Re: Zogby: Bush job approval at all-time low 41%


David in NYC wrote:
> "Yeah I'm convinced about 35% of the country would support Bush if he
> blew up
> DC with an atomic bomb. "
>
> I was talking to my friend about this earlier, and he mentioned that if
> Bush shat on the presidential seal on live television, at least a third
> of the country would still like him.
>
> There are two problems:
>
> One is the college football mentality that has seeped into modern
> politics. You menition Republicans above, but about a third of the
> country would vote Democratic no matter what. People love the
> convenience of labels and the simplicity of selecting by brand (which
> is why Starbucks keep opening and mom and pop coffee shops keep
> closing). It's the remaining 35% who vote for what's best for the
> country as a whole that need to save us.
>
> I mean, when you really think about it, why does a person need to have
> a party associated with their name on a ballot? I understand the need
> for organizations of like minded people with similar agendas forming
> alliances so their voice may have weight. But why does a politician
> need to be aligned with any of them specifically?
>
> The second point is this:
>
> There is a significant difference between the Republican platform and
> the Democratic platform. I can't really figure out how to write this
> explanation in a non-partisan way, so I'll apologize up front. But, if
> you're a business owner who's main goal in life is to make a lot of
> money and acquire property, why would you ever vote Democratic? And,
> if you're someone who believes that taking care of the enviroment for
> the next generation is more important than anything, why would you ever
> vote Republican?
>
> People have different priorities, and it seems pretty reasonable to me
> that 35% of the country would find an urbanite who rejects the central
> tenets of his faith and who finds it more effective to negotiate than
> go to war impossible to vote for, no matter how bad Bush fucked up.
>
> I spent a weekend two weeks ago in the midwest, and I simply have
> nothing in common with those people. Public transporation, arts
> institutions, environmental controls - it's just simply not for them.

There you go again, David. You make a fair amount of sense up until
this paragraph, at which time you lapse into the same arrogant,
sweeping black and white, brandname pigeonholing that you otherwise
(rightfully) blame for the current state of our society. "Nothing in
common with THOSE PEOPLE"? "Simply not for them?" What exactly do you
mean by the midwest? Chicago? For all its monstrous sprawl, it has a
fine public transportation system. St. Louis? For all its problems,
it has many fine, thriving cultural institutions. Rural Iowa and
Indiana? Lots of people there who make their living off of the land
who care deeply about the environment. Major universities and centers
of diversity in all of these places, but you dismiss all of it because
it doesn't live up to your very narrow and unique (and hence
unduplicatable) slice of the world.

I don't see any hope of any political or social healing so long as
people are invested in this type of divisiveness. As long as we insist
on the righteousness of our own ideology and ways of life, while
ridiculing and demeaning the superficial differences we perceive in
others . It's exactly that sort of arrogance and self-absorbed nature
that breeds and sustains the current climate that troubles people like
you and me, and that drives middle of the road people to embrace
extreme ways of thinking that are otherwise counter to their own
interests. Reasonable people would like to think that such a mentality
is largely a false stereotype perpetuated by extremists as a strawman
to sway common people away from the issues that really impact them (One
of the main focuses of "What's the Matter With Kansas?"). So how about
doing your part and not feeding into it?



> Is there a solution?




> Unfortunately, I can't think of one...
>
> David

.