So many possible diary topics, so few allowable diaries.
A few minutes ago I finished perusing the Opinion section of the Sunday paper, and found myself awash in potential diary topics: the death of American journalism; the thoughts of my favorite columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. on torture; state income tax vs. sales tax as vehicles for state revenue collection; the astonishing fact that Charles Krauthammer actually appears to have a clue about something . . . .
But then I sat down at the computer and checked the trendlines of the most recent Daily Kos poll, and all those other topics flew out the window (although I do provide links to the catalyst articles below the fold; I especially encourage everyone to read the one about journalism).
Because I noticed something in the trendlines of the DKos poll that seemed particularly notable in light of the spate of recent politically-motivated violence in this country and the spate of diaries here on DKos about the similarties between 2009 America and 1930's Germany leading up to the Nazis coming to power. (DISCLAIMER: If you don't put much stock in polls and aren't interested in mining them for meaning, you may want to skip this diary.)
Because the Daily Kos poll only comes out once a week, I try to squeeze every bit of informaiton out of it that I can whenever I check it.
This week, I noticed that the trendlines on Obama favorables were now available both by party and by region. I checked out the party info; no surprises there.
Then I went to the regional trendlines. No real surprises there, either, at first glance. The lines for "All," "Midwest," "Northeast," and "West" are all within a reasonable distance of each other. The line for the South is much lower.
But then I noticed that the South line isn't just much lower than all the others; it is also a different shape. I don't know how to embed that graph here, so I will try to concisely describe the differences:
All five of the lines had a remarkably similar profile for the first four weeks of the period covered by the graph: a slight increase from 1/8 to 1/15,a sharp increase from 1/15 to 1/22, and a significant and steady but less sharp decline from 1/22 to 2/5. Well, that's only to be expected, what with the euphoria that gripped the nation during the days surrounding the Inauguration.
It's what happens from 2/5 on that was so startling. If you remember, Feb. 5th was the beginning of the Obama Stimulus Tour (it started with his speech to the Congressional Dems at their retreat in Williamsburg that evening) -- which means that for most of the country, his favorables were at low ebb as of Feb. 5th, because as soon as he went on the road and started talking to us, they started heading back up. Since then, they have wobbled up and down within a range of a few points. Mostly they headed slowly but steadily up from 2/5 to 2/26, then slowly but steadily down from 2/26 to 3/26, then back up again since then.
Except in Dixie.
In the Southern region of the United States, Obama's favorables have decreased every single week since the Inauguration. They went from +18 on 1/8 to +23 on 1/22, and since 1/22 they have fallen to -13. That's right, a steady, cumulative decrease of 36 points in the ten weeks of Obama's Presidency.
Now granted, his favorables among Republicans have declined by 41 points, from -11 to -52, so by comparison residents of the South are Obamabots. But a lot of Dems, and a lot of African Americans, live in the South. I haven't heard any suggestion that black support for Obama has diminished -- and I'm QUITE sure that if such a thing were happening, we'd be hearing about it in a 24/7 loop that would make the Rev. Wright mediafest look like it had been little more than subliminal inserts into regular news coverage. So I think it's safe to say that virtually all of this decline has occurred among white southerners, which means we're really talking about a decline of substantially more than 36 points. Maybe more like 45 or even 50 points among whites, to have affected the overall numbers by 36 points.
Why is that, do you suppose? I'm positing three major -- and fairly obvious -- culprits, but I'd be interested to hear if any of you have additional theories to add to the mix.
(1) The traditionally poor quality of education in the South probably has a lot to do with it.
As we all know here, the Rethugs have been one giant Perpetual Lying Machine since Obama took office. Night and day, Monday through Sunday (and twice as much on holidays), awake or asleep, shouting in rage or smiling with oily sleaziness, if the mouth of a Republican lawmaker or strategist or pundit has been moving at any moment since January 20th, it has been emitting lies. And the less educated one is, the less one tends to critically evaluate what one hears from authority figures. If people on TV are saying it, it must be true.
Another effect of lower educational levels is greater susceptibility to fear and hysteria. Much of the lying that is being done is of the fearmongering kind: Obama is turning the country socialist/communist/fascist, Obama will take our guns away, yadda yadda yadda.
(2) Wingnut talk radio. Does anyone know the Rush/Hannity to Hartmann/Malloy ratio of southern radio, compared to the rest of the country? I would hazard an educated guess that it's much higher in the South.
(3) Do I really even need to say the third reason? Obama is . . . you know . . . .
Now that he's in office and the wingers on the radio and teevee are providing so much ammunition, even those bigots who were caught up in the election-to-Inauguration excitement are probably now finding it very easy to justify their bigotry.
What other, less obvious reasons have I not thought of?
(Note: Yeah, I realize that support for Obama has dropped among a lot of progressives, too, but I'm pretty sure the reason for the much greater decline in the South than in other reasons isn't because the South has suddenly gotten a hell of a lot more progressive).
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Links to articles described in my Intro:
Journalism is collapsing.
Leonard Pitts: Torture and McCarthyism
Krauthammer Struck by a Clue
Income tax for WA?