy and decision making because it requires the self deceived politician to counter their tendency using actions. These actions can involve voting a certain way, favoring organizations, or embracing certain ideologies. The effect of reaction formation self deception also tends to be opposite of the politicians true tendencies and can easily be considered positive or negative depending on your political beliefs. Projection and repression both do not have an effect on policy and decision making because they do not require the self deceived politician to take an action. Projection only requires the person to judge others based on their own insecurities. Repression is a completely personal process. It is impossible to find examples of repression in politicians, but due to the nature of repression it can be assumed that it also has little to no effect on policy and decision making. Too much self deception can limit who we are as people, as expressed by Neel Burton. If we as a society could reduce self deception among our political leaders then maybe we would create politicians who are less headstrong and more productive with people of differing views. In addition, maybe it would create politicians who are less ashamed and more honest with their voter base.

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