I had a conversation with a Bush supporter yesterday. Yes, one of the proud 30% or so who thinks Bush is doing a good job. The discussion was heated, but civil.
While neither one of us was able to change the other's mind about anything, the conversation provided valuable insight into how a Bush supporter thinks and how effective Republican propaganda has been.
It all started with his complaints about "Hollywood liberals" and the "liberal rich" who had plenty of money, but wanted a working stiff like
him to pay higher taxes. I then replied that I didn't like the "conservative rich" who will give you a $100 tax cut so they can get a $1,000,000 tax cut, especially when we are running such a large deficit. He grudgingly agreed with me.
That got the discussion going. He believes the Democrats are wrecking the country. I asked how, since we are out of power. He said they are talking down a strong economy. He believes that this is "the best economy in years". I pointed out that the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq are flat since Bush took office. He blamed that on Clinton and 9/11 and said that Bush brought the economy back. He then said that Clinton's success were because of Reagan's good policies. I pointed out the recession of 1990-91. He said "that wasn't so bad", which isn't quite how I remembered it.
We then talked about foreign policy. He had an extreme dislike for Jimmy Carter, who he believed wrecked the economy and would have let Soviet tanks roll through Washington DC. I reminded him that Carter inherited an economic mess from Ford, which he did concede. However, he did not believe that Carter ended detente (which he did) or that the USSR was on its last legs no matter who was President.
We then moved on to the current war. He believed the war in Iraq was going well, but that the "liberal media" just wasn't telling us about it. He kept talking about how we were building schools and expanding opportunties for women and that "there are only a few bad areas". I just told him that my neighbor who had served in Iraq said that it was a mess. He said that he must have just been in the bad areas.
Interestingly enough, he was more concerned with the hypocrisy of the Democrats on the war than the incompetence of the Republicans in running it, which he blamed on liberals undermining the war effort.
However, the main point he tried to get across to me, which he kept repeating is that "the Islamic crazies want to kill us all". He believed the war is justified, including war with Iran, Pakistan, possibly with nukes(!) to keep these "crazies" from killing us. He knows that not all Muslims are "crazies" but believes that those who are must be killed desipite the collateral damage. He didn't understand that collateral damage just makes more "crazies" or that the likelihood of the United Islamic States of America is considerably less than that of Soviet tanks marching through Washington DC. He just said that they needed to be killed to keep us safe.
Perhaps more troubling is that he said that we will not be leaving any time soon and that my kids will be fighting the same war.
The right-wing propaganda machine is really very simple. Demonize your opponents, play to fear, distort the facts. They bypass the brain and go straight for the gut.
The problem is that progressives have no equivalent. There is no need to distort the facts or to be dishonest, after all, facts have a well-known liberal bias, but there is a need for gut-level marketing.
The most effective ads and political strategies are gut-level. On the Democratic side, I remember Bill Clinton's "trickle down" commercial from 1992, which was an indictment of Reagan-Bush economic policies set to the backdrop of a closed factory in the rain. Lyndon Johnson's "daisy girl" ad played to voters fears that Goldwater would lead us to nuclear war. Something similar is needed. Policy points do not win elections. Gut feelings do.