[quote=pri_dk]Do you guys really think that individual voters are using the logic below?
“If unemployment is above 8% I’m going to vote for the Republican guy, even though he doesn’t have plan and he’s promised to cut my Social Security, Medicare, and my nephew’s unemployment benefits. But if unemployment is 8% or less I’ll stay with Obama.”
Seriously?
Don’t forget that 9% unemployment means 91% employment. Most people still have jobs and probably won’t see the need to take a chance on someone who’s been advocating extreme solutions.
There will be no Republican job plan of substance. They’ve painted themselves into a corner. Cutting government does not create jobs in the short term (it literally does the opposite) and no one that is hurting economically is going to want to elect a new President and wait for the long-term plan to go into effect.
It it simply impossible for the Republicans to promote any credible jobs plan without contradicting the “hyperbolic ventilating” we’ve been hearing from them since ’08.[/quote]
pri, I don’t think the vast majority of voters use any logic at all in deciding who to vote for, particularly the Tea Party contingent.
The reality of the situation doesn’t matter anymore. For several years now, Americans have been creating their own reality, choosing exactly what they want and don’t want to hear.
Difficult as it is, I make it a point to occasionally to tune in to Fox News and their pundits, and to go on some of the more popular right-wing websites/message boards. I am absolutely shocked and appalled by some of the “inaccuracies” (I’m practicing restraint here) that are being perpetrated. It is like visiting a mythical universe, an alternate “reality” for the followers. There is no concern about accuracy in reporting: the sites, even the more respectable ones that are run by people with journalistic credentials, use each other as sources for confirmation of these stories. The really sad part is that many in the Republican U.S. Congress also use these sites for their source of the accurate informations and stories they use to support their positions.
Before anyone here gets their panties in a bunch, the left is guilty of this also. But, I don’t care what anyone says, it is not nearly as prevalent as it is on the Right. That could be attributable to the fact that the Right got a much earlier start on this business, and the Left was really slow on the uptake.
Trust me, there’s a huge contingent of people out there that are fed up with the Republicans and the Tea Party, but will vote for them anyway because of blind hatred (or, at least, strong distaste) for the Dems and the Left. There are also many who will simply not believe anything negative they hear about the Right. They’ve completely bought into the Fox News/Limbaugh/ Beck/ Hannity/Coulter version of a liberal-Muslim-socialist revocation of the Constitution and takeover of America, and NOTHING is going to change their minds. Because that would mean that they would be forced to admit that they had been “taken” and “mislead”, that they had fallen for a con job. So their pride will let them blindly join in on pushing America over the edge.
Again, I have just as much a problem with those on the Left who engage in prevarication for the purpose of polarization. I don’t care what their intention is, or how nicely or intellectually they word it: if it is untrue and meant solely to inflame, and adds nothing to a reparative dialogue, it’s unAmerican as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t count the Republicans out: I hear far too many people, even nice, reasonable, rational ones, parroting their “policies” and “solutions” for America’s jobs problems. And more and more of them are unwilling to even listen to their close friends and family members who try to expose them to evidence to the contrary. They’ll get angry, or simply walk away, so that they can continue to pretend to themselves that they’re on the “right” side, and that they didn’t fall for a con job.
And the other problem is that the left is way too silent and unwilling to act on the bullshit that’s going on, and offers no candidates that truly offer an alternative to the “empty-suit” or radical Republican candidates. Just like the Republican Party is acting on the desires and politics of a relative few (i.e., the Tea Party), the left represented in both the rightwing and the mainstream press is the liberal-spending, save-social-programs-at-any-cost Democrats. And there are a helluva lot of people from both parties who are feeling completely disenfranchised, who will choose a candidate on a which-one-will-cause-the-least-harm basis.
[quote=pri_dk] And who cares about Dowd, Milbank, and Krugman? Do you think the people who read them are going to vote Republican?[/quote]
Yeah, I do. I like a lot of what I read in their columns. But there are times that I get good and pissed off at what they’re selling. But I’m one of the very few people these days that not only reads things in their entirety, but who also thinks about them carefully (incidentally, a Piggs trait, which is why I hang out here). I accept some things, and I clearly reject others. That’s always been something that I’ve valued and appreciated as an American right. And I simply don’t understand why the people who are so gung ho on maintaining personal freedom waste so much energy and emotion on efforts that will strip us of those rights. And it’s largely attributable to their refusal to exercise those rights by reading opinions from people on all sides of an issue, and critically evaluating the material, by rejecting some things and accepting others.
Why is that so difficult? Why are Americans so content to give up that basic right, and, instead, allow others to dictate to them how they should feel, and how they should vote?
Incidentally, if the presidential election was this November, I would *seriously* consider casting my vote for Gary Johnson over President Obama. But chances are strong that this rational, bright, experienced, capable-of-critical-analysis, decisive Republican will never come close to getting the nomination. Go figure.
