First of all, good job. When you’re right, you just need to hammer the point home and not get diverted.
Secondly, I shouldn’t have said, “Today’s conservative”. I should have said “Modern conservative”, then set up a contrast with traditional conservatives.
More seriously (a lot more seriously) I agree with your two points. But I’ll furthermore state that wing-nuttery is pushed by Bill O’Reilly, Fox News, Limbaugh and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. That’s a big problem, as those are mainstream outlets. Serious conservatives have been pushed to the fringe and many unsurprisingly are becoming implicit or explicit supporters of the Democratic Party. As an example see Bruce Bartlett. And those who willingly consume information sources that are demonstrably afactual have issues. There’s a bright line between the WSJ and the NYT’s editorial page: the former espouses crackpot theories whether they involve supply side economics, the tobacco lobby or anthropogenic climactic change.
Then I must be missing the cries of shock and outrage that the President lied to sell ACA.
You know, when Bush lied to sell the war in Iraq, his support sunk below even what you’d expect given his base, which means that enough Republicans were principled enough to abandon the guy once they realized the truth. That kinda puts an arrow right through the heart of this theory that Republican voters like being lied to.
meanwhile, despite what Obama said having proven not to be true, there’s little evidence of disapproval among Democrats. Conclusion: they either like being lied to, or like lying to the country.
And this, my friends, is what a made up fact looks like.
Back in reality, we can see that Bush’s approval rating among Republicans topped 80% prior to early 2006. That about covers the WMD issue in Iraq. It also covers Katrina, occurring in 2005. 80%!
Bush approval Republicans: Bush Approval Rating Down to 60% Among Republicans
Bush approval, relatively neuro-typical sample: Presidential Approval Ratings -- George W. Bush | Gallup Historical Trends
Think that one over. GWBush appointed an unqualified and incompetent head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who proceeded to bumble hurricane relief. When faced with such a clusterfuck… Republicans approve of what Bush was doing. And just last year, most Louisiana Republicans either thought Obama was to blame for the poor response to the 2005 disaster - or they weren’t sure. To review, Obama took office in 2009.
Sorry adaher but you’re wrong and your team is composed of head cases.
Which makes it very much like your team. And your other argument basically just assures me that it’s too soon for OBama’s followers to abandon him. Maybe by 2015.
Hardly. Bush eventually did lost a lot of his conservative support. Citing his 2005 rating because it was equivalent to where Obama is in his Presidency doesn’t refute my argument in the slightest.
The abandonment usually starts with the politically informed. I’m seeing little evidence of liberal Dopers caring even a little that he lies habitually. Because he does it in support of causes they support.
I guess my point is that “modern conservatives” are Democrats, now. I miss the old Republican party. I miss the practice of honing ideas and policies with friction, rather than trying to smash them with blunt force. I miss the concept of shame in public life.
What happened to this country that the Wall Street Journal can not be trusted?
Yes, but Bush didn’t lose his support when he lied to people, or was found to have lied; he lost it when he was out of office (and no further use to them) or when the economy tanked (and cost them money).[sup]*[/sup] To claim that support for Bush among conservatives demonstrates some high-minded dedication to truth and integrity is laughable.
It’s also my belief that the abandonment of Bush only manifested personally. That is, regardless of why he became Republican-non-grata (lies, economy, whatever) that conservatives would have flocked to someone espousing the exact same messages and policies. They left Bush, but they did not leave any of his ideas.
I wouldn’t put it the way you did, but by 2007 Bush’s approval was getting pretty anemic. By summer 2007, he was below 30%:
I don’t believe Obama can ever get that low because he’s got a solid group of supporters who will stay with him no matter how many lies he tells. Just so long as he’s lying for them.
And fleeing Bush the man was my point. Why would conservatives abandon his ideas?
We had this conversation before, Politifact only looks a portion of what the president says, from that small sample you are getting a very out of proportion ratio.
As **BobLibDem **pointed out in another thread where that point of yours did not impress many.
Oh God, I hear you. Within my terminology (which is all it is) “Modern conservatives” are the bad guys, and traditional conservatives are neuro-typical with the very important qualifier of their problems with bigotry during the 1900-1965 era. But! There were plenty of non-bigoted conservatives back then.
The Republicans back in 1960 had a lock on the professional class: doctors, lawyers, dentists, accountants. The needle started to move when Goldwater was elected, though the GOP still maintained majorities with that group. Since then it’s been a slow then accelerating erosion. I trace the inflection point to the election of Ronald Reagan. Supply side economics as he presented it was crackpottery, which did permanent damage to the GOP’s grip on reality. In practice Reagan’s policies were more moderate than his rhetoric, but it turns out that pandering to the far right really is problematic. (OBTW, check out who he ran against during the 1980 Republican primary: many of them were straight shooters as politicians go.) The real toxic stuff started with Gingrich, though even he had streaks of moderation that the Tea Partiers lack.
I’m an ultra-liberal by US standards, but if I was born earlier I can easily imagine myself as a Republican. Seriously.
As pointed before, one has to notice that many other statements are not being reported. Particularly his issues with creationism and climate change that shows how unreliable he would be if he ever gets to a higher office.
Okay. Now, what episode of mendacity preceded that drop and caused legions of Republicans (in their unswerving commit to truth) to abandon him?
Correlation does not prove causation, but lack of correlation pretty much blows your causation hypothesis out of the water.
Then you’ve missed my point. Republicans would have (and probably still would) rallied around someone promoting the exact same ideas, policies, rhetoric, lies, whatever. You could take Bush’s speeches and give them, word for word, to McCain, Romney, whoever, and the GOP crowds would cheer. They don’t like Bush, but they don’t know why they don’t like Bush. They think he did everything right, but blame him because things turned out wrong. I believe Republican voters would fall for the same lies all over again. They haven’t figured out what he did wrong, so they can’t find someone who can do it better. Regardless of what damage Bush did to our credibility, the budget, or the economy, the Republicans would go down the exact same road if it was a different guy in the gray suit at the podium.
