(no subject)

[winterbadger]

After seeing two of the clips that ABC is circulating of its interview(s) with Gov Palin.

[Poll #1258459]

Comments

[winterbadger]

Thanks, Scott! :-)

The thing I still struggle with is that I cannot bring myself to believe that those 45 million people are all (a) fools or (b) deceived. If that were true, it would suggest to me that democracy is a failed experiment, and we need to pack up and start looking for people with reliable bloodlines to create a monarchy (which are, at least usually much more stable than democracy).

So I'm left to try to grasp the idea that 40-60 million of my fellow citizens really find these people (Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin, and to reach a bit further back, Reagan, Bush Sr., and Quayle) more desirable than the alternatives (Obama, Biden, Kerry, Edwards, Gore, Lieberman, Dukakis, Bentsen, Carter, Mondale, Ferarro). Obviously the strength of that feeling isn't the same in each person, but a vote for one is, in the end, not a vote for the other and a definite statement of preference.

In my darker moments, I tend to see this as a descent of America into a kind of conservative malaise. I looked at some numbers, tracking the margin of victory (in popular votes) back to the 1960 election. Obviously, Dems have won a number of presidential elections in that time, so it's not all bad news; though Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton are not exactly examples of the kind of dedicated moral rectitude and commitment to progressive ideals I'd like to see in presidents, they were better than the Republican alternatives.

What's interesting is that in the 1960s and 1970s, elections were either blowouts or dead heats. Both Kennedy's win and Nixon's in 1968 were decided by less than 1% of the vote; Johnson's and Nixon's in 1972 by more than 20%. There was less volatility in the 1980s and 1990s but more variation, if you know what I mean (no election decided by less than 6%, but none by 20% or more). Now we seem to be modulating down again, with the last two elections being decided by less than 3% of the popular vote. The nation seems very evenly divided, and the positions of the two sides seem as different as those of the 1960s and 70s. Bitter, angry division seems the order of the day. And that makes me sad, as well as puzzled. Because I just can't see how people can stomach some of the extreme views and positions of the conservative right, but I don't feel I can jsut dismiss them as foolish or deuded either.