"Fringe vs. Mainstream Views" - Unclaimed Territory (we're mainstream)

[greeneyedboy]

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/fringe-v-mainstream-views.html

One of the most successful tactics used by Bush followers over the last six years -- and by the right-wing before that -- is to convince not just themselves, but also Democrats, that "mainstream, normal Americans" reject the views of Democrats, particularly on national security. Right-wing pundits reflexively operate from the premise that they represent mainstream Americans and that the views of "the left" (meaning critics of the Bush administration) are on the fringe, and Democrats can win elections only by hiding or diluting their beliefs. Many in the media, and large portions of the national Democratic political structure, seem to have internalized those assumptions.

The extent to which those premises are false cannot be overstated, and it is worth recognizing just what a seismic shift has taken place in American political opinion.

. . . (many many many paragraphs of evidence). . . .

Whatever else might be true about how dysfunctional our political and media institutions are, it is indisputably true that huge numbers of Americans have drastically changed their political views on the most critical issues facing our country. That, by itself, ought to constitute proof that the Bush movement and its various appedanges are far from invulnerable, or that the deck is hopelessly stacked in their favor.

And those who strut around as defenders of mainstream American values and beliefs -- and who baselessly claim the mantle of serious foreign policy thinkers whom Americans exclusively trust -- have been exposed as fringe and radical figures who represent a shrinking minority. Regardless of whether Democrats take over the Congress in a couple of weeks, we are clearly witnessing the collapse not just of the Bush presidency -- that has been a fait accompli for some time -- but also the wholesale rejection of the defining premises on which it has been based.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/fringe-v-mainstream-views.html

[applegrove]

1. Thanks for posting. I like his stuff.