Why Do People Vote For Bush/Reagan, etc.

Or maybe they just like squinty dudes. That seems to be a prerequisite. Even Clinton did it.

Reaganomics and tax cuts for the wealthy I chalk up to the 'American Dream' - a lot of working/middle-class folks think that they'd be wealthy with the right breaks, and to the fact that the American popular conscience has divorced 'taxes' and 'services.' The right has pounded "Taxes R Theft" and racist 'welfare queens driving cadillacs' dogma for decades and it has worked.

I really think a lot of the answer to your original question is to do with religion, though. I've seen some polls done along these lines. By and large, hardcore religious people in the U.S. just seem to see the GOP as their party.

a text version of tom frank's harper's magazine article is here.

every "limousine liberal" should read it. and think.

yeah, actually you're probably OTM.

"I really think a lot of the answer to your original question is to do with religion, though. I've seen some polls done along these lines. By and large, hardcore religious people in the U.S. just seem to see the GOP as their party."

that certainly is a large part of it, but i've seen not-so-religious people (which describes my boss pretty well) proclaim their intention to vote for someone like Bush/Reagan as well. I guess it's like Miloauckerman just said, that the right-wing has convinced people of the evils of anything promoting taxes, welfare, regulation, etc.

OTM.

yeah, maybe it's because that liberal was tired of being sneered at by flyover country, especially when his formerly liberal but still brie-eating buddies tricked flyover country into doing the sneering.

I love it when you can almost see the author's head start to explode.

so while i think frank's article is awesome i have to wonder at how he states the economics in the article as incontrovertible fact.

every "limousine liberal" should read it. and think.

That's an interesting read. But it makes me think that being condescending towards people who think you are condescending doesn't really convince me you're not. Ya know?

Gabbneb, win anything. Elections, culture wars, whatever. Whining that flyover American done picked on them poor liberals is weak.

when i saw paul krugman speak last fall he was very, very careful to point out that most of the economic indicators right now are completely haywire and screwy and contradictory. basically, don't vote for kerry or bush based on economics, because the real economists don't understand what's going on. he urged us all to vote against bush based on voting against american empire, which is a tough sell, because HEY we like EMPIRE!

czeslaw milosz compared america to rome in 1968! "As for the US, was it not Rome, hungry for peace, bread and games?" of course now our peace is pax americana and our games are wargames =(

I got kicked out a few times for bitching about things like the class being shown a biography of Bill Gates (as someone to emulate). Red America was holding me down, man!

haha my economics class in high school was so crappy the books didn't even get to the soviet union breaking up (this was 1997). the teacher even taught it like that was still the case, talking about the soviet union in the present tense. the guy was an old bastard who obviously hated his job and didn't even botherto control the kids in class.

Crikey, that's impressive work for a dead bloke.

`Cos they're zealous, knee-jerk conservatives who vote for people based on the color of their tie and precious little else.

reagon gives them hope.

Who's Reagon?

Check out the covers of Time and Newsweek over at Drudge - see what I mean?

But it makes me think that being condescending towards people who think you are condescending doesn't really convince me you're not.

Who is being condescending? Frank? How? Is he trying to convince anyone of his lack of condescension?

The article reminded me of a meme I've carried around for a while but had not really applied yet in this context. Basically, in a mass media age, people who lack various kinds of power feel a loss of sense of worth/respect when they are not proportionately a subject of the media and therefore seek attention by combining in masses, often using spectacle, to draw attention that they could not gain as individuals. The impact is only heightened when a new medium arrives and increases the attention devoted to other people - before, status/identity could be determined within the bounds of your community; after, media might give disproportionate attention (and thereby status/identity) to certain members of your community, if they don't ignore it altogether (denying it any status/identity). In a social sense, it may explain, for instance, why ethnic groups hold parades, chant slogans, and wave flags. Lots of other examples I can think of. But I think it's most useful in explaining something about popular political movements. The populist 1830s happened to coincide with the rise of cheap printing presses and a concomitant explosion in newspaper publishing. The region-defending civil war coincided with the development of more powerful presses and the development of 'pictorial' newspapers. The first major agrarian populist and labor movements slowly developed during the 1870s and 80s as newspapers grew significantly in number and circulation, and then exploded in the 1890s with the consolidation of much of the media, as well as the first widespread use of banner headlines and caricatures. One of the great populists of this period, Edward Bellamy, was a former newspaper man. Radio history doesn't necessarily scan very well here - popular radio broadcasting largely began during the '20s at a time when politics turned conservative, although this may be the first instance of a mass movement turning reactionary instead of progressive, though the 'golden age' of radio beginning in the mid-'30s coincided with major unionization efforts, a mass movement of substance but also literally of identification. There is no typical agrarian or workers' movement to correspond to the rise of television in the late '40s and '50s, perhaps because the programming was not unrepresentative of the people who might form such a movement. However, the programming wasn't exactly representative of the people who led the civil rights movement that developed simultaneously. When television turned its attention in the '70s to cities and the minorities and sexual revolutionizers who lived there, the populist response turned decidedly reactionary. That reaction grew again in the '90s and especially the mid-to-late '90s as radio turned to 'shock jocks' and tv started becoming looser again via stuff like Friends, HBO Independent Productions, and Will and Grace (Clinton knew exactly what he was doing with the VChip), followed by the explosion of the content-unregulated internet, the mainstreaming and sexualization of multicultural youth culture, the growth of the market and increasing attention to Wall Street news and the super-rich, many of whom were newly rich, young and from minority groups, all culminating in the evening news forcing people to hear about the President getting a blowjob. So when Bush (or Reagan, or Lieberman, even) talks about how horrible this stuff is ('restoring honor and dignity to the White House,' etc.), that speaks to what makes people who feel unrepresented by the media angry, even if they think the politicians' policies hurt them (they don't think this, necessarily). And voting for these guys, and identifying/participating as a Republican, is a way of being part of a mass movement, like the old populist movements, that will simultaneously stick it to the unfairly-represented people and get them attention and a sense of identity/status. Kerry is very smartly, and probably more successfully than Bill Clinton, trying to be an alternative person these people can identify with at a minimum acceptable level, provided that they decide Bush isn't doing a great job. I think Kerry could end up looking more Reaganesque to some people than Bush does.

The story of Bill Clinton is very much the same. He became the country-boy ascendant (despite all his Rhodesian trappings) and easily vanquised an out-of-touch relic in the twilight of a long career in the corridors of Washington. The Republicans made the crucial mistake of nominating yet another relic in '96, offering voters no alternate 'bridge to the 20th century.'

There's a great moment in Oliver Stone's "Nixon" (I'm not generally a fan of Stone, but ... ) where Anthony Hopkins' Nixon stands before the famous eyes-downcast portrait of JFK and says, "When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are." That's one of the more eloquent summations of the crux of American electoral politics that I've ever encountered.

see what I mean?

that projection idea is very perceptive, and explains something about Kerry's "Let America Be America Again" theme

`Cos they're zealous, knee-jerk conservatives who vote for people based on the color of their tie and precious little else.

this is an enlightened response, why not just say they drag their knuckles? the amazing thing is that anyone does vote republican in a climate where all of academia attempts to program liberalism into youth, where the major media sources(if you include entertainment all lean far left) and where to admit you'r erepublican makes people like Alex assume you're a racist, bigoted, homophobe. Obviously it must be bcause there is more of a message than on the left. Supply-side is not a discredited theory, look at the current increase in tax receipts to see that Arthur Laffer was correct. Most conservatives actually find their economic base in Hayek, and mostly it has to do with the inefficiency of government regulation and meddling in the economy. the attempted rewrite of the 80s as only being good for the wealthy is a bit puzzling since the economy expanded by a third during the 80s, and clinton's boom was really reagan's boom as only a war interrupted 17 years of continuous growth. Current tax cuts have caused the economy to grow faster in the past 12 months than in any 12 month span in the past 20 years. I know the level of political sophistication is low here but the smugness with which the inanity is offered i suppose only adds to the cocoon nature of this place. Look man all of my friends are democrats and we're all enlightened tolerant souls so how come everyone else is so dumb eh? also the idea of people feeling powerless is only an issue because washington politics now infects people's lives far more than it should. the kneejerk response to look to washington whenever anything happens on mainstreet(i imagine a movement to ban bulldozers will start soon after the rampage here in Granby) is bizarre, when has anything fruitful ever come down the pike from washington, pretty well never.

For starters, because the alternative was worse. Jimmy Carter was a lousy president and both Mondale and Dukakis ran horrible campaigns. Gore didn't exactly run a competent campaign either, given his position of a ten lap head start. But yeah, I suppose pesky issues like dismal competition will always figure last when it comes to deciding how the fuck dudes like Bush/Reagan ever get elected to anything.

gabnebb, your meme is an interesting one. Always nice to see some credible, independent thought around here...that post is very Josh Marshall like.

I find his portrayal of the midwest to be somewhat cartoonish and strawman-ish. And I don't know if he's trying to convince anyone of his lack of condescension, but he's doing a good job of confirming it. There's a lot truth in the piece I think, but also a lot of bias.

I think you are right that a lot of the "backlash" stems from feeling under-represented. That the rise in media has magnified certain extreme cultural elemets that scare/disturb/concern the many, many people outside the loops. (Why has there been no backlash in the other direction? Can people be culturally shocked into becoming more left?)

I don't think its all culture however. I think policy-wise, a lot of the middle class Republicans feel that the Dems work does not benefit them. Part of that might be the divide between the lower class and middle class. And part of it might be as simple and ugly as race. Plus for as long as I can remember, it's the Republicans who have been handing out the farming subisidies, not the Dems.

who's attempting to rewrite history HERE?

I'm discounting the sizable minorities on both sides who pay close attention to issues and ideology, call up Rush Limbaugh or write letters to The New York Times, because they're statistically dispersed enough that it's really the vague voters who matter. And they not only can't articulate to you much about specific policies, the background of international affairs or who will actually win or lose in the Medicaid drug bill, they think there's something a little puzzling about people who can talk about those things. They're the kind of people who find the whole business of politics kind of distasteful and wish people wouldn't argue about it all so much. Which makes them borderline irresponsible citizens in my book, but of course people have to have the right not to be engaged in their own self-governance. And I still respect anyone who votes for any reason more than anyone who can't even be bothered (people who deliberately sit out an election as a matter of principle are a different matter -- I think that's a legitimate stance too).

Anyway, my wife swears she's not voting for Bush again. So that's one down.

The right has pounded "Taxes R Theft" and racist 'welfare queens driving cadillacs' dogma for decades and it has worked.

-- miloauckerman (suspectdevic...), June 6th, 2004.

of course, we all know what an economic shambles america was from 1993-2000. that's when the republicans were beginning to claim that it was a "continuation of the reagan recovery." yup.

(Hint: 'self-employed' construction worker, probably 8000 miles on my truck I can tie directly to work, various other expenses - cleared about $11k. Do the math.)

Mainly I'm just needlin' ya tho so don't sweat it.

those are PRECISELY the ones that the IRS looks at MOST closely. self-employeds have the HIGHEST audit rate of all taxpayers. and no, i'm NOT joking.

i just hope you keep good records :-)

it would be, "oh".

the tables are pretty good in this one.

the attempted rewrite of the 80s as only being good for the wealthy is a bit puzzling since the economy expanded by a third during the 80s

these two statements are not contradictory at all, that's my point here.

Unfortunately, based at least on his Kansas studies, Tom Frank seems to agree:

'Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land and the next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinic. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed- unions, antitrust laws,
public ownership- and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.'

Now, I think that in November the nation will point out that right can be wrong. But the question remains, why does being a victor take people right, and being a victim also take people right? Why this weird alliance in the US between victors and victims? Why this double sense of the nation as victim (of 9/11, of course, but also of other, more nebulous things) and victor (post-war dominant global power)? And how come the Republican party has managed to map its own sense of itself as victor-victim to the mood of, if not the whole nation, at least the 'heartlands'? Could it be that the aspiration of 'the American dream' has now been matched by the horror of 'the American nightmare'? Could it be that Bush is not rushing to the middle ground in an election year because there is no middle ground any more, or rather, the middle ground is somewhere else, in that extreme place where victim meets victor? The troubling thought is that it's in exactly that place, where humiliation meets triumphalism, and the middle class middle ground collapses, that fascism begins.