Quoting her who must not be named:
“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises.”
Today’s GOP has 40-plus years of practice in getting group-oriented, authority-respecting people to be angry, fearful, and mass-mobilized. In that time span, they have effectively changed the definition of “patriotism” to jingoism, and “love of country” to hatred of anything leaders label un-American.
It’s a great strategy. Sure, they’ve lost the executive and legislative - for now - but they are doing fine at slowing Democrats’ progress, and they have the support of a lot of loyal, fearful, angry Americans. Because, among other things, they’ve helped them feel good and powerful and proud about being angry.
They don’t hate you, they lust after you.
I’m sure there are. But on the whole, it is easy to see which states receive more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes, and they happen to the same conservative states that tout their devotion to self reliance and eschew big government. There are outliers of course, but the vast majority of conservative states suckle the federal tit at the expense of the blue states.
Isn’t the most obvious answer just that far less than 100% of the populace ever bothers to vote in any election? Even if your ideas are only supported by 30% of the country, as long as only 20% of the country show up to vote for the other guy you’re gonna win. The GOP manages this fairly well by endorsing hard lines in hot-button topics; gun control, abortion, immigration. I don’t see gay rights as being such an issue as much anymore (locally it may be, but not so much nationally) so the focus has slipped away a little. Most people don’t have the time, energy or desire to study history, so even questionable claims like tax rates and shrinking government are going to be decided more on how appealing they might be, not a factual study of what actually happened 10, 20, 60 years ago, ect.
It’s like those call-in polls that charge you every time you vote. Only people who really care about the issue at hand are only ones who bother, so it tends not to be representative of the general populace. The anecdotal rich, black, gay, gun loving friend may just look at the options, decide it’s not anything worth getting up early and standing in the rain for and just vote “Who Cares?”.
Note that this works both ways, but it seems like the GOP has a larger number of single issues voters who are really concerned about the topic at hand. I don’t see many democrats getting riled up about gun control or abortion rights anymore. And almost certainly not exclusively.
I’m not really going to try restoring any coherent discussion to this thread, but I’ll say that though I vote for Democrats more often than any other party, I’m bemused by the attitude that Wesley Clark shows in the OP. He puts “everyone on the east coast” on the list. I suppose that’s a reference to Sarah Palin’s 'real America" line. But the concept that Republicans insult anyone who attended college or anyone who takes science seriously really puzzles me to no end. Certain liberals seem to assume that when I attended a top college of science and engineering and did graduate work in math at a top university, I also signed an oath in blood vowing that I would always side with the left on all political and cultural issues. But I don’t remember signing any such oath. When was this supposed to happen? When I received my Bachelor’s? At my thesis defense?
Sure there are a handful of people on the right who have taken stupid positions on scientific issues. There are people on the left who have done so to. Believing in evolutionary psychology is just as anti-scientific as believing that the earth is 6,000 years old. Why should it be assumed that I’m willing to ignore the first while basing my political positions exclusively on the second?
Typically all Christians, not just evangelical Christians. And it happens frequently. A normal day here at the SDMB will feature numerous declarations that all Christians are inferior. Why, then, am I supposed to ignore those insults from the left while getting worked up about insults that the right made years ago?
I bitch about that myself, but maybe we ought to be glad. Where history is a living thing - as it is in many parts of Europe - you get centuries of bloodshed.
Imagine today if millions of Southerners wanted recompense in lives from the North for the Civil War. It’d make the threat of Islamic terrorism look fairly tame.
Yes I do, but I disagree that it’s an immaterial distinction. Not that I completely disagree with your analysis that follows, just that I disagree that the question can’t be asked. If the question can be asked, then I daresay your analysis would differ. Not that your preferences or policy choices or affiliations would change in any way—your analysis following the question would still be in accord with all of that. But it seems by disallowing the distinction you’re not answering the question the OP is trying to pose (or the question I think the OP is trying to pose).
Though I’m loath to use specific examples (they tend to have too many less-than-relevant hooks that threaten to detract from the general point), allow me some leeway in considering the governor’s race in Alabama. Per a Pit thread, there is an ad campaign taking place in which both Republican candidates are proclaiming that not only are they Creationists, but that they find it insulting to them to be considered an Evolutionist (again, please don’t get bogged down in the nuances of the campaign, if this isn’t an apt example I’ll find another).
Consider the set of all people in Alabama who believe in evolution and do not take the Bible literally. Though there are many different subsets, focus only on the set of those whose political beliefs are in accord with the Republican candidates and who* would have* voted Republican, but who are now put off from voting for them (whether that means staying home on election day or voting for the Democrat is immaterial—the end result is the same).
What is the size of that set? Are you arguing that it’s empty? That* no* person is turned off from voting Republican in the election because of the candidates’ posturing as Creationists? While possible, I think that would be a very difficult argument to make.
Now, take for the moment the same type of set for the various categories referred to in the OP. There has been some strong anti-Muslim rhetoric used by (and not widely distanced/denounced by the leadership of) the Republican party. Is the set of Muslim voters who would have voted Republican but were so put off that they are going to stay home empty?
Assuming that these are not empty sets, aggregate them and consider the number of people in the total set. The OP seems to be expressing bafflement that the Republicans are still able to muster enough votes to win elections (or poll so well; winning elections may be a bit premature)* despite* foregoing this set of likely Republican voters.
Taking it as step further, consider one of the implications of the OP: If they* didn’t* act so as to create this set, then their electoral numbers would be astronomically larger than they are now.
My response to the OP is that by adopting these tactics (which are NOT the only tactics used to secure votes or participation) the set of people who respond to them by voting or otherwise getting active* who would not have done so otherwise* is larger than the above sets.
Please note that I recognize that the majority of Republicans are not voting/acting based on the situation or tactics referred to in the OP, and that the set of those that do respond to those tactics is merely a subset of all Republicans. For example, I’m NOT trying to say that if you vote Republican you are anti-evolution, are supporting Creationism, or anything like it. You could roll your eyes at the ads and still vote for the person who more accurately represents your political philosophy (or even is just the lesser of two evils). In any of those and many other cases, you are not part of either the set that would have voted Republican but is now turned off or the set of people that would not have voted Republican but is now motivated to vote.
Returning back to my presumption that your analysis would change if you approached the question differently, it’s possible (and I’m only guessing here, not trying to put words in your mouth) that you could argue that the aggregate number of gays, Muslims, Ivy League graduates, and others in the above sets is statistically insignificant. Or perhaps that the number of people who are in accord with the Republican platform dwarfs the number of ostensible Democrats, and the losses of those sets only make elections closer. You could also argue that the sets aren’t empty, but the Democrats also alienate similar numbers of different groups so that the numbers balance out. I think another viable tack is that the suggestion that Republican tactics are alienating people is itself off base, and that the only people who notice and cry OUTRAGE at the various ads and statements are so far to the left that they never would have been part of the set of possible Republican voters in the first place (I think this is closest to what you were saying, but again I’m only guessing and not trying to speak for you).
That doesn’t support your premise. You’re leaping to the conclusion that this is the result of pork that bought votes, pork provided by Republican legislators. Your own cite explains it differently:
Given that explanation, is it a surprise Mississippi is on that list? West Virginia? They’re the beneficiaries of runaway federal spending–spending on “autopilot,” according to your cite–spending that is expanding under a Democratic Congress, while also being dirt-poor states (relatively speaking). Should we abandon the progressive tax system? That would solve much of this apparently. Sorry, you’ve not provided evidence for your “here’s why people vote Republican” hypothesis.
In all seriousness, though, the Republicans are doing a better job of understanding the needs of white, Christian, suburban/rural , and low to middle income people. They do not benefit from affirmative action or other programs that target specific groups. There are no special programs to help their kids get into college or pay for it or to help them get jobs. Gay rights is not a big deal to them because they don’t have un-closeted gay friends and neighbors. They don’t want to go to the drive through at McDonalds and not be able to understand what the person taking their order is saying. Their kids not only do not benefit from bi-lingual education, it takes money away from programs that would help their children.
Democrats don’t speak their language. People don’t want to hear that rich people need to pay more taxes, because they want to be rich someday themselves. Meanwhile the world around them is changing faster than they can adapt. Sushi, espresso, rap music, electric cars, just when they grasped how Windows XP works it changes to Windows 7. Then there is 3G and 4G and IP and MP3 and their old TVs don’t work anymore and Lawrence Welk is gone and it’s just all too fucking much.
The Democrats need to become more populist. Clinton knew this, but Kerry and Gore had no fucking clue. The Dems need to embrace patriotism, and acknowledge the importance of God in people’s lives (even f it isn’t important to them), and stop talking aboun the United State’s weaknesses and focus on it’s strengths. Don’t say (like I do) that our healthcare system sucks, say that we have the best hospitals and doctors in the world and we want to make sure that every person in the United States can have access to it. Say that America has to raise taxes a little bit so that we don’t leave our children a load of debt. How we have to make sacrifices like people did in WWI and WW2 so that future generations have it better.
Stop narrowly focusing on women (I know they are more than 50%) and minorities and look for programs that target people based on need and talent rather than race. Stress that the US is the most religious country in the world because of separation of church and state, not despite it. Say that prayer at home with you family before school is better than having the state take over that duty in school. Acknowledge that homosexuality is scary if you have not been around gay people.
Rhythmdvl, I think your response is both interesting and much more nuanced than that suggested by the OP. No one could reasonably dispute that there are people put off by the rhetoric advanced by either party, people that might otherwise have voted for that party. That subset is certainly greater than zero. I would assert that it is, by evidence of the facts, not sufficient to keep Republicans from being elected. I’d speculate, without any facts at my fingertips, that it’s not material (again, focusing on people that might actually have voted Republican). If a creationist candidate ran in my state, I’d be put off by it, but I’d have to assess the overall impact of both platforms. I could well vote for the creationist guy (but not because he’s a creationist; that would piss me off).
I think the outrage expressed is, indeed, largely by people who had a zero probability of voting Republican. It is such voters on this board who express their incredulity over the fact that the self-evident evil of the Republican party is somehow not sufficient to keep people from voting for these demons. I don’t believe threads like this are generally looking for nuanced discussion over interesting political phenomena; rather, they’re calls to the faithful, so that we can all gnash our teeth over the evil Pubbies and applaud ourselves for our insight. It’s silly. It’s echo-chamber nonsense.
DanBlather, that was an insightful post.
It’s not puzzling at all. They appeal to their base; evil and stupid people. Who don’t care that the cause they fight for is evil and stupid because they are too.
In other words, you support famine, mass suffering and death in disasters, general environmental degradation, and the broad imposition of racism, sexism, religious bigotry, and similar things across the country. Because without the federal government intervening, that’s exactly what happens. Your mentality is the same as the Bush Administration, who sabotaged the federal government; and the new government of Iraq as well. And we all saw the results. For that matter, we’ve seen the results historically.
Don’t deliberately misunderstand; he obviously meant they hate and insult you for going to college regardless of your political position.
They aren’t remotely the same. Earth being 6000 years old contradicts everything we know and is a position purely based on religion; evolutionary psychology fits right in with what we know both of biology and human psychology, and is denied simply because it offends people. It’s the denial of evolutionary psychology that is irrational and unscientific; it is an attempt to claim that evolution works differently for us than everything else.
Because there are a significant number of white, middle class, hetero Christian people who live in the states between New York and California, and don’t particularly care about science?
As for going to a “decent college”, what schools do you think all those wealthy Republican investment banker and lawyer types graduated from?
DanBlather is right. Democrats do not understand how to connect to the common folk. To the vast majority of hard-working middle-Americans, Democrats appear as a pompous, condescending, ivory tower intellectual elite who want to punish the successful in order to reward the poor.
That’s an intriguing analysis. Certainly good news for the McCain Campaign.
I agree. Well said Dan
It’s not that you’re openly hateful to gays. You’re just some guy on the Internet It’s that the national leaders and official policy is abhors gays and actively works to deprive them of basic rights. People shouldn’t be multi-issue voters when one of them is “they’re trying to keep me from having basic rights”.
At some point it just gets silly. “You voted Nazi, Goldberg!? But they locked us in this ghetto!” and Goldberg says, “Have you seen what they did with the autobahn? This country needed infrastructure investment! I’m not a one-issue voter!”
Wow. We went a full page before Hitler got invoked. That’s better than usual.
It only took so long because people act like invoking Hitler is a bad argument, even when the analogy is obvious.
You’ve listed one of the primary reasons, actually, quite unintentionally. The Republicans have somehow managed to convince people that they’re the party of small government and fiscal responsibility despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, and that’s a big reason why people vote for them despite it not actually being true.
More generally, it’s the nature of a two party system. The us vs them mentality. Sometimes the hatred of them becomes so strong that it doesn’t matter how much you get screwed over by “us” - your hatred of the other side trumps any concerns on your own. So the party that isn’t the democratic party is going to get, say, 40% of the vote no matter what. Republicans could come out and say that their platform is now the execution of all people with black hair, mandatory juggling of swords and babies together, and that 30% of your diet must consist of fecal matter, and they’d still get that 40% because they’re not the democrats. It doesn’t matter what they do - the last decade or so, especially the last 2 years, should be proof of that - the base is still with the party, and their concern is actually that the party isn’t batshit crazy enough.