Clueless People Love Bush: Studies show Bush supporters are misled on Bush policies and the news
It would be nice to be able to have a real, honest, open debate on the issues facing us today. Sadly, this appears not to be in the cards, probably not in our lifetimes and certainly not in this election cycle. When you consider that the Bush Administration is still heavily invested in spreading disinformation and enforcing Groupthink, the chances of Republicans openly discussing issues without engaging in Propagandaspeak is roughly nil.
It seems the majority of Bush supporters, according to recent polls, still believe Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda and even to 9/11, and that the United States found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Many of you are asking how that could possibly be, since everybody knows …
But everybody doesn’t know. There it is. And if you are wondering why everybody doesn’t know, you can either blame it on the media, always a shrewd move, or take notice that the administration is STILL spreading this same misinformation.
Josef Goebbels clearly was onto something. This Administration has taken his Big Lie theory to new heights, or depths, depending on your perspective. While it might seem inflammatory to compare Bush’s spinmeisters to the Nazi propaganda mogul, the comparison of methods is accurate. BushCo’s spin moguls clearly have seized on the reality that they can CREATE truth, simply by repeating a talking point with enough frequency and fervor to convince the sheep- er, the Republican faithful- that whatever is being fed to them is Gospel.
Normally, when you get a situation like that – where people are simply not acknowledging reality – it is considered a cult, a form of groupthink based on irrational beliefs propagated by what is normally a charismatic leader. So those Kerry volunteers earnestly engaging Bush supporters on the latest outrage are way off base. They need to go all the way back to the Two Great Lies that got us into this: Many American soldiers marching into Iraq believed it was “payback for 9/11.”….
[M]ore people now think Kerry behaved shamefully in regards to Vietnam than did W. Bush. Incredible what brazen lying will do, isn’t it?
Hmm…let me see if I have this straight. Kerry VOLUNTEERS to go to Vietnam, and STILL has shrapnel in his body from the combat he saw. Bush’s father gets him into the “Champagne Unit” of the Texas Air National Guard, and most of his service time is unaccounted for. So, who served more admirably? Well, if you’re a staunch Republican, the answer should be obvious, silly. Kerry OBVIOUSLY faked his wounds and has trumped up his service record to make himself appear more heroic.
In further unhappy evidence of how ill-informed the American people are (blame the media), the Program on International Policy Attitudes found Bush supporters consistently ill-informed about Bush’s stands on the issues (Kerry-ans, by contrast, are overwhelmingly right about his positions). Eighty-seven percent of Bush supporters think he favors putting labor and environmental standards into international trade agreements. Eighty percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treaty banning landmines. Seventy-six percent of Bush supporters believe Bush wants to participate in the treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. Sixty-two percent believe Bush would participate in the International Criminal Court. Sixty-one percent believe Bush wants to participate in the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. Fifty-three percent does not believe Bush is building a missile defense system, a.k.a. “Star Wars.”
The only two Bush stands the majority of his supporters got right were on increasing defense spending and who should write the new Iraqi constitution.
Kerry supporters, by contrast, know their man on seven out of eight issues, with only 43 percent understanding he wants to keep defense spending the same but change how the money is spent, and 57 percent believing he wants to up it.
So what’s going on here? I do not think Kerry people are smarter than Bush people, so why are they better-informed? Maybe a small percentage of ideological right wingers don’t believe anything the Establishment media say, but I don’t think this is a matter of not believing what they hear, but of not hearing what’s factual.
In a world where too many voters simply cannot be bothered to make an intelligent, informed, and reasoned decision, we are seeing the continued dumbing down of the political process. Our political system has become one in which a confirmed underachiever can, by way of connections, money, and his father’s sizable Rolodex, steal his way into the highest office in the land.
It’s not that I think that most Americans are stupid. That would be simplistic and only partially accurate. The reality is that most Americans have neither the time, the energy, nor the inclination to approach the election with an open mind. No, I don’t believe that people who don’t think as I do are stupid. What I do think that the minds of too many Conservatives slammed shut so long ago that they refuse to even consider an alternate viewpoint. These are the same folks that equate criticism of President Bush with treason. Conservative Fundamentalism can fairly be described as the sound of a mind slamming shut.
The great triumph of the political right in this country has been the creation of a network of alternative media. There are people who listen to Rush Limbaugh for more hours every day than the Branch Davidians listened to David Koresh. Watch Fox News, read The Washington Times – hey, that’s what the Bush administration does, according to its own words.
But it’s not just the right wing media purveying lies – they are quoting the administration. These misimpressions come directly from the Bush administration, still, over and over.
And too many Americans are willing to swallow this trash without so much as a second thought. No wonder that a Republican lying in the pursuit of power barely draws a sniff of outrage. God help you, though, if you’re a Democrat caught in a lie.
It’s been said that Americans get exactly the quality of representation we deserve. I had no idea that our standards had sunk so depressingly low.
