Free falling: How does one crack Bush's base?

[Oak2004]

I started my morning by examining some of the recent polls. And what of course stood out was the unusual degree of support that he still has among the self-identified Republican base.

Of course that figure is contaminated in that it does not reflect the many of us who deserted the party over Bush and his ilk. It used to be that people like me stayed within the GOP and grumbled during things like recessions, wars, Iran-Contra, and even Watergate. Back then, we'd show up in the polls as an unhappy base. But it has become impossible for many of us to remain within the party. I, a lifelong Republican (albiet the kind that I'm sure would be labeled a lifelong RINO these days), gave up working to save the national party from extremism, as a lost cause, at the time of Newt Gingrich's Contract On America. But I remained active in local Republican politics until 1998 or so when I moved away from my little enclave of traditional NY Republicans to PA and the greater world of irredeemably irrational mutant Republicanism (hereinafter to be referred to as the mGOP). My last act as a Republican was to vote against GWB in the 2000 primaries.

The mGOP, minus a small and vocal band of fascists, should hate Bush. They really should. This is for all practical purposes a board for Democrats, and I'm the last one to be defending the mGOP right now, but I do think many people here mischaracterize Republicans as motivated entirely by hate and greed. Even now, the majority of the mGOP rank and file share the same fundamental American values as most of the people here.

I'm prepared to be flamed half to death for defending the character, though not the point of view, of my former friend Tom Tancredo (a figure who is a "maverick" in the eyes of the Bushites, but who I think is solidly representative of the mainstream mGOP rank-and-file). He is not a racist or xenophobe even if he has become useful to racists and xenophobes. He is a man of extraordinary courage and principle (I've witnessed this firsthand), and he really does share with us many of the same fundamental values, including a genuine concern for the middle class and the poor. He sincerely believes that free market economic policies benefit ordinary Americans, and he has concluded, mistakenly, that the reason the market hasn't actually worked that way has been an artificial excess of labor (i.e., illegal immigrants). This is not a point of view that the vast majority of us here would agree with, and not one that, I think, has any historical support. I think most of us here agree that capitalism needs to be regulated in the interest of society, and that falling wages and increasing poverty are the natural result of too few checks on capitalism. This is a pretty big point of disagreement, with some pretty big consequences, and I do think that Tom can often be, for a smart guy, astoundingly dumb. But this disagreement is not a disagreement over whether government exists to serve the interests of ordinary Americans. Tom Tancredo is not a fascist, and neither is most of the mGOP.

So if all of us but a handful of vocal radical extremists agree on basic American values, and those values are repudiated daily by this Administration, why does the remaining mGOP cling to Bush? I think that, thanks to the hard right propaganda machine, they believe that a very different set of facts are in play in the world, "facts" that rationalize the Administration's conduct.

The liberal vs. conservative difference is eternal and valid. Making up your own facts is not.

I believe that Bush has collapsed in the polls with everyone else but the mGOP rank and file because he is understood to be a liar of the worst sort, someone who cannot be trusted. Right now, if Bush said the sun rose in the east, a third of the country would wonder what deception he was trying to support with that fact, and another third would refuse to believe it without independent confirmation. I believe the rank and file of the mGOP would desert him and his ilk, too, if they saw the lies. But they can't see the lies until they see that Fox, et. al., are lying to them, too. In order to crack the support of the base, then, I think it's necessary to crack the credibility of the propaganda machine.

So how does one get Republicans to question the veracity of their media? That's a real question, not a rhetorical one. Where are the points of vulnerability? How can one hammer on those points till that rock-hard crust of ignorance fissures?

I'm sure there's some useful information that can be squeezed from polls and studies showing the differences between Fox viewers and the rest of us, and the stream of defections of Republicans from the mGOP.

And anecdotal accounts from defectors, too, can shed some light. I'm not sure my personal account is informative since I never partook of the poisonous propaganda and was among the first wave of Republicans to be driven out of the mGOP. If there are any DUers reading this who are more recent defectors from that most defective of political parties, or who know defectors, or who are witnessing a defection in progress, I'd like to hear your observations.

[Deja Q]

1. Stop them from using crack?

:shrug:

[grasswire]

2. don't let Kerry run

Don't put anyone on the presidential ticket who arouses as much anti-liberal emotions as Kerry and Hillary will. Republicans will turn out to vote AGAINST certain Dems. But they might stay home or possibly even cross over for someone like Clark.

[jedicord]

4. Best reason for the both of them not to run that I've heard.

And put into words what I've been thinking. Hillary is vehemently hated by many. Kerry lost to Bush, giving them a reason to vote against him to prove Bush didn't lose Republicans.

I personally would like to see a fresh face, a person with ideas, a person with cajones to present these ideas and fight the good fight.

Clean slate as it were.

[SpiralHawk]

36. Don't run any veterans

the whole of the republicon leadership is made up of chickenhawks.

They hate our veterans, and trash every one who runs for office.

Consider the shameful chickenhawk record of the republicons:

• Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
• Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
• Tom Delay: did not serve.
• Roy Blunt: did not serve.
• Bill Frist: did not serve.
• Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
• Rick Santorum: did not serve.
• Trent Lott: did not serve.
• John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
• Jeb Bush: did not serve.
• Karl Rove: did not serve.
• Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.
• Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
• Vin Weber: did not serve.
• Richard Perle: did not serve.
• Douglas Feith: did not serve.
• Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
• Richard Shelby: did not serve.
• Jon! Kyl: did not serve.
• Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
• Christopher Cox: did not serve.
• Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
• Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
• George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; Got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
• Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.
• B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
• Phil Gramm: did not serve.
• John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
• Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
• John M. McHugh: did not serve.
• JC Watts: did not serve.
• Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem," although continued in NFL for 8 years as quarterback.
• Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
• Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
• George Pataki: did not serve.
• Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
• John Engler: did not serve.
• Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.

Pundits & Preachers

• Sean Hannity: did not serve.
• Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
• Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
• Michael Savage: did not serve.
• George Will: did not serve.
• Chris Matthews: did not serve.
• Paul Gigot: did not serve.
• Bill Bennett: did not serve.
• Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
• John Wayne: did not serve.
• Bill Kristol: did not serve.
• Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
• Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
• Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
• Ralph Reed: did not serve.
• Michael Medved: did not serve.
• Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
• Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)

http://www.change-links.org/

[liberaliraqvet26]

43. I called out a repuke chickenhawk today....

as a dem combat vet I earned that right for life and it feels good!!!!

[leftstreet]

3. As a former sane Repub, would you have embraced national health care?

I know several sane Repubs who are so angry about the deficit and the excessive war spending, they're actually saying we should be investing those tax dollars in a national health plan.

Blows me away that the Dems refuse to acknowledge fiscal conservatives COULD be drawn in.

[Oak2004]

15. Not only would I have supported it, there could be some unlikely allies

I can't reveal the names involved here, I just can't. But, pre- Invasion of the Mutant GOPers, I was broke to the point of missing meals. And, during a long drive back from a legislative hearing, two prominent Republicans strongly associated with the Reagan administration argued with me that I should apply for Food Stamps, all the while passionately explaining to me that this was why the Food Stamp program was so very important. This was from two people that I'm sure most of you think of as out to gut the social safety net.

The difference between then, and a private automobile, and now, and a public stage? The noisy extremists with the very deep pockets. If the wind were blowing in the other direction, you'd see that side of those two people, and of others like them, again.

[RedStateShame]

5. Quick solution:

Don't bother. We don't need to kowtow to them, and the polls prove it. The big problem over the years has been wondering how to appeal to the other half, and as a result, Joe Lieberman gets to disguise himself as a Democrat. At this point, we shouldn't---notice, I say SHOULDN'T--have to beg for their appeal. If we focus on the disenfranchised non-voter, we should cover any election easily, and the dyed-in-the-wool Repubs can either get on board, or they can flee to Canada, if Harper's still running the show.

[Oak2004]

21. The one thing I don't suggest I becoming more like them

It being much more important for the continuation of democracy that they become less like who they are now.

[enid602]

6. Bush

Try to convince them that Bush is really the Anti Christ-in-Chief; this always seems to have a bit of impact with the fundy crowd.

[Oak2004]

23. You really can make a good case for that

I don't use that argument because I don't believe in a literal Antichrist, present now or likely to be present soon, and an imminent return of Christ that Christians should be able to predict with some accuracy in advance by reading the signs of the times. IMO it's bad theology, and I don't want to get myself entangled in arguments built around ideas I believe to be false.

But if you do believe it, or are willing to accept a premise you don't believe in, one can make a shockingly good case for Bush as the Antichrist and Rev. Sun Myung Moon as the False Prophet. They fit the roles to an astounding degree of detail.

Just showing some of the Moonie connections to the "Christian fundamentalist" movement can be an eye opener for Christians who had no idea that so much of what they had been taking to be Christian has been financed by the cult leader who pronounces himself God's replacement for the failed Jesus Christ.

[reichstag911]

7. Crack? Base?

Where do I sign up?!?

Seriously, I don't know how you get mGOPers to stop drinking the media Kool-Aid that's poured down their throats 24/7. I've been engaged in an extended debate with a former friendly acquaintance who pooh-poohs everything that comes from any source that's not right-wing. EVen formaer Administration members who blow the whistle do not have credibility in thios clown's eyes; they're just disgruntled, or they were out of the loop, according to him. Some people are just irredeemably pigheaded, and refuse to let reality intrude on their warped belief systems -- ya know, like Bush his own self.

:shrug:

[serryjw]

19. I agree

Isn't winning with a 65% enough? The kool-aid drinkers and RW will never vote for a dem.If we want some of the military types Clarke is our best chance.

[izzie]

8. I am not sure. Took me years to vote Dem as I was a Rep.

I guess it was just sitting down and really having time to think just what I did think gov. should be doing. I gave it up when RR ran and even have to say I voted for Nixon with much un happiness. Also the parties are not the same as when I started to vote. I guess the rubbing off of his base around the edge is all one can hope for.

[salin]

9. Thoughtful post

I look forward to reading responses from those who have been frayed away (I have viewed it as a tapestry which, at different times gets frayed on the edges - and once loosened from the fabric by some realization, the next one moves that section off of the tapestry). And from those who have close relationships with folks who have gone through this process of hard awakening (it is very hard to shake core beliefs, including and especially the belief that those who are elected as leaders are acting in the best interest of the public).

Thanks for starting this discussion.

[The Wielding Truth]

10. There are those who commit and never waver. It seems like a noble

quality but it is really a deadly factor when the commitment you make supports a bad policy.

When you fall in love for instance with an abusive partner and you fail to acknowledge that you are being abused and fail to make a change it will end in disaster.

This can be viewed in many sectors of our lives.Another example of this kind of commitment is: the friend or relative of a criminal claiming that this person is a good boy, girl,neighbor or friend after the person has done this deed over and over again.

It takes a strong and confident person to call attention to the problems caused by this person or policy who they trusted and it takes a major turn in the heart of the committed to change.

[Kashka-Kat]

11. I don't know, I am not a defector but I do have family who are diehard

Bush followers who fall within the category of the religious right (Mother is old school Catholic and siblings evangelical fundamentalists) so trying to decipher their thought processes is something I've been struggling with since the 2000 elections.

All I can say is they've definitely bought into the whole culture wars thing, expressing word for word the same extremely black and white, either-or world view which you hear on Bill O Reilley or Rush Limbaugh. I was really shocked to discover this because they all used to be more moderate in their views even though religious. It is definitely cult thinking and I get the impression that there is an emotional dimension to this which logic can't reach... and which has been exploited by Bush & his neo-con pals. We see an incompetent bungler practicing dangerous and beligerent foreign policy.... while in their world, as incredible as it may seem, Bush is a good, decent, Godfearing, stern & just leader fighting for "good" in the world against "evil". "The kind of man I would've liked to have as a father," said one of my in-laws.

I should add too that religion does seem completely tied into the political views-- many are even being explicitly told by their religious leaders what to believe and how to vote. To challenge their political beliefs is to challenge their religious beliefs. To which they take GREAT offense-- as I can tell you from personal experience.

So Im sorry, I really have nothing to offer as to how to "get to" them--but I do look forward to seeing what other responses you get.

[creeksneakers2]

12. I've been looking at this for a long time

I'm not singling out the GOP completely, because extremists in general don't let facts get in their way. I am saying that its far worse with the GOP and their party has far more extremists. They are unreachable with facts, no matter how apparent and undeniable they may seem. I've tried on the net for years and you can't get a winger to look at proof. They won't look. Never. Social scientists have looked at this and have come up with theories about why the wingers are that way. They mostly form before they turn two years old.

Back during the days of witch hunts, the logic went like this:

There are witches. Anybody who says there aren't witches must be a witch. Why would anyone defend witches if they weren't a witch? A witch who tells you there are no witches is trying to corrupt you, to make you too a witch.

If the word liberal was exchanged for witch,it would be the same logic. When I discuss politics with wingers, they deal with it as an attack on them personally. The only thing they think about is what to say back to you to defend themselves. They don't consider arguments at all.

Its a great idea to debate what is on Fox News, but it can only help with those who are reachable by debate. The best debate can do with the hard core is shame them until they hide and use code words for their beliefs.

To unravel the far right movement, I've looked at what inspires it. When I listen to talk radio, most of the arguments are centered around an us versus them world world view. Liberals are almost supernaturally evil. Wingers are doing God's work and are blessed for their holiness. Its good versus evil to them.

Aside from the paranoia that can be easily whipped up by simply dividing people into groups, the greater motivator of the wingers is to be part of a group at all. They'll repeat whatever they are told, believe whatever they are told, and put the fate of the group above all else, just to be part of the group.

What will destroy wingerism is when it becomes inescapable that either they are no longer part of the group, or their leaders are no longer part of the group. We've seen the dents put into Bush's popularity by the ports deal and immigration. Bush sided with outsiders instead of the group. That undermined Bush's position of being part of the group.

Arguments to undermine wingerism must be aimed at breaking up the group.

[Broken_Hero]

13. good post

I experience a lot of the same things...

[glitch]

32. Very good post. I would add that fear is a big part of the need for group.

Which this lot knows full well and has exploited to the fullest. Exposing that bush is really not a part of the group and has no interest in protecting the group will help short-term, but they will always be subject to another little dictator "protecting them" until their problem with fear is attended to.

[newswolf56]

14. The poll data strongly suggests that Bush's die-hard supporters...

are not merely Republicans but Christofascists: that is, Dominionist Christians who fanatically support the imposition of theocracy on the United States and believe Bush is literally anointed by the Abrahamic god to do exactly that. Thus they excuse Bush's lies as expressions of the Bible's mandate (Matthew 10:16) to "be as cunning as serpents"; they dismiss his difficulties as the work of the Devil in a world owned by the Devil -- and therefore ultimate proof of Bush's holiness: "You will be hated by all men on account of (Jesus') name..." (Luke 21:17).

These core supporters are thus fanatics or the worst sort -- impossible to reason away from Bush no matter what -- and rather than focusing on how to win them away, we should not only write them off but regard them as the latter-day equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan or the German-American Bund, terminal cancer to American liberty, and be prepared to mobilize against them accordingly: especially if we are able to fully reclaim the levers of power.

But is this indeed the 32 percent that supports Bush no matter what?

Google "U.S. voters who are Christian Fundamentalists" and scroll attentively. Here is but one of the multitude of references that surface:

In the 2000 election, the Christian right cast at least 15 million votes, or about 30 percent of those that propelled Bush into the presidency.

Here is the link:

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/

There are many more such links -- and there is no doubt the Dominionist movement is even bigger today.

Here are two more links on the Christian Dominionist threat itself:

http://www.motherjones.com/toc/2005/12/index.html

and

http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/DirectoryRiseOfDominionismInAmerica.html

And do not for even a moment underestimate the magnitude of the threat. With the Edict of Milan in 314, by which the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion of all Westernesse, a Dark Age descended on the world that lasted nearly 1500 years -- until the church was overthrown by the succession of violent revolutions that led to the Enlightenment and thence directly to the founding of the world's first avowedly secular state, the United States. Now after an interregnium of only 217 years, the Christians who oppose our hard-earned secularity would not only re-impose theocracy on the U.S.; they would employ U.S. thermonuclear omnipotence to re-impose it on the West and ultimately on the whole world -- a New Dark Age that this time would last forever: that is, until humanity itself becomes extinct.

Which is precisely what is at stake here -- the reason the Christian Dominionist threat is not only the most grave threat in U.S. history, but also (given the omnipotence provided by the huge U.S. thermonuclear arsenal) the most terrible threat humanity has ever confronted.

[Oak2004]

17. The Christian Dominionists are very dangerous, but they are not 32%

The 30% of the polls are Evangelicals, many of whom have been pulled unawares into Dominionist politics without fully understanding what the Dominionist agenda is (in fact when I explain it to such people they usually look at me as if I was crazy). The actual Dominionist core is smaller.

But I agree that somewhere in there is an essentially fascist core that wouldn't budge even if the full story of the Bush Administration was laid bare before them, because they actually agree with the naked agenda of this administration. I just don't think we're down to that core yet.

That core, of course, does need to be written off as a group just as we write off the KKK and neo-Nazis. I wouldn't ever write off each and every member of such a core -- people do come to their senses from time to time -- but that kind of isolated individual awakening is not politically significant.

[bobbieinok]

24. dogemperor is an ex-pentecostal who posts about dominionism,

especially as it is tied up with the Assembly of God.......posts can be found at http://www.talk2action.org and gooling 'dogemperor'

[newswolf56]

34. Was not aware of this site, and thanks. It is always good to see...

people awakening to the monsters in their midst.

But, speaking just for myself, I don't believe Christianity can be "reclaimed" because, influenced as I am by Mor, Graves, Eisler, Gimbutas and ecofeminism, I believe Christianity -- and in fact all Abrahamic religion -- is implicitly Dominionist at its doctrinal core: it is surely no accident the previous Christian Dark Age lasted nearly 1500 years and encompassed virtually all of Christendom, nor are the Islamic equivalents themselves accidental. Indeed a DUer referred me to a current book that argues this is precisely the reason mainstream Christianity remains silent in the face of the Dominionist threat: the silence is rationalized as "turn-the-other-cheek" tolerance but in fact is silence imposed by the great taboo against confronting the elitist and fascistic implications of a "chosen people" practicing "the one true faith" -- effectively god's ubermenschen, the religious equivalent of the Aryan Elite. (Sorry both the title of the book and the identity of the DUer were lost in my most recent computer failure; I'd deeply appreciate it if the person -- or anyone else who knows the title of this book -- would please PM me.)

Even so -- that is, even despite my hostility to Abrahamic religion, my skepticism it can ever be reformed, and most of all my historian's recognition that everything liberal, tolerant, humanitarian and/or secular in Westernesse is a pagan (pre-Christian) survival -- I will follow this "talk2action" site closely. Thank you again.

[walldude]

16. You don't crack the base. And there is no need...

Their base amounts to about a third of the people. The ones to lazy, stupid or narcissistic to want or care to know. They are the "stands for the same thing on Wed that they did on Mon, no matter what happens on Tues" crowd.

[Oak2004]

18. There's a reason to crack the base

That reason is the urgent need for change.

There are two seemingly contradictory things history tells us about political change.

One, it doesn't take a majority to make a revolution. It's estimated that something like 10-15% of the population actively favored independence during the American Revolution. Similar percentages are estimated for other successful revolutions. Unless Bush's base is cracked and reduced to some harmless percentage of fanatics, they will be a knife poised at the throat of American democracy.

Two, no government can govern given a sufficiently large and determined opposition. GWB is thinking about starting a nuclear war, and our illustrious Congress, with few exceptions, is engaged in some combination of sycophancy and political posturing. We, the people, are the only way to stop the new Caesar Inaugustus and the Roman Senate historical reenactment society, and we need to be massively powerful, powerful enough to force change.

I don't expect to see those who peel off the remaining 32% to side with us. What I do expect is for them is to give up in disgust and sit things out. And every time one of them gives up, we become more powerful.

[walldude]

20. They will never give up.

I don't disagree with what you are saying but these people are religious about their beliefs in the Chimp in Charge, and when someone thinks God is on their side they won't give up. It's pointless to waste energy on these people.

[Bucky]

29. other reasons to crack the base

Nit: John Adams, a pretty reliable witness, thought the percentage actively supporting the revolution against England was 1/3rd of the country, not 10-15%. Still your point stands. The Bolshies were not a majority, altho I don't think our situation is comparable.

The reason to crack the base is because we can. Bush should be and possibly is vulnerable to the die-hards should they ever wake up to his rank hypocricy a/o utter incompetence on a number of their issues (for example, abortion rates are going up under Bush while they were going down under Clinton). Sun Tzu taught the place to hit your rival is where he is vulnerable and the time to hit him is when he isn't expecting it--particularly if it's where he isn't expecting it.

Digging a hole in Bush's fundie base would fill all those criteria, if the case can be credibly built among the conservative Christians that Bush & Rove are currently using to stay in power.

But a more important reason to go after these votes is that it's incredibly important for world peace that Bush be politically neutered. Not weakened, neutered. He's got dangerous plans--unworkable plans in my opinion--to cause problems in Iran. But these plans will backfire. Maybe Rice and Rumsfeld will wake up and realize how undoable Iran is. Maybe. But I'm convinced that Cheney and Bush really will do something against Iran. They may not intend to do more than to use Iran as a bloody shirt to wave thru the November elections. Maybe. And given their general anchorlessness when it comes to designing foreign policies, I strongly fear that Bush will painte himself into a corner and end up attacking Iran with missiles and bombs just to show how tough and presidential he is.

The smartest thing to do is weaken him beyond the point of political (and military) effectiveness. I hate saying that, because world peace also normally depends on the US having a strong leader with plenty of military and diplomatic options. But I've come to fear in the past few months that the need exists to keep Bush week in diplomatic affairs too. It's a terrible thing to say and a worse thing to comtemplate... but I really am starting to see this man as worse than dangerous now.

[Tuesday_Morning]

22. Thank you for that thoughtful post.

I think they need to be "converted" by other former Republicans like yourself. I think they're more likely to listen to folks who are within their comfort zone.

[IndyOp]

25. He sincerely believes that free market economic policies benefit ordinary

Americans.

And, therein, lies the rub. Therein, lies the lie. The whole GOP (not just the mGOP) drank the Thomas Friedman Kool-Aid. So, for that matter, did Bill Clinton. IPECAC is our only hope.

I believe that many, many in GOP believe they are doing good for America by advocating free markets - it sounds good - but it is destroying our nation and leading to horrors around the globe.

It must end.

Courageously leading us off a cliff is just not admirable. :thumbsdown:

[unblock]

26. freebasing: bush does crack? how one falls!

[Bucky]

27. Personal comment to Oak2004

Set up for a DU Journal and add this post to your DU blog. Yours is a voice that we need to show the diversity of our party. Anyone who recognizes Republicans as our opponents, not our enemies, should be heard as a balance against the thoughtless dozens who toss the word "nazi" around a little too casually for my taste.

[Wise Doubter]

28. You can`t convert a mGOP as long as fear tactics are used.

Fear and Pain are the two biggest motivators there are.

As long as people can be scared in to believing in him he will always have some support.

The same tactics work quite well with religion.

see a connection ? :crazy:

[Keseys Ghost]

30. Sledgehammer

[alittlelark]

31. My 5 easiest defections didn't get the tax break they expected

3 other couples just didn't like war (but they liked guns) - they hate bush now. The Zenophobic couple were turned by Dubai - BOY WERE THEY TURNED! They are now active politically. The other few families just had the educational system/funding/testing thrown in their faces.


It is actually easy to turn all but the Religious Zealots/Fundamentalists to the light.


Logic works on most people.

[young_at_heart]

33. Those who believe God chose him will never leave

On our local news recently a woman stated how much she admired Bush because he was a "good Christian and doing God's work". She thinks he's great. Wanted to puke! I wonder how many out there think they way this woman does?

[PATRICK]

35. Deprogramming

The brutal method is to kidnap the person and confront them with loved ones and reality until the insanity breaks down. Sure these people don't seem to live in the confines of a small cult with total control over their lives but they are within the bubble and it is reinforced. They must run up against a lot of contrary things in their wider daily life which might make them stronger and constantly exercising their formed opinions. Life outside the bubble is step one and it is not enough. Confrontation with sane people, close people is a step, but it is not enough. Counter brainwashing "may" work but is it really working or is just more abuse?

Nothing needs greater patience or persistence or freedom from reinforcing liars than a pervasive prejudice. Living in a wider cultic community means the whole community must confront the whole cult, which is what we see happening more and more instead of tolerant neglect. It doesn't mean it will work or that their response will be submissive or civilized. The first reactions will be angry and fearful and their actions even dangerous as a group.

But on the other hand maybe they simply could be reminded they are being used and betrayed like anyone else. That Bush people cynically call them kooks and are not worshipers like them and are allied with their enemies and practice immorality. And that their own cult leaders have betrayed the cult itself for gain and power. And that power so corrupted will corrupt them, destroy their cult and the nice neat little world around them. They could still be deluded and turn against Bush who is 100% a destructive fraud.

Individually these hardcases would be very hard to reach in one simple conversation or confronting on their own an unspun set of facts. Truth ruins all farces, but at its own speed.

[jmowreader]

37. The "base" isn't as big as you think it is

A traditional political base is like a slab foundation for a home--a big flat expanse of concrete on which the majority of the home stands.

Bush's base is like a pier foundation for the same home--little pads of concrete with timbers sticking out of them; the floor system is bolted to these timbers. This because the groups which make up Bush's base have almost nothing in common with each other.

Bush's pier-foundation base has five pads under it.

Pad 1 consists of people who started voting Republican when Abraham Lincoln was standing for election. They're part of the fifteenth generation in their families to vote Republican, and they're bringing up their children to vote Republican. This one's going to be hard to crack, but it's possible. It's possible because the Republican Party has traditionally stood for fiscal sanity and freedom; the current Republican Party believes in unrepayable deficits and spying on the American people. Once they realize that the Republican Party of the United States now looks more like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and it's OUR job to make them realize this because the American press has turned into a privatized version of TASS in its glory days, this pad will turn against the GOP. They almost definitely won't turn into Democrats, but there's hope that they can produce a new conservative party to replace the current GOP. This pad is pretty big, compared to the others.

Pad 2 consists of people who hate Democrats. This isn't an offshoot of Pad 1. People on Pad 2 may have grown up in Democratic families, they may be "liberals who got mugged," something. Anything. I don't know. We generally call Pad 2 people freepers, l-dotters and...what nickname do we have for people who hang out on hannity.com? Rush Limbaugh is their field marshal, Sean Hannity their drill sergeant. They can be pried loose from their moorings, but severe personal pain is the only way it's going to happen. Five dollar gas might do it, if it's accompanied by respected (in their circle) right-wingers blaming Bush for the problem. (The problem is that Bush is talking about starting a nuclear war in the Middle East, and OPEC is scared shitless.) We will never get these people. They'll either change to Libertarian (in which case they're neutered politically because once you get past local offices up to county level, Libertarians are unelectable) or they'll start an Objectivist party. (Objectivism is what Ayn Rand called her politics. How this differs from traditional libertarianism I'm certain someone can tell me. I'm not interested enough to find out because the Rand people are generally full of shit.)

Pad 3 is filled with single-issue voters. Guns. The military. Drugs. Abortion. Freedom of religion. Name an issue and Pad 3 people THINK the GOP is better for them than any other party. We can get these people by proving just how bad the GOP is on these issues. This is the hardest pad to crack because it's so disparate. A Pad 3 gun guy won't be that involved in abortion or religion; an abortion Pad 3 person isn't in the gun issue at all.

Pad 4 is the Religious Very Right. These guys think Democrats are completely evil because we don't believe in theocracy, we won't do enough to eliminate homosexuality--some of us even (gasp!) believe gays were Born That Way, we won't use tax dollars to build churches...whatever. Drive down the street and you're certain to see an SUV the size of a school bus. On the back of it will be: two Bush bumper stickers, one big Jesus fish with a cross at the head-end, one big Jesus fish with no cross, nine or ten small Jesus fishes, two magnets of baseballs (or softballs, same magnet) with children's names written on them, two magnets of soccer balls with children's names on them, two magnets of jumping cheerleaders with children's names written on them (an aside: you ever notice the total lack of magnets of report cards with straight As on them?), a sticker of two children praying in front of a massive cross, another sticker of a child that looks like Calvin with an open Bible, pages turned toward you, in one hand and the other hand held in the "peace sign," a bumper sticker advertising a church, a bumper sticker that says "It's a Child Not a Choice," another bumper sticker that says "Home School Bus," a traffic ticket for having so much crap pasted all over the back window you can't see through it...this is a Pad 4 member. I am perfectly willing to cede these people to the GOP because I don't want them in my party. Fortunately, most of the GOP doesn't really want 'em either.

Pad 5 truly believes George Bush is a great president, or at least they're getting paid to. Pad 5 is the size of a saucer.

So what's our problem in getting Bush's base away from him? It should be evident: the things that will turn a Pad 2 Republican away from Bush are not going to work on Pad 3 Republicans, but we're trying to turn this mass of people with one message: Bush is a crook. However, every time we come up with a generalized "Bush is a crook" message, someone like Ann Coulter (Pad 2 with a finger on Pad 5) will jump up to blame the Democrats for Bush's foibles, and the Pad 3 folks (who I think are the largest group, because of all the subgroups in it) will think, "maybe he's not really so bad after all." But let's say we tried to get the Pad 3 gun lovers. We tried running a hunter for President in 2004 and it didn't work; pointing out that George Bush was the first president to attempt the "gun grab" (in NOLA in the aftermath of Katrina) that Republicans have long claimed the Democrats want to do might work.

The way to fight the Republicans' lock on these people is as fragmented as the Republicans are. But that's okay, because the thing the GOP does best is to hold together a coalition of people who, under any other circumstance, wouldn't associate with each other if you paid them.

[stubtoe]

38. I'm not sure it can be done.

For a certain percentage of the population, it's always going to be just too scary to think for themselves, especially to examine critically their own motivations and beliefs. They prefer to be led, and are therefore easily manipulated.

[benEzra]

39. Stop trying to take people's guns, for one...

Pad 3 is filled with single-issue voters. Guns. The military. Drugs. Abortion. Freedom of religion. Name an issue and Pad 3 people THINK the GOP is better for them than any other party. We can get these people by proving just how bad the GOP is on these issues. This is the hardest pad to crack because it's so disparate. A Pad 3 gun guy won't be that involved in abortion or religion; an abortion Pad 3 person isn't in the gun issue at all.

The thing about people with key issues is, they are much more easily motivated to vote AGAINST somebody than for them. Lots of gun owners don't like W, but a lot either voted for him, or sat out the 2000 and 2004 elections, because they were scared poopless by Gore and Kerry's promises to outlaw and confiscate rifles and shotguns with handgrips that stick out, shotguns that hold more than 5 rounds, or rifles and handguns that hold more than 10 rounds.

Can that crap--honestly, not some sort of fool-them-till-after-the-election ploy--and allow those people to make decisions based on OTHER issues.

[newswolf56]

40. Not just "right on" but profoundly so -- in three ways:

(1)-The fanatically hysterical self-righteousness and the hateful malice of the anti-gunners has no counterpart inside the Democratic Party and only one outside: the sadistic fanaticism of the Christian fundamentalist zealots. Its shrieking, spit-in-the-face intensity has to be experienced to be believed: the condemnation of firearms ownership as "an incipient act of violence," the public denunciation of all firearms owners as "Nazis," the repeated assertion "you can't be a Democrat if you own guns." (I was twice a precinct committeeperson -- an FDR/Kennedy Democrat, a former Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam War and Welfare Rights activist -- but merely because I own firearms, I was vindictively ejected from the Washington State Democratic Party by the screaming toxic-tongued minions of the forcible disarmament movement nearly two decades ago -- and my experience is typical, the norm rather than the exception.)

(2)-Advocates of the right to keep and bear arms do not regard themselves as "single-issue voters." Instead they reply that they are voting to protect the Constitution -- an issue that is basic to every political debate in U.S. history. Until the Democratic Party learns to acknowledge and honor this position, it will continue its repetition of the most insanely suicidal strategic error in U.S. political history: moving the anti-gunners from the lunatic fringe of American politics and granting them the epicentral role in shaping the Democratic Party's ideology: a mistake that has cost the party every congressional election since 1994 and every presidential election since 1996. Note in this context the definition of insanity: repeating the same ruinous mistake over and over again and expecting a different result.

(3)-You are absolutely correct when you assert that the party must change "honestly, not (with) some sort of fool-them-till-after-the-election ploy" -- but, sadly, I won't hold my breath. It is my belief the party's hatred and contempt for firearms owners is part of a much greater malaise of class antagonism lingering from the Vietnam era: the hateful fury of the draft-exempt academic elite toward those of us who served, a hatefulness expressed not only in anti-gun policy but in the unprecedented hostility of the party to union, blue-collar and rural interests generally: NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the beginning of downsizing and outsourcing during the Clinton Administration, the destruction of the social-service safety net begun as "welfare reform" during the same period, the fact that even during Clinton Era prosperity most of the benefits went to inflate executive pay and not to those of us in the working class -- that is, all of us who are not independently wealthy, who therefore live from paycheck to paycheck and in truth haven't received a real raise since 1973. If the Democratic party is to return to its New Deal roots and heal this yawning and infinitely self-destructive economic breach, suppressing the anti-gun hysteria is imperative.

[Oak2004]

44. And you have just described one of the big reasons I was a Republican

And why the Republican party has been so successful garnering blue collar support.

The Democrats have worn their elitism on their sleeves, whereas the mGOP hides their elitism.

[opihimoimoi]

41. What is Killing BushCo is the TEASING those mGOP are getting from their

friends.relatives who see the light....

On the Golf Courses, Bowling alleys, Poker rooms, etc...GOPers are laughed at every day...

Some are slowly eating Crow and making the Switch...forget the Fight...tired already....

As the Peeps become aware of the deception and its results....they will turn their guns on the Media Enablers....

Peace and Stability requires excellent Leaders....as we vote for Losers...we all Lose..

[liberaliraqvet26]

42. Immigration is the key.....

it drives the conservatives nuts!!!!