I have achieved an epiphony, attained an enlightened state similar to Nirvana (the place, not the band). I have at last figured out, with the help of
Billmon's post on
Half Empty/Half Full why our Dear Leader seems to defy the laws of physics and actually gains ground during the worst week of his term. With this knowledge, I know how we'll defeat him, as well.
People like him because he's stupid.
Hear me out on this.
There is roughly fifty percent of the American public that like/support/believe in/approve of GWB as President, and these people are broken into two catagories.
The first like him because of what he stands for or represents - for these people, his stance on abortion/Iraq/tax cuts/gay marriage/etc. is all they need. He uses buzzwords like 'family values' and wins them over, or buzzwords like 'resolve', 'stay the course', 'freedom', 'terrorism' and likewise, as Billmon points out, wins them over. They're his from the first words he utters, and no matter how bad he sounds uttering them, at least he said what they want to hear. Newspeak. These are largely Republicans, conservatives, fundies and new-born patriots, the kind that found religion, so to speak, after 9/11 and now care about the war more than anything else. These voters will never be Dem voters under any circumstances.
The second type are not very partisan, liked the Clinton years but disliked Clinton, and have a general dislike of politicians. See, Clinton made many people feel like he was smarter than them, and being a lawyer debating the meaning of the word 'is' did not help at all. If he's so smart, the thinking went, what kinds of things might he be getting away with that we don't know about? These voters, called swing voters, aren't very ideological, aren't partisan to any great degree and they go more with gut feelings and appearances than platforms and proposals. These people like Bush beause they know they're smarter than he is, and therefore he can't be up to anything sneaky. As for the people around (controling) him, who cares? He's nice and stupid and therefore honest and he'll do the right thing.
These are the people we lost last week.
Speaking as a severely disabled person, I feel I can say with some authority that nobody likes to see people kick a gimp in the nuts. Bush is our Special President, and when people get mean and accuse him and his handlers of bad things, they're kicking a gimp in the nuts. Nixon looked and acted sneaky. Bush looks and acts mildly retarded. You don't have to have watched 'Life Goes On' to know that Special people are people, too. So when people hammer poor little 'I look to a higher power' Georgie, they don't want to impeach him or vote him out. They want to hug him. I've been to the Special Olympics. I know how this shit works.
So what we need to do is to stop screaming 'abuse of power' and 'corruption', and start pointing out the fact that while nobody likes kicking gimps an the nuts, we need a grownup as President. Make it less about attacking him and playing gotcha and just let the people see how fucking stupid he really is in comparison to Kerry. Give them a reason to vote FOR Kerry, not AGAINST Bush. Don't let their 'hug him' instincts kick in. Let them see Kerry being an adult with a positive, optimistic vision of America as a clear alternative to the village idiot. They'll realize in time that yeah, we do prefer a president who is smarter than us, and as long as he's thinking with the head on his shoulders, we don't really care what he does with the other one.
Otherwise we need to find someone who can do the everyman routine, seem uneducated, well meaning, but be a little more entertaining than Bush while doing it.
Jesse Ventura's still thinking of running...
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This and other rants can be read at I, Gimpicus!, the Left's home for political incorrectness.