“Let Them Eat War.” Why do the very Americans who have been hurt the most by George W. Bush’s policies still support his presidency? As someone from a predominantly working class – yet staunchly Republican – part of the country, this is the kind of stuff I wonder about.
Max
November 12, 2003 — 4:20 am
Good article–and something I wonder about all the time down here (though in a much less diplomatic fashion: “Why in God’s name do these poor people keep voting for Republicans? Don’t they know Repulicans hate them?”). I think a lot of it comes down to being uneducated about the government and its policies–sometimes I want to shake people and ask them if they realize how many social programs that they need to LIVE would vanish if a lot of Republicans had their way.
[Insert picture of me throwing up my hands in disgusted bewilderment.]
Kris
November 12, 2003 — 9:08 am
Total agreement here, Max. I especially liked the author’s mention of deflecting the working class’s negative opinion *down* and *out* – to “foreigners”, blacks, and the less fortunate – instead of *up* at the rich class that are exploiting them.
Moire
November 12, 2003 — 9:42 am
To be honest, I don’t think any of them really care about poor folk — or even us middle class folk. All politicians pander to whichever group they think they can exploit to their advantage. I’m disgusted enough by the lot of them that if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t even bother to vote for any of them.
Kris
November 12, 2003 — 12:48 pm
Your cynicism depresses me, Moire, because I recognize that I’m not far off from that point myself. But I’m not there yet. I have to believe that they’re not all rotten to the core. Nobody’s perfect, of course, but there are governments (both abroad and locally within the US) that do things *better*. I think there’s room to hope for improvement within our own national leaders. I mean, look at Dean’s (misunderstood) comment about wanting to appeal to “guys with Confederate flags on their trucks”. To me, that’s a rejection of the “with us” vs “against us” black-white either-or mentality we’ve had for too long in the US. It’s a step in the right direction, anyway.
(Not that I’m endorsing Dean just yet. Everytime I mention him on this site I get e-mails from his supporters asking me to coordinate his Australian Internet campaign. While I admire their enthusiasm, I haven’t done enough research on the candidates to promote one of them yet.)
Dan
November 12, 2003 — 2:43 pm
Australian campaign for Dean? [Jon Stewart voice]Whaaaaaaaaa?[/] Anyway I thought the article raised a good question but it didn’t answer it to my satisfaction. It’s a hard question to answer. I find myself really buying into the red state/blue state dichotomy lately, ie, there are fundamental cultural differences mostly along urban/rural lines. I would agree that Republicans exploit that with very effective pandering while hiding their main corporate-funded agenda. But (as per Moire) Democrat politicians pander to big business too. But what I like is that Democrats as a whole is that we are populists by nature. I think if the Democrats can embrace the populism that is the core of party and abandon the weak pandering and Bush-apologism they really have a chance to motivate voters in 2004. And then we won’t have to whine about the red states.
Kris
November 12, 2003 — 3:47 pm
Excellent points, Dan. (The Dean thing was to lead the Australian “expat” campaign. That guy’s got groups and websites set up all over the world!)