Are Republicans frakin' nuts?

[ContrarianLemming]

Scary New GOP Poll (http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20100323/ts_dailybeast/7269_scarynewgoppoll)

John Avlon – Tue Mar 23, 12:58 am ET

NEW YORK – On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here's new data to prove it:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.

The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president" 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did" Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist." These numbers all come from a brand-new Louis Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country. ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20100323/ts_dailybeast/7269_scarynewgoppoll


crazy

[The Ghost of Revolutions]

About 20 percent think obama was born in Kenya too.

[Red Commissar]

Ach, and these are the same people complaining that people don't know enough about politics or civics, and here they are throwing "socialism" willy nilly agian.

[Comrade B]

they listen to Glenn Beck and their television priests more than they listen to basic reason. They are not insane, they are fucking idiots.

[StoneFrog]

OMG OMG he's a commie din't you guy know??


24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

i think that was just awesome.

[Pirate Utopian]

I kinda doubt these numbers or atleast the seriousness with which it was answered.

[zimmerwald1915]

I'm confused as to why we should care. Unless you're proposing defending Obama's politics, none of this is actually important except to testify to the extent that bourgeois ideology has infected large segments of the US working class.

[Crux]

Hey if Obama is the anti-Christ he's O.K in my book.

[¿Que?]

I'm confused as to why we should care. Unless you're proposing defending Obama's politics, none of this is actually important except to testify to the extent that bourgeois ideology has infected large segments of the US working class.
This is a good point. I'm wondering what the author of Wingnuts would think about our little e-community here. Isn't that whole book just an argument for centrist politics. Because apparently having something to say and the gnards to say it makes you divisive (also not to mention, doing something about it too).

[cb9's_unity]

I'm confused as to why we should care. Unless you're proposing defending Obama's politics, none of this is actually important except to testify to the extent that bourgeois ideology has infected large segments of the US working class.

Calling opponents the anti-Christ isn't standard bourgeois practice. Also confusing liberalism with socialism is only a tactic half of the bourgeoisie usually likes to use, at least in America.

It think this speaks not to normal bourgeois ideology but instead a reactionary fanaticism that is growing in the country. The bourgeoisie usually has to be somewhat crafty in its propaganda. However the conservative section of the bourgeoisie can now tell a conservative segment of the working class almost anything and they'll believe it. Where capitalist newspapers usually have to manipulate and selectively choose facts to build support for imperialist wars, conservatives can now tell their base something and the base will believe it no matter how many facts are presented to disprove their point (Obama beyond doubt a Christian and its been proven that he was born in Hawaii but conservative workers choose to ignore that evidence).

If bourgeois propaganda was always so bluntly absurd as recent conservative rhetoric capitalism would have been smashed long ago. But now conservatives can say anything to a group that is becoming dogmatically reactionary. And the sort of ultra-nationalism and anti-intellectualism that this group is upholding could potentially be a breeding ground for fascism.

[The Red Next Door]

fuck them. let not pay attention to them.

[zimmerwald1915]

Calling opponents the anti-Christ isn't standard bourgeois practice...And the sort of ultra-nationalism and anti-intellectualism that this group is upholding could potentially be a breeding ground for fascism.
But resorting to fascism IS standard bourgeois practice.

Yes, I know I'm not being totally intellectually honest in ellipsizing most of your post, but what they heck.

[Morgenstern]

It wouldn't surprise me if these numbers are 100% accurate. Capitalism is currently facing a very rough cycle and "Fascism is Capitalism in decline."-Vladimir Lenin

Bigoted claims are merely a sign of a brewing fascism. The only question is will this fascist feeling growing turn into anything?

[Klaatu]

American opinion (at least as it is presented on Fox News) has shifted so far
to the right that even Pat Buchanan seems like a liberal. But I really don't
think the masses are all that right-wingy at all, at least on college campuses.
It is hard to find a neocon at my campus (they do exist) and I think a lot of
younger folks these days are sympathetic to socialism, at least to some degree.
That is what it seems like, as far as my own conversations are concerned.
(Also, I believe I've helped a few make a conversion to socialism!) :thumbup1:

[Morgenstern]

The current young generation is drawn more to Socialism partly because we are more sympathetic to the poor and the environment. The children of the 40s/50s were obedient and of course grew up to be conservative (being the silent majority in the age of drugs and hippies). But the 60s is seen as a time of much more liberal positions purely because it was 'cool' to upset the established order.

Likewise, the cultural trends draw the youth a certain way. The American Dream is fading, nuclear families are falling apart, and best off is that the media actually announces it. When your whole false reality is falling apart you'd try to search for ways to improve things. Also the fact that the internet gives much more freedom of information helps too. Sadly that is just my hypothesis as most of the youth I know are neo-cons.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The current young generation is drawn more to Socialism partly because we are more sympathetic to the poor and the environment. The children of the 40s/50s were obedient and of course grew up to be conservative (being the silent majority in the age of drugs and hippies). But the 60s is seen as a time of much more liberal positions purely because it was 'cool' to upset the established order.

Likewise, the cultural trends draw the youth a certain way. The American Dream is fading, nuclear families are falling apart, and best off is that the media actually announces it. When your whole false reality is falling apart you'd try to search for ways to improve things. Also the fact that the internet gives much more freedom of information helps too. Sadly that is just my hypothesis as most of the youth I know are neo-cons.I don't know about this. The "40s generation" probably also participated in the General Strikes in 1936 and the huge 1946 strikewave that also saw general strikes in places like... Oakland:thumbup1:.

As I understand it, the 50s were quiet and repressed in my opinion because...

1) People had been through a depression and a world war and when offered job security and the ability to move from urban slums to cookie-cutter houses... who'd blame them for wanting that if they could?

2) Political repression - The popular pressure in the 1930s led to mass unionization, some of the first organized modern attempts at anti-racist organizing, and all kinds of major reforms, during WWII, the state promoted social peace to prepare for war - the rich were taxed, industries became more nationalized, there was a lessening of restrictions on radical politics, women and black people were employed in industry when they had been excluded before, blacks were promised greater rights after the war, workers were promised better deals with employers in exchange for a no-strike policy. The US propaganda of the day was that the war was "the People's war" and the UK, USSR, and Free French were the defenders of democracy and equality while the Italians Germans and Japanese represented bigotry and sacrifice of the individual to the state. This was all bullshit of course just like Bush's sudden concern for women's rights when he wanted to bomb Afghanistan. So when the war was over and there was a huge strike wave, there was some reforms and class-peace measures but there were also witch-hunts against communists, gays, and independant women - it was an effort for the ruling class to re-establish its order and shed the radicalism that had been developing.

The 60s was "the 60s" because this era of repression thawed in many places. But until the end, it was never "cool" to be rebellious - these baby boomer kids grew up on the Micky Mouse Club, Fabian and Frankie and Anette records, Elvis movies, and Davy Crokett (r.i.p.). Radicalism spread because of the experience that many people had of seeing the contradictions of liberal democracy - black people beaten for wanting to go to school or sit at a lunch counter in "the world's freest country" - Vietnameese children being napalmed (by a country which claims to fight only reluctantly and defensivly) for dareing to declare their independance. This made rebellion "cool" because the alternative, going along, meant going along with a totally bankrupt and idiotic system.

But I think you are correct that this dynamic is returning. Obviously while some of the middle-aged people who have spent 30 years buying into the myths of "the end of history" and the inevitable and unquestionable infallacy of the market are runing around yelping about "Obama's socialism" - young people are the ones pushing aside liberal gay-rights groups to form their own more radical groups; occupying campus buildings and so on.

Like the 60s generation, they have been sold a lie about how america defeated its enemies in the world through the justness and goodness of its system. And like the 60s generation, they have seen this good and just system bail out the rich while leaving black people to starve in New Orleans as well as "wars of liberation" that are brutal occupations.

So the main variable and what will make the next 10 years a time when we can regroup and build an opposition or if we will get defeated and become another "cynical generation" is if people whose consiousness is leading them to occupy campus buildings and so on can build self-sustaining organizations and movements outside the hands and control of the grubby fingers of establishment political interests - like they did in the 1930s and 1960s.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Luckily the Republicans do not represent a majority view. Here's my counter-poll:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/24/BA111CK8KU.DTL


If California voters controlled the state budget, a majority would agree to cut spending in only two areas - the state's prisons and parks, according to a Field Poll to be released today. ... but voters surveyed roundly rejected cuts to education.


Also if you read the article, it's hilarious to read the "liberal" SF Chronicle in a news piece try to "correct" the results of the poll... this is what Californians would do, but they are idiots to believe this way because cuts in Prison spending and state parks alone could not balance the budget... get "realistic" Californians. They seem to miss the real point about where Californians priorities really are... overwhelmingly for education, not incarceration. This means on this issue, the generla population is far to the left of either Democrats or Republicans.

[Red Commissar]

It seems Google shows this as the popular search phrases when one types in "Obama is..."

http://filesmelt.com/dl/WhatO.jpg

:laugh:

[Klaatu]

It seems Google shows this as the popular search phrases when one types in "Obama is..."

Good gods, do you mean that neocons and libertarians can actually read and write, and can actually use a computer? (wow) I am truly amazed.

I had not figured that they had evolved much past baboons...

Hey I heard that a teabagger had locked his keys in his car - he had to use a coat hanger - to let his wife and kids out...

[InuyashaKnight]

They watch Faux news listening to their masters and people there freakin robots.