Read the following, cut from here, and tell me you cannot easily derive GroupThink, continual hyperarousal, radical intolerance, completely unwarranted self congratulation, lack of self awareness, and the necessity of Safe Spaces.

If politics is downstream from culture, culture is downstream from the nuclear family and in particular the relationship of the mother with her children.

And I will add that I have long described the relationship between the black community and Democrats as codependent. Within this framework, Democrats–who talk obsessively and continually about how much they love and care about the black community, but who rarely if ever actually DO anything genuinely and lastingly useful–are the overfunctioning ones. The black community is underfunctioning. In far too many cases, they are not shouldering the responsibility of educating their children, and socializing them for success in a complex world. And the Democrats, of course, tell them they don’t have to and should not have to. Because all they need to do is vote Democrat, right? Codependence.

Fusion in Relationships

Fusion is a way of relating between people who do not have a strong sense of self. Largely unconscious, it avoids the anxiety of feeling separate. Fusion exists in families, both extended and nuclear, in groups, and in pairs (especially intensely in marital pairs or parent-child pairs.)

When optimal relational development has occurred, separation anxiety has been mostly resolved allowing flexible connection with moments of intense closeness and moments of secure separateness. This opposite of fusion has the name differentiation.

Fusion is strongly self-perpetuating–growing up in a fused family stunts differentiation and produces the tendency or need to seek fused relationships with everyone including one’s children. Fusion has far-reaching effects on the lives of those who must participate:

Participants believe, and often are openly told by the others, that they are there to meet the needs of the others. While healthy human groups and families do care for individual members in need generally, turning it into a rule produces a distortion in which neediness becomes power.
In a fused relationship, each participant believes they are compelled by the feelings (especially ‘negative ones’) and vulnerabilities of the other. This results first, in a great deal of compliant caretaking behavior that can’t be sustained, second in a great deal of repression of anger and resentment, and third, when the first two strategies become unbearable, the feelings of the others are disputed and invalidated. It doesn’t occur to participants that they can listen, acknowledge, but not ‘obey.’
It is considered a real ‘crime’ to do or say anything that upsets another member. The most anxious or constricted family member dictates the ceiling of freedom of action or freedom of expression
All thinking, feeling and acting is done with the other members potential feelings and reactions in mind. This results either into a cautious paralysis or strategic ‘gaming’
It is considered a ‘deeper crime’ to broach something a member has already been upset by (“You meant to hurt me!) so reactions tend to turn into rigid rules. Unlike healthy relationships in which topics and conflicts become more comfortable from progressive exposure, an ‘allergy’ develops to certain reactive topics.
Relationships devolve into pairs with an under-functioning participant and an over-functioning one. The over-functioning participant both enables the under-functioning one and becomes obsessed with changing him or her. The under-functioning one becomes obsessed with freedom from the constraints of the other but fails to act independently. No one can focus on themselves. This is especially common with parent-child and marriage relationships. The underfunctioning won’t change unless the overfunctioning changes first.
In healthy relationships, there is an inverse relationship between autonomy and dependency. In fused relationships, the two are uncoupled. Often members divide up as having little dependency and little autonomy (codependent) and great dependency and great autonomy (counterdependent) See Addictive Relationships.
Life is reaction-rich with very little real effective action. Said differently strong reactions are allowed but strong actions are not.
Difficulties and feelings are automatically projected outward. When asked to talk about themselves, participants talk about others–this is usually blame, which is rife in fused relationships. If one tries to redirect attention back onto the member of interest it only lasts only moments until the ‘other’ is being talked about. This ‘other-focus’ is far from a healthy interest in others. Despite talking about others, participants are trying to get their own needs met.
Fusion affects relationships globally. Strife arises from the attachment function, not, as members tend to believe, from the sensitivity or difficulty of the issues that face them. It is the fusion that makes the subjects or conflict unmanageable, not the other way around.
There is a de facto line between insiders and outsiders. Members do not relate to outsiders the same way as insiders. Being a romantic interest however immediately makes one an insider. However, very differentiated people will not seem attractive to fusion-prone people.
There is constant squabbling over what everyone ‘should’ do, even in minor issues. In healthy (differentiated) relationships, very few actions require consensus.
Usually there is constant fighting but no resolution of issues. Alternately there is compulsive avoidance of any conflictual subject, the list of which grows longer in time. Life becomes stilted and boring. Sometimes there are stretches of the latter with cyclical explosions of the former.
There is a ‘war’ against true autonomy. If any member acts truly differently, he or she is deemed crazy or bad, and strong united pressure is borne on him or her to change back.
It is considered wrong for any member to thrive when others are not. While the most ‘symptomatic’ member doesn’t dictate a ceiling on achievement (achievement is often high among the over-functioning members) he or she does dictate a ceiling on enjoying success,
No one trusts their own desires, motives or impulses, and no one trusts the desires, motives or impulses of the others.
There is actual confusion about who is doing what. Participants, despite being obsessed with the traits and behaviors of the others, have a very difficult time actually describing what the others are actually like, or actually doing. Without the vantage point of a self, others cannot really be seen.
If any member is a strong narcissist, fusion will be present but the relationship is probably better understood according to my page on pathological narcissism.