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Bush and Policy
Jan. 18th, 2005 10:25 pmToday's big headlines on the Beeb are the nomination hearings for noted perjurer Condi Rice and a poll which indicates that most people throughout the world think that the world is less safe with George W. Bush as president. Nothing surprising there.
Not, I suspect, coincidentally, Avedon posted a link to a new survey from Results for America that most Americans don't support Bush's approach to foreign policy--saying that the most important priorities are protecting the US's borders from attacks and working with other nations to combat international terrorism through improved intelligence and international cooperation, while the least important are establishing democracies and "going it alone" to fight terror. It's been a point of Avedon's for as long as I've known her that Americans, by and large, don't support Republican views on any particular issue, so it's no surprise that she'd point this survey out.
One thing which I've been chewing on since the election--I've posted about it before--is that the Republicans have a fragmented coalition. There's a group of people--possibly as many as 17% of Bush's voters in 2004--who would vote for Stalin if they thought he loved Jesus and hated nancy-boys. Then there's another group who don't care about who sticks what into whom, but just want to see as many Arabs killed as possible. Then there's another group who don't care about Arabs or queers as long as they can stuff money into their pockets with both hands. These groups don't have anything in common except a convergence of their very different interests in one political figurehead. As long as the Republicans can keep this coalition together, it doesn't matter what the majority of people believe on any given issue, because the single-issue voters (the theocrats, the neocons, and the kleptocrats) will put up with nearly infinite amounts of stupid mismanagement and governmental malfeasance as long as they're getting lip service to their causes.
Are those single-issue voters 25% of the electorate? Then the task of the people who believe in America is to convince the other 75% that their interests aren't with the sanctimonious, violent, and greedy. It shouldn't be that hard.
Not, I suspect, coincidentally, Avedon posted a link to a new survey from Results for America that most Americans don't support Bush's approach to foreign policy--saying that the most important priorities are protecting the US's borders from attacks and working with other nations to combat international terrorism through improved intelligence and international cooperation, while the least important are establishing democracies and "going it alone" to fight terror. It's been a point of Avedon's for as long as I've known her that Americans, by and large, don't support Republican views on any particular issue, so it's no surprise that she'd point this survey out.
One thing which I've been chewing on since the election--I've posted about it before--is that the Republicans have a fragmented coalition. There's a group of people--possibly as many as 17% of Bush's voters in 2004--who would vote for Stalin if they thought he loved Jesus and hated nancy-boys. Then there's another group who don't care about who sticks what into whom, but just want to see as many Arabs killed as possible. Then there's another group who don't care about Arabs or queers as long as they can stuff money into their pockets with both hands. These groups don't have anything in common except a convergence of their very different interests in one political figurehead. As long as the Republicans can keep this coalition together, it doesn't matter what the majority of people believe on any given issue, because the single-issue voters (the theocrats, the neocons, and the kleptocrats) will put up with nearly infinite amounts of stupid mismanagement and governmental malfeasance as long as they're getting lip service to their causes.
Are those single-issue voters 25% of the electorate? Then the task of the people who believe in America is to convince the other 75% that their interests aren't with the sanctimonious, violent, and greedy. It shouldn't be that hard.
