That this core believes:
- That it does not matter that Bush can abandon the people of New Orleans to the ravages of Katrina without any consequences to his standing.
- That he can wage war against the people of Iraq for no reason whatsoever, as though the Oil in Iraq is ours for the taking.
3.That Arabs are just sand n—-rs and the people of New Orleans are just plain n—-rs any way.They don’t amount to anything.
A hard rain is going to fall on America because of what Bush and his gang have done unless we speak up.
Thanks for posting this – so true. I have no brilliant observations, but feel compelled to post a link to a diary by Nowhere Man that reminds us that at the time of our nation’s inception, not all agreed.
I know ‘we’ have been speaking out, but we must continue to believe we shall overcome.
to a neighborhood near you. It can come in the form of bankruptcy, or serious illness. It can come in the form of a terrorist attack, or an environmental disaster.
Any of these events, most individuals and the government are ill-prepared for.
Great point duranta!
Floods did come to Fargo and Grand Forks when the Red River flooded in ’97. (And we know it can happen again.)
Fargo dikes survived but Grand Forks’ did not. Major parts of that city flooded, downtown business burned, many homes and businesses were lost.
Luckily, no one died, that I recall. And help poured in from around the nation. And FEMA functioned at that time and no one died of hunger or thirst.
The residents of GF know well the trauma and losses involved, and I have no doubt that the residents of that city have shipped considerable dollars to the Gulf Coast, as they do remember the help they got in their time of need.
I have been shocked at the open racism that I have heard since Katrina. Previously, people apparently just kept it hidden, and now feel they no longer have to.
This is one of our problems. Remarkably little is known about political cognition in a way that can sensibly characterize such a group. Information that could help us understand is not widely shared–cross-tabs from regular polls are rarely available–but even so the questions asked usually wouldn’t provide much deep insight anyway. There has been some excellent pioneering work over the years that would really significantly improve our understanding, but these practices are yet to be widely adopted.
Suffice it to say that people appear to be strongly influenced by psychological processes such as identification, projection, displacement, etc., all of which distort the sort of normal inferential processes that you are implicitly assuming. The workings of these processes are almost completely unexplored.
But I will tell you this: the core support for Bush’s real agenda is much less than 38%. He still has a very formidable disinformation machine, and a large number of people out there who are psychologically very unwilling or unable to recognize him for what he is. But if you asked them up or down do you agree with Bush Position A, B, C, D, etc., the support levels would well below that 38% mark. Some of that is somewhat regularly done, of course. But when groups like PIPA (the Program on International Policy Alternative) have gone beyond the list of common position comparisons, whole new realms of lack of support open up.
You may very well have a point.The numbers I am citing come from an omnibus attitude survey that phrases questions in such a way that it is hard to draw any conclusions. But seeing that even this number has gradually shifted over the past year and has pretty well stabilized around the 40 or less mark made me post what I have said.
In any case, Bush’s support owes a great deal to the image created as an avenging angel against terrorists who perpetrated 9/11.It is when that image is shattered that you will see the real numbers emerge from the wreckage.Katrina, to some extent, has done that.More remains.
Clearly
It’s simply too painful for them. They may never abandon Bush, but not because they support his policies. Rather, because they lack the self-esteem to stand back and renounce him, to stand on their own without the psychic prop that a strong leader provides.
Three things I would really like to see: (1) Cross-tabs between Bush approval/disapproval on all the issues. (2) Cross-tabs between these figures and his over-all approval. (I’d really like to know how many people support him any three issues where his single-issue support is already lower than his over-all approval.) (3) Cross-tabs between (2) and the terms selected to describe him.
That would be very interesting, I’m sure.
Thankfully, almost to a person, all my blood relatives are die-hard Democrats( at least as Ds where known prior to 2000)
As to the 38%Rs, I know many of “these people”. Here in my state I call them “well meaning Republicans”. Speaking in general, they are our relatives, our “friends”, our in-laws, etc.
IMHO they are still stuck in a momentum of belief carried over from Republican ideologies of the late fifties, early sixties. The grandad was a R, so the dad, so the son… and so on.
We know what’s happened to our MSM especially over the last several years. Other than newspapers, and the occassional magazine article it’s the only new source these people have. They do not spend hours per day searching the internet for their news.
Since we no longer have a “free press” in this country, it’s unlikely many will be converted via that media.
It’s much more likely gas prices, diesel fuel prices, home heating costs will deliver that “ah ha” moment.
But at that point the big conundrum for these people will be, “What’s the alternative.” politically speaking.
Hillary, Biden???
After the first shock of the bodies floating in the waters of New Orleans has worn off and Bush has put on his hypocritical show,it is clear that the 38 odd % actually sees his depraved indifference to life as an admirable asset in their leader.The fact that this indifference applies to dead black people just as much as his indifference to the Iraqi dead,makes him uniquely qualified, in their opinion.
After he secures his base this way, he and rove will put on a show full of promises to tilt the middle ground so that the Republicans will continue to dominate the feeble Democrats.