My formerly Republican brother recently wrote this to me:
I honestly don't get how people vote Republican anymore. I just don't get it. They take obstructionist cave man views on everything; it's like they stake out the most idiotic position on any issue, and people vote for them. F***ng amazing. Dems have to be the worst campaigners in the world. Please take a page from the NRA and learn how to run a campaign, just like the Republicans did...
I responded with a short personal story about my husband's great Aunt Edee. She is 96 years old and a big fan of Neal Boortz. She explains her allegiance to him with "Well, he's an attorney and he's been on the radio for years, so he must know what he's talking about or they wouldn't let him on the air."
While we were chatting with Edee's mailman the other day, she kept saying that his son had been present when a boy scout had been killed by a tornado a couple years ago at a local camp. The mailman kept correcting her, saying, "No Edee, my son had been to that camp before, that is all."
Edee would say, 'yes, that's right', and go on insisting that his son had been through the tornado at the camp that had made all the news when that boy scout was killed. It was clearly a conversation they had had before, and clear that Edee simply wanted to believe the dramatic version of events even in the literal face of factual contradiction by some one she trusted.
When I related this to my husband, he said, "Yes, and Rush Limbaugh figured that out long ago." People don't care about facts, they want drama, and to feel important by some kind of personal connection to it. Give them that and they'll follow you anywhere. That is why Sarah Palin, Glen Beck and all the rest are so popular. They bank on the fact that millions of people don't think, they just feel.
A couple decades ago Rush Limbaugh and his ilk figured out that AM radio was a vast resource for millions of Midwest middle class Americans who spend a lot of time on the road, elderly who have hearing problems, and people who just don't want to bother thinking or dealing with messy value inconsistencies. He GAVE AWAY his show to local stations who had more air time to fill than they had news. The result was an instant highly faithful demographic, and the country started down the long decline evidenced by the GWB-supporting red swath through the heart of our precious nation.
Those people raised children who say things to me in class like, "Why can't we just put all our trash in Iraq?" and "All Muslims are trying to kill us" and "If we run out of resources we'll just pray to God to get more" and "It doesn't matter if I take resources from others as long as I don't know them."
It is so much easier and more comforting to understand things in black and white, by feeling instead of thinking. All that complicated gray area stuff is just uncomfortable and overwhelming.
This is the problem with the Democratic Party. They dwell in gray areas to a fault. They attempt to resolve the concerns, no matter how ridiculous, of the other side, much like a parent who stupidly attempts to negotiate with a tantrum-throwing illogical two-year-old. Their desire to get everyone to see logic and reason, a strength in a serious democracy, is ironically the very thing that weakens their cause.
Democrats are indeed terrible campaigners compared to Republicans. They are, however; better at governing when they step up to the plate and actually use the power, but they do it so clumsily it is embarrassing. They have exceedingly poor message delivery precisely because they rely on logic as opposed to emotion far too much of the time. They give Americans too much credit; they are too optimistic about the goodness and thoughtfulness of people.
Voting laws which amount to only letting educated people decide who could run the country were long ago declared a bad idea in this democracy. But what about requiring people to think while voting, instead of merely feeling or following? It is apparently too much to ask.
As Andy Borowitz says, Sarah Palin recently stepped in to campaign for John McCain to increase his support among morons. It is clear that people don't care what she or anyone else on their side has to say, not really. They just like how she makes them feel.