Red-State Democrats: What the Hell Is Going On

[smoogatz]

with the religious right? You guys live next door to these people--you drink the same water and eat the same food. How do you explain their bizarre behavior? Is it some kind of mass hypnosis thing, or what? Can't you turn the hose on them or something?

[rurallib]

1. Don't know any personally

The few I have ever talked to here (iowa - damn near blue) seem to be afraid to admit a mistake. So they just follow along with whatever the latest BS is. It's like they'd rather see the earth explode than ever say "I was wrong."

[camby]

2. If only it were as easy as turning a hose on them!

I tried to engage one moron in conversation. I practically got down on my knees and begged him - I quoted bible verses to prove the error of his ways. He finally agreed with me that Jesus probably would have been a liberal! But in the next sentence he was back to the party line. It's hopeless.

[FreedomAngel82]

7. It is hopeless

I don't bother. People like that I can't get myself.

[seabeyond]

16. how about three hours in a parking lot, in the hot sun

there were even times i was just flat out mean, made her cry. how christian to kill 100k innocent people. i used everything. went thru history of u.s. and iraq, things bush says that prove he doesnt walk christian talk

i got her to admit that i didnt have to go to her church to know god, lol lol that was about it.

it all reduces to we are all sinners..........

[RoyGBiv]

3. I'll tell you what's going on ...

People in the so-called "blue" states seem oblivious to the fact that these people are everywhere, which is part of the reason they have so much power.

[Pirate Smile]

The US is different shades of purple, not red and blue.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Exactly n/t

[Clark2008]

6. A-Men

I know of more Freepers in certain parts of Pennsylvania than in my red state.
My state's problem is the lack of choices in media - it's all rightwing radio.

[smoogatz]

9. Sure, Wisconsin has its share of fundie freaks

but they're not entirely running the show here, and they didn't deliver our electoral votes for Bush. In fact, at the moment they seem kind of preoccupied with shooting each other. This is gun-totin', SUV drivin', deer-huntin' country--but we don't have a lot of the in-your-face religious lunacy that seems prevalent further south. Maybe it's because the religious people are mostly self-effacing Lutherans and not fire-breathing, snake-handling Baptists. Maybe it's the weather. I don't know--that's why I'm asking.

[RoyGBiv]

14. Really?

And you're conversant with this peculiar brand of "in-your-face" religious lunacy as being unique to the South how? Television?

Your state's electoral votes were not delivered to Shrub by a relatively slim margin. In fact, yuor state gave shrub more popular votes than my state, yet I'm supposed to answer for the religious whackos who voted him in? Why?

With all due respect, if you don't see it in your own back yard, you're just not paying attention.

[smoogatz]

17. A little touchy, aren't we?

I've lived in the South eight of the last twenty years (Georgia, central Florida, North Carolina and Virginia). I've also lived in Massachusetts, New York (city and upstate), Wisconsin, California and Ohio. My brother and some of my closest friends live in the South. I think there's a palpable difference in the degree and type of religious lunacy in the South (aka the Bible belt, Kansas inclusive) versus the North and the urban coasts, yes. Don't you?

[QC]

26. Maybe he's just tired of the same old divisive crap.

I know that having that stuffed down our throats here every day could make some of us a mite defensive.

The original point in this subthread is a good one--it is madness to pretend that fundamentalists and every other negative force are limited to "red states." In fact, it is even more mad to keep bleating the red/blue talking point to begin with, since it's a GOP-approved and corporate media propagated strategy for exaggerating the GOP's strength and our weakness. Remember how the Republicans all got little woodies waving their red/blue maps around after the 2000 election and declaring them proof that they were much loved all over the country and we were found only in "decadent coastal enclaves"? It was one of their favorite talking points, and I can't for the life of me see why so many of us here love to spread it for them.

Besides, you might want to worry about matters closer to home--Kerry beat Bush by only 0.38% in Wisconsin. The upper midwest, which has been one of our most reliable regions for years, is turning Republican.

[smoogatz]

39. You make a good point

And it's a damn shame--Wisconsinites have all but forgotten their proud, progressive heritage. In the plus column, we like Russ Feingold a great deal--he beat his dim-bulb opponent handily this fall. And a stronger Democratic candidate than Gore/Kerry would do just fine here, I think. If such a person exists.

[autorank]

30. smoogatz, Reminder, Free Republic located in Fresno, CA

OMeffingG! Blue California, home of Free Republic. They make the religious extremists look tame! If you turned Bakersfield, CA through Stockton, CA (inclusive of Fresno)into a state, it would have about 5-6 million people with 100% Republican Members of Congress and a crazy Governor. Hmmm...

Anyway, here is my experience with my Red State, Northern, Virginia (the next Marin County in about 10 years!): talking to a guy, he's a right to lifer; he raises Shiavo and how she's being killed; I say, hey look at this brain scan (the guy's well educated); he says, no cerebral cortex; we look at each other and he says well, she's incapable of thought so what are the demos about and the discussion was over. I think about 1/2 of the 18% that supports the delusion (re-insert the feeding tube) are amenable to correction if they get the facts. The rest, well, that's the problem but it's a small % of the population.

[quaoar]

49. And if you made NW Mississippi into a state

From Jackson north to Memphis and from the Mississippi River east to I-55, it would be a solid blue state.

Same with central Alabama from the Mississippi line east to Montgomery.

[autorank]

77. Thanks. Everyone snarking or "Red" states should read this!

[tsuki]

46. When the Michigan is passing legislation allowing medical providers to

decide if they want to provide health care to Gays, no I don't.

[RoyGBiv]

48. Your original question ...

The thing is this. Had your inquiry not directed itself toward a specific group, I'd have had other, less combative things to say. But, your original question effectively asked a group of people to answer for the failings of its neighbors, as though proximity or, implicitly, cultural affiliation somehow offers those of us who live in states in which the majority voted for Shrub special insight into the ravings of the hard-core religious right. If that were the case, then you and pretty much everyone else in this country would have the same insight because, as I said, they are everywhere.

On a broader scale, as QC said, I am fed up with Democrats and other progressives swallowing this divisive mantra germinated and propagated by the very people you seek to criticize. You accept it wholesale and give it power. There is no such thing as a "red" state or a "blue" state. As another respondent said, we are a nation of purple states of varying degrees. In raw numbers, as I said, your state gave more support to Shrub than mine did and only succeeded in not being one of these so-called red states by the slimmest of margins. Why ask me, specifically, what's up with the religious right? If they are truly responsible for Shrub's ascendancy -- and I think they are in large part -- then ask the millions of people in the MidWest or the West or the North who live just as near larger number of fundamentalist zealots as I do.

Yes, I'm touchy, because if this kind of divisive rhetoric provides the core of our discourse, we will continue to lose.

All that said, yes, a palpable difference exists between the varied cultures in this country, and religious zealots seem to have a greater hold on certain centers of power in the South, Midwest, lower and mid Plains, and certain Western states as opposed to, say, an urban center like Chicago or New York. There a number of reasons for this, notably the fact that a distinct difference exists between zealots seeking power and those of genuine faith who are all lumped together by questions like the one that started this. Move out into the countryside of any state in this country, and the differences on this point tend to fade dramatically. You have your urban centers, thankfully, which counteract or at least weaken the effects of hard-core religious-right in the political realm. Keep watching your back, however. The religious-right's strange bedfellow, the corporate monolith, is seeking and finding ways to change this.

[MissWaverly]

18. live in blue state but have ditto head neighbors

Liberal radio may save us but so far it's costly to start up, my neighbors are not going pay for satellite when they can get Rush for free. Ed Schultz talks to guys like he is one of them, that they're important and that their opinion matters. It gives people a sense of belonging, It's the same with the fundies. I think that the reason so many people are loyal republican is that they identify will Hannity, Rush, etc. and that they also use it as their new sources. And every day hate radio is angry and spewing the crap, liberals are plotting against your freedom, etc., they want to spend your hard earned money to brainwash you. They're babykillers. Meanwhile the Republican fat cats are feeding off the money and are plotting to grab up everything, from no curbs on corporate polluters, to stealing from the Indians, to sucking up our pensions to prop up Wall Street, and Rush and all these hate mongers keep defending them. The Republican care about you the little guy, don't worry, you can trust us.

[southlandshari]

21. Thank you.

"Blue state" democrats, what's going on with the fanatics in YOUR midst? What can you do to turn things around? Because a s@#$load of the most vocal activists who helped put this abysmal administration back into the WH came from above the Mason-Dixon line. And nearly as many people voted for Bush in many "blue" states as voted for him in my "red" state of Alabama!

This is not a state issue. It can only be changed on a face-to-face, person-to-person basis. And we need to be making those conversions in every state in this country - red, blue, purple, whatever color you want to assign us.

[smoogatz]

22. Three Words: Judge Roy Moore

I'm trying to think of a blue state equivalent, but frankly I'm stumped.

[QC]

23. Rick Santorum, Bob Dornan, William Dannemeyer, shall I go on? n/t

[autorank]

32. Oh, please don't say the "S" word any more, I'll pay you.

:puke: Santorum

[smoogatz]

37. Assholes all, of course--

panderers and opportunists of the first water. But hardly of the same full-frontal bull-goose looney-tunes variety as Judge Moore, IMO--whose particular breed of insanity is, it seems to me, distinctly Southern. He's a damn hero in Alabama, just like the boys who fired on Ft. Sumter are still heros in S. Carolina. Old Confederacy meets religious whackometry meets Republican party seems to have an effect not unlike a lit firecracker up a cat's ass. Any minute now, all hell's going to break loose.

[QC]

43. Moore is a very polarizing figure in Alabama.

Some people consider him a great hero and others, including quite a few conservative Christians, consider him a demagogue. He is by no means assured of a win if he runs for governor.

We, on the other hand, will probably be running Lucy Baxley, who has been a very popular lieutenant governor. My money is on Baxley.

[quaoar]

75. I sure hope Lucy wins

But my money is on Moore.

And God help us all.

[Cats Against Frist]

70. Santorum is EVERY bit as crazy as Moore n/t

[QC]

74. Yep, I don't recall Moore bring home a fetus for the kids to play with. nt

[southlandshari]

24. You did not answer my challenge

First, I'm betting that with a little time and a couple of google searches I can come up with some right-wing assholes from "blue" states as bad - or worse - as Judge Moore. I'll be back with that as soon as possible.

Second, and more importantly, you dodged my actual challenge with the diversion of Moore. That challenge was to "blue" staters to recognize the fact that there are large numbers of red voters (including right-wing nutjobs) in their own backyard. The log may be in the eye of "red" staters, but it is no secret you have a huge speck festering in your own eye in blue states.

Look at the electoral maps. If your state is truly blue, no shades of red or even purple, then come back and berate the rest of us. But if you had thousands of Bush voters in your state - and you did - then why not spend your energy trying to figure out why, and do something about it, rather than blaming fellow blue voters in red states for the current state of the union?!!

[tsuki]

47. Michigan legislature.

[quaoar]

51. Hmmmm. Let's see

There's also Dennis Hastert from blue Illinois.
Henry Hyde, also from blue Illinois
Norm Coleman from blue Minnesota
John Sununu from blue New Hampshire

[smoogatz]

56. You're missing my point.

Yes, there are Republicans in blue states. Yes, there are fundie nuts in blue states. But the fundie nuts don't seem quite so numerous or extreme in the U.S. of Canada as they do down in Jesusland. And they're not running the show to the same extent. So what's the deal? What is it about the red states that makes their fundie nuts nuttier than ours?

[ultraist]

57. CA has a huge number of KKK, Neonazi hate groups

There are major hate group centers in numerous Blue states.

Where is Randall Terry from? Where is Operation Rescue based?

Sorry, but this is not just a Southern problem. Apparently, you are not aware of how nationally widespread this cult is.

[autorank]

31. Andy Card-MA; O'Liely-NY;Guliani-NYC; Murdoch-Australia

They're everywhere!!!!!

These are some Blue state guys who scare me one heck of a lot more than the fanatics demonstrating re: Terry S.

[knight_of_the_star]

33. SoCal isn't looking too good at the moment

We have fundies of the Mormon strain, and of course the ones who aren't Mormon aren't raving lunatics. Then again, that makes them much more pervasive and difficult to stop because blatant fanaticism doesn't exist openly here.

[Biology]

4. I live in Kansas....

...and they scare me to death. Some of these people are just plain ignorant of life in general. They can be high school drop-outs, without a job, on welfare and food stamps, and they'll be thanking God and Bush for being there for them. And, we've got Phil Kline as AG. Aaarrgghh! When you ask them what is the single most important criterian for a politician, they reply "his religious beliefs."

[crispini]

5. Many of them are sincere.

Coworker of mine, intelligent guy, nice guy, thinks James Dobson is the coolest thing since sliced bread. It makes sense to him. Read Lakoff, you'll see where they're coming from. Anyhoo, we just don't talk politics. How can we?

[GainesT1958]

8. The biggest problem with many of these so-called "Christians"...

Who are, of course, really are anything but...is that many of them also worship their handguns as much as they claim to worship the Lord! (Hence, why hoses may not work on them!):eyes:

When a good middle-of-the-road--OR a good populist--Democrat runs against one of these damn fools, we can usually beat them. The biggest challenge, at least in North Carolina, is getting the message out that these idiots aren't really doing a thing for the average voter--even the average CONSERVATIVE voter!

The OTHER biggest problem is running a candidate for president who will have at least a shot at appealing to them--and it doesn't work just to have a home-state senator on the ticket (though it did help); it's got to be the person who HEADS the ticket.

B-)

[Lex]

11. What the hell?

You think religious nuts only live in red states?

[GettysbergII]

12. Fundamentalism is a worldwide problem

The rightwing has done a hell of a job of harnessing it here but that's a long ugly story. The point to keep in mind is that it's obviously an expression of some kind of unmet human need.

[chomskysright]

13. MENTAL ILLNESS

[democrat in Tallahassee]

15. as a Floridian, I don't have a fucking idea what is wrong with these

fucking people.
I understand the parents' pain. I really do. However, a lot of these people are just crazy and I'm sorry I live in the same state.

[mourningdove92]

19. Texas reporting in.

Amazingly, not a word about the Schiavo case at my job. Not one word. Normally we "lightly" discuss current events. Sometimes not so "lightly".
Not one word.

Red State Texas....no one I know is beating the drum for or against.

[quaoar]

52. Why not ask them about it?

You might be surprised at what they say.

[ultraist]

58. The Texas RWers can't beat a drum for the Shiavo case

because of the Bush pull the plug law they passed. The Bush Klan didn't want that highlighted.

[Bouncy Ball]

20. I think they've always been sort of off their nut

but events in recent years have pushed them even deeper into the Abyss of the Looney.

They drive me bananas and it is very pervasive.

[autorank]

25. Mass delusion is in every state. Red state - Blue state DOES NOT APPLY

I like the motive, understanding what's going on, but asking DU'ers in states that went for or were stolen for Bush is like asking Colin Powell what Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre are up to. How the fark should we know, any more than a Kerry state DUer would know in a place with a large religious right population.

When push came to shove, the public broke down this way:

82% opposed to Federal intervention (i.e., Bush)
18% in favor of Federal intervention (i.e., Bush)

You spread those 18% across the country and they're not a majority anywhere.

I remember reading a book on Joseph McCarthy,R. WISCONSIN, who terrorized the political landscape with his drunken paranoia for 2-3 years (in the 1950's). After his downfall and disgrace, he still had the support of about 22% of the population. This is a barking drunk crazy guy disgraced in public on the TV -- 22%. There will always be a 18-22% minority in this country that buys the latest delusion; back then it was the "Red Scare" (Communism), now it's the life begins at wet dreams and never ends.

BTW, it was Sam Ervin, D, NORTH CAROLINA, who the US Senate appointed to head the committee investigating and recommending the Censure of Joseph McCarthy, R, WISCONSIN.

You never know with these things but they're certainly not due to geography.

[Blue_In_AK]

27. This is a red state

but we don't have anywhere NEAR this kind of idiocy going on up here. I guess it's the old spirit of the last frontier or something. People up here don't take kindly to anybody telling them how to live their lives.

[southlandshari]

28. self-delete

n/t

[autorank]

29. Forgot, smoogatz, Welcome to DU!!!

:hi:

[smoogatz]

35. Thanks!

More fun than poking Republicans with pointy sticks around here. Well, almost.

[autorank]

38. Your avatar says it all...what's the magic word?

[smoogatz]

40. I can't tell you--

but the password is "swordfish."

[autorank]

41. Sorry, busy mapping the future of "Freedonia"

[Hugin]

54. Ack!

Edited to remove material meant for OPer...

Sowwy.

[Lars39]

34. Things started taking a turn for the worse a few years ago

when the Southern Baptists declared the bible was inerrant,or literally true.
Preachers have been turning the congregations inch by inch into cults, imo.
Oh, and the latest "wives must be submissive to men" crap didn't help any, either.

[sandnsea]

36. Faith without responsibility

Who can blame them? It's freakin' perfect.

[Lexingtonian]

42. Hey, I can tell you that- from a very Blue state

They want life to remain simple and the way it "always" was. The way they were taught- and Good People continue to tell them- it's supposed to be.

The country is supposed to be Mayberry writ large. White, Christian, and deservedly run by wise but flawed hardworking nice white Christian men, who read Scripture and not so much other stuff that they get confused.

Lately the world has gotten very bizarre, as they see it. People are getting complicated ideas from sources that are wrong or contaminated, and their judgment and 'values' are going all wrong. There are now too many Muslims, Jews, blacks, Latinos, homosexuals, 'liberated' women, and criminals becoming prominent and affecting their children, getting power and using it to make the country run, talk, and think in UnGodly fashion. On top of that, misguided political leaders have stopped fighting Evil and let bad people screw up the economy.

The situation is not easy to understand. But once you see that the Devil is working in the background of so many of these things, and political power is being used against people like yourself to make the country less and less according to What God Wants and less and less Good People are allowed to fix things, you know you are called upon to fight back.

For one thing, as they see it, people don't understand God or Jesus anymore. So one is called to proselytize. Secondly, these many misguided people are willing to let Immorality be given legitimacy by changing laws to accommodate it. Don't they understand that by 'equality' or 'right' they mean giving the irresistable Devil an opening, one that cannot be closed again without havoc being wreaked on society? These ignorant people even want to cut God out of schooling, just when the children need all the help to resist the Devil and are vulnerable to becoming taught to embrace that nemesis of True Faith, Liberalism.

++++++++++

Okay, having said that and given some demonstration of its mind-numbing simpletonish and (at bottom) intensely arrogant view of themselves in American society...the political story is that it's a world view that only works when it is the privileged one.

The fight for privilege is different from the fight for rights. Rights tend to be restored when they get taken away, because they derive from existential dignity. Privileges, once lost, are almost never recovered because the original attainment of them required a situation in which the bestowal of the privilege served a social purpose, and a demonstration of merit- worthiness and ability to serve the social purpose well- was made at the time.

The fight to retain unmerited or unnecessary privileges is marked by intense hate on the side of the holder. There is generally denial that the situation and function for which the privilege was given has passed. The challenge is regarded as a kind of insult to one's dignity and worth since it means a change of the holder's social status if it succeeds, and the motive of the challengers is usually misconstrued as a desire by the challenger to take the holder's place. That is why these things are taken so 'personally' by these sorts of people.

The politics of privilege are thus marked by behavior and rhetoric of intense hatred on the part of the holders of the privilege.

And in the present the Religious Right is feeling the slipping away of their privileged status- the diminishing authority of the Bible in public discourse, the public ridicule at their inadequate (when wrong) and inarticulate (when right) arguments, the fallibility of their approaches and material and education when they try to confront their critics, they way they are seen as hypocrites and measured unsympathetically against their ideals. They see themselves as struggling for good ideals, whatever the flaws of their particular methods and teachings, and don't really understand why their critics dwell on their shortfalls so much- why, they ask themselves, can't the Liberals see all the good that they're trying to do, all the unambiguously and consensuswise bad that they succeed in preventing every day, and why must so much noise be made about e.g. gay people, who obviously have no chance of giving God perfect service?

The most troubled of the bunch, the ones who feel the pressures of the world most strongly but refuse to yield, do feel themselves put on the defensive in such a strong way that they imagine God must want them to push back actively, hard, and powerfully. To do so they find themselves resorting to the methods and dogmas of the most consistently embattled groups, the occultists of all stripes. They embrace what we consider extreme and bizarre ideas of Heaven and Hell, of divine Knowledge and Calledness, of Angels and Demons, and the necessity of Willpower and physical or psychological violence. The world breaks up into the famous Manichaean duality and extremities for them, and they find themselves psychologically broken in two in the same way. It takes extreme fervor and willpower to reachieve unity, but the alternative is an induced schizophrenia.

We on the other side see only the outward manifestations. We see the Prayer Warriors. The psychotic breaks. The mild version of the psychotic break, cognitive dissonance. The abortion doctor snipers and bombers. The 'Bush is a Man of God' Republicanism and Phariseeism, the Zealotry. The Rove-targetted 'Family Values' Believer. The Creationists, the stealth school board Religious Rightist. The attempt to form a subsociety in which their privilege and views are uncontested, with the Bush-as-our-Savior doctrine as the policy correlate to a need to make this subsociety privileged.

[Jamison]

44. Where I live...

I live in a suburban area in Missouri that's known as the Beverly Hills of St. Louis. It's red here b/c of money, they have benefitted big time from *'s tax cut so they are willing to do anything for the Republican party. Really, it sucks living here, all most people care about are their new Lincoln Navigator SUV's and their golf scores...sad.

[Cats Against Frist]

73. Question

How much of this phenomenon do you see as a spontaneous response to the loss of privilege -- and how much should be attributed to manipulation on the part of the intellectual right? For instance -- take Sean Hannity -- does he believe what he says, or is he a manipulator?

It seems the ringleaders are not just the luminaries of the right-wing religious community, but also those who seem to be not-so-religious, such as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter -- neither of whom, in my opinion are your sort of superstitious, psychotic break-type believers -- at least, in Jesus -- but will often throw a bone to "traditional values" in the middle of their otherwise hateful monologues. Ann Coulter's discourse IS hateful -- above and beyond even the more sneaky "digs' from James Dobson and other "more respectable" figures of the right, who often steer clear of outright firebranding, in favor of sentimentality, bunk science or biblical references.

I've been interested in this for some time, because I've watched as sort of normal, "god-fearing" conservatives -- even Reagan conservatives -- have been replaced by these "movement conservatives," (is that what they're called) and civil proselytizers -- that actually seem to EMBODY and BELIEVE, what, just over a decade ago, was both extremist and seemed like more of a cheap ploy, than say, the "conservative re-birth of America," or some such baloney.

I guess my question is -- how responsible are the powerholders in the Republican party, namely the neoconservatives and the corporatists -- for the religious resurrgeance, and what WILL they do with the "true believers," if and when they step in front of, say, the normal exercise of commerce and consumer pacification? Because, for some reason, I doubt Sean Hannity wants the "Terri Schaivo squad" to stone him for reading Maxim magazine.

Because I, personally, think that the religious zealotry was instigated to meet an end by the "philosopher kings," of the Republican party, and that an interesting aspect to study is to what extent, exactly, do we have to be afraid of the Christian right? Have they actually taken over the GOP, except for a few holdovers of the elite -- like Jeb and Georgie? Are the three centers of GOP obsession too inextricably linked to separate them: neocons, corporatists and theocrats? Who is running the show? Or has it become greater than the sum of its parts?

I guess I think that the "privileged" who think they're losing power, have been tricked, in the first place, to believe that they're "privileged," and that their perception is less a reaction to the true affects of identity politics and liberal progress, as it is a sensationalized, conscious "affliction" egged on by the powerholders in the GOP.

[Lexingtonian]

80. it's an alliance

All sides have ditched their principles in the past few years in the name of maximizing- retaining 51% of- national power. It's all about division of the spoils now, really- but the hoi polloi believe the 'principles' matter, so they get invoked as pieties. What holds the whole together is more the diffuse negative formulation of these earlier principles-a quasireligionist racism, a felt inferiority toward liberals, a need to get subsidized with government money under a rationale of special virtue and neglectedness. At bottom, a dogmatic and non-humble belief that people are Not Equal in some ultimate respect.

They're united by being the historical powers of colonial/Settlement America- 200+ years of off-and-on collaboration means there wasn't that much news or internal resistance to their arrangements. Churches embraced slavery and now are predicately anti-gay and anti-feminist and covertly racist, the line between a con business and a religious cult or large religious group is arbitrary, the theft of Indian land is a crime all parties shared in and have condoned. All think they are the representatives of The Elect- in fact, they all function in variously overt and hidden ways as occultic religious groups. An occultic belief system- a doctrine of superior knowledge, being Elect, and not being required to act according to internal moral standards toward the Enemy- is necessary for destroying an aboriginal people and taking its land, then being able to believe in having liberated and consecrated the land by so doing.

[Spider Jerusalem]

45. Honestly, I wish I knew.

But these peoples' motives are as mysterious to me as they are to you. Just because I live in a "red" state doesn't mean I have special insight.

[newportdadde]

50. Its been my experience that most of these RW voters

etc use religion, 'values' etc as a smokescreen. In having conversations with them if I slowly slowly widdle away I will eventually come to the truth... its about money and taxes.

They think their hardearned money is sucked up by lazy minorities and white trash who sit around all day in their palaces and drive their new caddies around while not having a job. They also see all of their taxes, sales tax, federal, FICA etc.. as the same tax, and all of it going to welfare dolls. They forget that once you take out deductions etc, most of us have a pretty low federal tax rate.

Thats really what it boils down too -> $. But just being truthful and saying "its all about the green to me" isn't cool or doesn't make them feel good. So they cloak themselves in a religious shield, the same shield they use while they fuck the neighbor when the spouses are gone... or sell that wrecked unsafe car to the 16 year old.. or hide behind as they scam the elderly.

[quaoar]

53. It's is wrong to assume Bush voters are all fundamentalist crazies

I live in Alabama. On Saturdays I supervise construction of two Habitat for Humanity houses being built by volunteers from two local churches. Each church has contributed thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of labor to build two modest homes for two black families.

When I talk with the volunteers, they all talk about how important it is to do this kind of work, they all want to get their kids involved in community service projects. Some of them have been on mission trips to build houses or churches in other churches. Their churches were eager to do a Habitat project because they want more of their members to get out in the community and see the need around them. They seem to be doing their best to try to live out Christ's teachings about helping their neighbors.

They are solid, rational, decent people. If you were stranded by the side of the road, they would pull over to help you. If you lost your job or your spouse became very ill they would take up a collection in church and bring food to your house, even if they have never met you.

Which is why it is always sad to me when I walk out to their cars at the end of the work day on Saturday and I see all those W stickers. The majority of them voted for Bush.

The reasons why are long and complicated.

But one of the big reasons is that the Democratic Party no longer represents them. The Democratic Party is centered far away from them now. It is the party of Massachussets and New York and Hollywood. The Democratic Party is the party that coddles criminals, weakens national defense and wants to give special rights to minorities and gays. This is the perception they have and it wasn't acquired overnight. It was built up by decades of Republican propaganda. Right-wing radio and Fox didn't create it but they certainly reinforce it.

Democrats have done nothing to counter this perception. Many Democrats make the situation worse by ridiculing the South. All that does is reinforce the idea that Democrats are elitists who look down their noses at us, try to tell us how to live, make fun of us and write us off without a second thought at election time.

Why do you suppose Howard Dean got such strong support as party chair from Southern delegations? Because he is one of the few people in the party who gets it. He understands that these people down here should be Democrats. He understands that you can't make them into Democrats by wagging your finger at them.

When it comes right down to it, if you truly want to understand what makes the South tick, the first thing you have to do is learn to respect it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

55. That's the same impression I got from talking to and overhearing

conversations by rural Oregonians and blue collar Portlanders and Minneapolitans on the bus.

All those hot-button issues and the Terri Schiavo sideshow are not really about what they're supposed to be about on the surface. They're projections, anger at economic and political powerlessness skillfully deflected onto issues that must never be "won," lest the Republicans lose their one selling point.

The Dems have stopped representing the interests of the working class, and I see that attitude on DU, as when a few posters say that they would vote for a Republican who favored abortion rights over a Democrat who was anti-choice but was right in line on all the economics and peace issues.

The public perception of the Dems among non-Dem voters is that they're the yuppie party, all indignant about abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control, but not terribly interested in (and even in collusion with the Republicans on) the economic issues that are absolutely killing blue collar workers.

When people are stressed, they tend to cling to what they have, and what they have is a nostalgia for some mythical Golden Age when everyone knew their place and always acted according to traditional Christian morality. I'm old enough to know that there never was such a time, but this kind of false nostalgia is especially strong among people who were born after the 1950s. An example is the notion that the school prayer was once universal and was the reason why the schools were more orderly and productive. In fact, school prayer was never the custom in most parts of the country, and the schools were more orderly and productive because parents reinforced and backed up the teachers' efforts at discipline.

It is impossible to exaggerate how traumatic the 1960s were for ordinary people. Within five years or so, everything that they had grown up with was questioned. From the point of view of traditional social norms, the world's youth were sinning on a massive scale: having non-marital sex, taking mind-altering drugs, refusing to go into the military, questioning the second-class status of women and gays, producing entertainment and media that treated these new standards as normal, and otherwise motivating a lot of worried and angry conversations at kaffee klatsches and in bars. Nixon saw this and was the first Republican to base his campaign on appealing to "the forgotten Middle Americans" and "restoring law and order."

It worked so well that the Republicans have used it ever since, and the Dems never countered it effectively. There was nothing wrong with their advocacy of laissez-faire policies on behavioral issues and their promotion of equal rights for all, but they seemed to emphasize these issues exclusively and ignore or downplay the economic issues that were really starting to eat at ordinary people.

The Dems need to rediscover their economic populism, first on the local level. They need to fire all their useless Beltway consultants and assign their state committees to do on-the-ground surveys of grassroots Dems and even more importantly, non-voters. Instead of listening to some 3rd-generation Ivy League grad in a three-piece suit sitting in an air-conditioned office overlooking the Potomac and blathering on about how the Dems need to be "stronger on defense," they need to listen to their local activists and find out what issues are important to the average voter in each state.

The platform should be built from the ground up. Step two is party discpline ("Sorry, but if you vote to privatize Social Security, we will not only fail to fund your re-election campaign but we will recruit and support a primary opponent for you") and assertiveness training for anyone who might ever be interviewed on TV or radio.

Get all the Dems on the same page and recruit a few percentage points of the non-voters, and you have a cheat-proof margin of victory.

Let the Dems then act boldly to put through a series of measures that will bring our average living standards up to those prevailing in Europe.

Eventually, even the fundies will start to realize that their lives are improving, and with the economic stress removed and some hope that their children will have a better life, most will gradually lose interest in hating anyone or interfering in another person's private life.

[QC]

62. Excellent posts from Lydia and quaoar here!

Lots of wisdom in these two contributions to the discussion. My experiences are similar--since I actually live and work with Republicans, I don't buy the common stereotype of the wildeyed religious bigot that is so stylish here. The people I'm around, while politically misguided, are not bad people, and we could reach them if we would start being Democrats again.

[Ripley]

59. From my personal experience this morning.

I was in a class at the gym when a woman (very religious, don't think Fundie tho) burst in crying and telling us that Mrs. Schiavo had died. Most people said "RIP, God bless her soul, etc." I said "Thank God!" Crying woman slowly turned toward me and gave me an evil eye. I went on to say the poor woman should have been allowed to die a peaceful death years ago and this circus was do undignified for anyones death.

Crying woman: "Her husband murdered her by starving her to death!"
Me: "He didn't do anything. The courts upheld the combined testimony of many."
CW: "She was in agonizing pain for 14 DAYS because of him!"
Me: "Her brain was liquid and without a cerebral cortex she felt no pain."
CW: (kind of loud now) "FOX NEWS JUST HAD AN INTERN ON WHO SAID SHE FELT AGONIZING PAIN UP UNTIL THE LAST MOMENT!!!!!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT!!"


Thankfully she left the room in a huff.

The rest of the class quietly discussed this for a while - most are religious. Everyone agreed the husband had been vilified, the media and government were out of control and had no business in this case.

It is not a red-state thing. The fringe religious people are a very small minority in this country (I saw a guy with a big cross in Florida and he was from New York). The regular religious people saw them as crazy as we do.

Just my experience.

[Bridget Burke]

60. Ask the nutcases in your own state & stop the divisive Red/Blue crap

If you want to find out about the growth of the religious right, do some research on the Dominionists & the Christian Reconstructionists.

Start here...

www.theocracywatch.org/

[kerry-is-my-prez]

61. It's either uneducated people who don't bother reading the paper, etc.

Where I live (Naples, Florida) it's mainly wealthy people who are greedy and like the tax cuts, etc. people operating on a serious case of cognitive dissonance, people who get their news from Fox News and other propagnada sources.

In my families case - they are lifelong Republicans who think that being a Republican is part of their identity. My brother listens to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, my Dad reads the Conservative Chronicle and thinks that all of the media is "Liberal" including the Naples Daily News (which is a totally Repub. rag) and my mother listens to my Dad's opinions. The fact that they are in a higher tax bracket doesn't help also.

[southlandshari]

63. What so many are trying to say here

is that the red state/blue state comparison has been tested here beyond imagination, and ultimately found hollow by many (maybe the majority of?) DUers.

I, as an Alabamian who actually left home to see the world and returned decades later to try to make a difference, can agree with you that my state has a heck of a lot of crazies to contend with. But I will also challenge you to recognize that these folks exist in EVERY state of the union (and in significant numbers in EVERY state). It is easy to pick on the South because of our shameful history when it comes to slavery and other social issues. But if you spent some time here, you would find that there are a great number of people in places like Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas that are intelligent, tolerant and interested in different perspectives. Some of them are even - gasp - Republicans!

If you will agree to abandon the divisive "red state/blue state" comparison, and put your questions out there in a way that recognizes that no state, (those in the South in particular) is to blame for all of society's ills, you will probably get the responses you were seeking to begin with.

And welcome to DU, new friend!

[tnlefty]

64. I think it's become more like a cult thing and people are

discouraged from thinking or questioning. If it comes from the pulpit, or an "acceptable" outlet it is to be accepted - 'we're not supposed to question God' - thing.

I was trying to find a publication that I think I received from the Center for Democracy Studies approx. 5 yrs. ago. This particular publication chronicles the infiltration of the hard-line right "believers" to take over different denominations and instill their doctrine, and if they couldn't conquer they could at least divide the congregations. Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal denominations were some of the targets. The whole submissive to the man thing has begun to work and a lot of the congregations are fracturing and the dogma gets more extreme. The Southern Baptist Convention kicked Jimmy Carter out a few years back and now Judge Greer has been asked to leave his Southern Baptist Church. There seems to be an undercurrent of melding extreme religious views with the desire to usurp the Constitution that I think a lot of more moderate folks seem to support (prayer in school, judges) because it seems like a good idea on the surface, but they aren't thinking about the ramifications and that if these things were done they wouldn't want to have the views of the extremists as the law of the land.

A friend who moved here from CO confided to me that this area was the first place that she had ever lived where she actually felt that people would do her physical harm because she wasn't willing to convert to the extreme elements.

I wish I could explain it better, but a cult is the closest that I can come up with. Hope this at least makes some sense.

[bobbieinok]

71. JCarter4 LEFT the so baptists; he was NOT kicked out

he did however feel that the denomination had been taken over by ideologues who he felt had nothing in common with what he understood Christianity to be

[tnlefty]

72. Perhaps kicked out was a poor way to state it.

IIRC, the conference had some nasty exchanges with President Carter and publicly issued letters and statements not liking his tolerant points of view, and, yes, he decided that he would leave.

[PowerToThePeople]

65. I think

I live in the red portion of a blue state. The fundie types I know just hang out with others of the same type. Kinda like me and my beer drinkin buddies. when we hang out together you know lots of beer will go down. When fundies get together, LOTS of bs goes down.

Whenever I talk to one of them and try to reason them to the correct view, they just get to the point where they are beginning to "get" it, then they lash back with, "I know what you are trying to do!" or "You have the tongue of the serpent." Oh please, here I am right in front of you, the spawn of Satan. Give me a freakin' break.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

66. The media (Radio/Newspapers)here is horrible.... There's no NY Times, etc.

All you hear is Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity....

[B Calm]

67. I have a family of them living across the road from me.

The best way I can describe them is that they're NUTS!

[rockymountaindem]

68. I live 5 minutes away from Focus on the Family.

I can attest that it is not something in the water. Truth be told, most of them aren't Coloradans. The majority of them, the hardcore, moved from places like California and Virginia.

I like to joke that California (land of Reagan) is so blue because all their Republicans moved to Colorado.

[Ariana Celeste]

69. they live in blue states too... this isnt a state thing,

isn't a regional thing, not a red/blue thing... these assholes are everywhere. I know 2 personally, my aunt and uncle, who live in WA.

[bush_is_wacko]

76. I wish that was all it would take to get rid of them

I'd even be willing to pay the fine for overuse of water here in Colorado. One thing I can tell you about our little fanatical cult church here is that it is financed by the sleaziest and richest car dealer turned real estate developer in the state. If I had a way to stop them it would have been done a long, long time ago. My advice to anyone is o stay the hell away from church right now. I thought I'd found an alternative to one cults rhetoric only to discover that after Christmas they all turned into a pack of ignorant gay bashers!

I'm not going back to another one. I'll stick with home religion thanks!

[tallahasseedem]

78. I honestly dont know....

I live here in Tallahassee and there are plenty of Freepers roaming. I am a Dental Hygienist and used to work in an office full of them. They were nice, but so completely clueless. On September 11 as I was watching our break room tv in horror, they were pulling a Falwell saying that we deserved it because we let gays into the military. It was completely surreal and I quit no less than a month later. It is almost as if they are possessed and refuse to listen to anything that doesnt fit into their "reality".

[southlandshari]

79. Nice?

You worked with people who - on September 11, 2001 - actually said the U.S. deserved the terrorist attacks because we "let gays in the military"?

And you still call these people "nice"?