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Conservatism with ignorance. I do not mean that in a snide way, although I do mention it with some glee. I know people who claim to be Republican/Conservative, yet have no concept of the devolution of government into state's rights or even a viable knowledge of fiscal conservatism. Most seem to call themselves "Conservative" because the term "liberal" has been hijacked to be defined as something bad and in a rush of lemming-like idiocy they Rush - nice pun - to be as unliberal as possible, even though they don't really know anything about politics or current events beyond what the skewed Hannitys or the sensationalistic mainstream tells them. Which to an informed and well-read individual is pretty much nothing. What you learn from tv and ideologue talk radio or even a newspaper is very little and often times sensational or status quo driven.
The other concept in that is philosophy or essentially "The Message." Democrats/Liberals tend to be policy driven and highly engaged in policy making. Witnessing Al Gore drone about the intricacies of legislation of some bill that has something to do with complex economic, environmental or health care policies is not as sexy or exciting as watching George W. Bush say he's going to cut everybody's taxes. It's simple and it resonates. As does other slogans. "We are good, they are evil, Saddam is Hitler Revisited, We will Liberate the Iraqui people" etc. Most people do not understand or want to understand the concept of terrorism, which is essentially political violence. After 9-11 -and obviously it has been exploited - this simplified message has served Bush well. Nobody wants to hear about 50 years of bad foreign policy and maybe we need to put a lot of thought into rooting out terrorism and preventing it in the future. They just wanted to hear that terrorists are bad and we are going after them. Even if we went after the wrong people. In this manner: "Support The Troops" was much more important than legions of protesters thinking: "What the fuck are we doing, this is awful," Hyper-patriotism is a simple tool and an effective weapon for exploitation. So we have, Conservatives as supporters and defenders or our country, Liberals must be traitors in that case. To the uninformed or uninitiated simple rhetoric is a binding principle.
Never mind that all those tax cuts are predominantly tilted to the exorbitantly wealthy. Never mind that flat out lies will persuade a poor person to vote for "tax cut" advocates. The same applies to the propaganda of social conservatism. It's a concentrated effort to frighten and genuflect the uninformed. Pure propaganda. If you aren't Pro-life than you advocate little baby fetuses getting sucked out of a mother's womb. That's evil, right? If you are adult enough to have sex than you should be responible enough to keep a kid, right? Well, never mind the fact that millions of women die from having non-medical abortions a year. Let's forget that Republican policies all but ensure that a young mother would rather have an abortion anyway, because they obliterate the proper social safety net and have destroyed this country's living wage and health system in the last two decades. Let's forget that a social conservative like Bob Barr -a House Manager who helped impeached Clinton and tried him in front of the senate - made his career as a Family Values Conservative, yet cheated on his wife, then when he found out she was pregnant dropped her off at an abortion clinic and forced -yes, forced - her to have an abortion. Dropped her off. As in he didn't have the balls to go in and stay with his wife while she went through a procedure he made her have. To this day he still is a preachy social conservative, albeit one of the biggest hypocrites alive. The Average Citizen doesn't know any of this, nor do they want to know. All they hear is buzzwords and catchphrases. "Family Values." "The Institution Of Marriage." America Is Great." "Mission Accomplished." "Support The Troops." It all hits home.
And, it is easy to fall for, as the message is direct. Persuasive, yet nothing but empty oratory, however. So if your are not cognizant of facts, then ignorance just may make you go this way. We all identify with the Conservative message. No Democratic individual I know doesn't support the troops. I don't know anybody who has an abject opposition to "life." I don't know anybody who is particularly fond of taxing our Middle Class into the poor house. Yet, being a party of complex ideas, diversity, and an intellectual world view, means that it is not easy to be simple and direct with our message. It is not easy to pick up those not cognizant of reality. Knowing the talking points on Health Care policy will not win anybody the ignorant vote. But a concise message and a catchy sound bite, just may.
Combine that with the hateful nature of the far-right Republican attack machine and the Liberal tradition of staying above the fray and we have some serious problems. Save, now Democratic challengers are learning to fight back, which is a good thing.
This is a struggle. One that needs to be continued and refined. I am an advocate of simplifying a message and touching the disengaged electorate, or the large segment of society that totally ignores the system altogether. The question is how?
The answer is not that easy.
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