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steve wrote:I used to be puzzled with wonder at how post-Weimar Germany could have slipped into a self-absorbed, isolationist, reactionary, ours-is-the-will-of-God fascist state. Yesterday, I realized it starts like this: With a growing pool of self-reinforcing zealots "voting their conscience" in reaction to a perceived lapse into Godless degeneracy, and that body of voters being exploited by a single-minded political party intent on ruthlessly consolidating its power.

I too was once in wonder at the events leading to the third reich. My fascination with expressionist art, neue sachlichkeit, and guys like John Heartsfield, Otto Dix, and George Grocz was in part due to a desire to see those times through those who witnessed it with their eyes wide open.

How do we begin to change the mindset of the masses? How do we reverse the slippery slope toward the Fourth Reich we are now on?

There must be a way that we who identify as left-leaning, progressive, realist/futurist, what-have-you, can consolodate ourselves to battle this new political atmosphere. The stakes are quite high. We should have the advantage - being urban, educated, in positions of greater influence and exposure. Where do we start?

If they're so moral and sanctimonious, when their kids get blown to bits in Iraq they can comfort themselves by saying "Well, at least I voted my conscience against those damn gays, and thank God for my tax cut. Junior may be dead, but we got an extra $200 in our pocket last year. I think it was worth it."

g&t, do you really believe that's how they think? I mean, this is hateful, and I know plenty of people who voted bush who's thought process is not even remotely close to the one you described. and republican politics is not single-issue politics. I very rarely heard gay-marriage brought up in the media, and even less for abortion. I think this election was about iraq, the war on terror, and kerry's lack of ability to show a solid alternative to the president's strategy on either of those issues.
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p.s. "I'll bring in our allies" is not a solid alternative. It means nothing short of either a) giving the UN a pass on its corruption or b) bribing the french, germans, and russians who lost revenues once the corrupt oil-for-food program ended with the invasion of iraq.

i gotta say, i was pretty releived last night when watching pbs, and something very interesting came up on Chicago Tonight. although the fairly long biographical piece about Obama (and how he got to where he is) was *extremely* interesting, that's not what i'm talking about. i'm talking about a guy quoting some kinda real scienticious statistic when everybody kept saying evangelical this, evangelical that. somebody needs to do the work here before slamming evangelicals, because according to this guys stats that he was quoting (and neither Phil Ponce nor Jim Edgar seemed to question this guys accuracy, they seemed to trust him as having done his homework) there was NOT a big rise in votes for bush from evangelicals, in fact, the evangelical vote showed virtually no change. there WAS however a large increase in votes for bush from folks like the elderly, and folks in cities and suburbs, and women, and latinos... but the rural evangelical vote was virtually identical to the previous election.

this was the "i'm mr democrat" guy that was pointing this out, i forget what his name was.

anyways, folks, maybe check out the scienticious numbers online or wherever before forming these opinions based on speculation. as i've said before, there's a lot of folks that give Christianity a bad name, but not all of us do. and in this case, before further increasing your own personal sense of schism with regard to Christian vs non-Christian, maybe make sure that's what actually happened.

i went to a Catholic church last week, and they specifically had shit written in the little paper handout dealy that talked about the election. so yeah, people probably did cast their votes (albeit in a misguided fashion) for the candidate they thought was most in line with what they think God would dig. it's not just evangelicals. and don't get me wrong, i often find evangelicals to be as annoying and freaky as the next guy does. but as i had pointed out in a previous dicussion of Christianity, in the 2000 census, something like 90% of americans declared themselves as Christian. so of course that's gonna come up in an election, especially in the middle of a fucking global holy war.

something i heard pointed out during the election coverage, i wanna say it was ron reagan on msnbc, was this weird divide we have in america, where people are saying "how is this possible? i don't know a single person who voted for bush? who are these people?!?!" and based on the popular vote, the answer to that question is "most of the people who voted". there's a divide where us folks in the big cities and the californias and new englands don't even seem to know what the nominal american is like. and it's a good point, that us liberals (i'm a big-city liberal myself, mostly) don't even know what nominal americans are like. and that's something that'll probably be more and more apparent as the country becomes more and more divided.

this entire situation really, REALLY reminds me of the reagan era. megadeth writing songs about how there's no freedom as long as there's a PMRC. all kinda metal bands writing songs about how fucked up the tv evangelists were... it's pretty much the same spot we're in right now. so it's not like there's this big crazy development where things are more fucked up than they've ever been, in a sense. in a sense, we've looped right back around to where we were 15 years ago. and 10 years from now, who knows, maybe we'll be in the middle of another clinton era.

what was my point... oh yeah, it wasn't evangelicals. at least based on the stats that fella quoted. let's see some stats from a credible source that say it *was*.

btw, to see what sorta things intelligent Christians might say about all this, i think this is a pretty good read.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=ma ... cle=041110


a quote from this article...

"Bush’s war in Iraq is the beginning of a long-term strategy that is both mistaken and terribly dangerous for the future. My oldest son is 6 years old, and my other is a year and a half. If America’s present course continues, they will be facing endless war in their lives, still in Iraq and who knows where else. Many Americans hope there is a better way."

unarmedman wrote:I very rarely heard gay-marriage brought up in the media

You've got to be kidding me.

I'll give you that gay marriage news stories were sometimes eclipsed by Iraq, but this year saw a gigantic amount of gay marriage coverage on all types of media - right wing talk show hosts (Hannity, Ingraham, Limbaugh et al wouldn't shut up about it), less-rabid radio stations (NPR did a ton of it this year - it felt like almost weekly coverage at one point), cable news (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC all covered it repeatedly) and of course the networks salivated over the issue too.

Thanks to the media, we even have the phrase "activist judges" permanently associated with state judges ruling on gay marriage.

I'd like to know what kind of media you typically listen/read/watch, because as far as I could see, it was pretty much everywhere over the last year.

Gay marriage was in the media approximately every 11 seconds for the past year.

Exit polling of Republican voters indicate that the significant majority of them were making their decisions on "moral issues". What is that if not gay marriage and abortion?

The fact that you anecdotally know some republicans who don't think this way is utterly irrelevant. If you think the South and Prairie states are voting Republican because they sat down and engaged in a thoughtful analysis of the candidates' respective opinions on the War on Terror, that's your delusion, not reality.

oh yeah, it wasn't evangelicals. at least based on the stats that fella quoted. let's see some stats from a credible source that say it *was*.

What numbers did the guy from Chicago Tonight give? Can you find them anywhere?

Here are some numbers I've found (I don't know how replicated it is - maybe other papers have different results). I don't think this is the end of the argument, just a demonstration:

Protestant: 53% of Electorate: 43% Kerry, 56% Bush
-- Evangelical: 22% of Electorate: 23% Kerry, 76% Bush

I think this election was about iraq, the war on terror, and kerry's lack of ability to show a solid alternative to the president's strategy on either of those issues.

I disagree.

Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted today?

Bush supporters, top 4 in descending order:
Terrorism 85%
Moral Values 78%
Taxes 52%
Iraq 24%

Kerry supporters, top 4 in descending order:
Economy/Jobs 81%
Health care 79%
Education 76%
Iraq 75%

Link to New York Times article discussing a paper by three economists about “Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Valuesâ€

I'm pretty much with ginandtacos on this one, even if he did cornhole my mom and Hitler his own forum post.

I wouldn't use the same language, but I think he's just sorta venting his spleen, Hunter Thompson-style. And besides, around four in the a.m., I was in the same foul, black mood. I must've looked like quite the angry mess; a woman I barely knew came up beside me while I was glued to the TV at the bar and started rubbing my back in a "there, there, it'll be ok" gesture. So yeah, there was a lotta "rape kill murder destroy fuck shit bash riot" kinda blather going on that night.

I agree, too, with steve about the Weimar-republic parallels. One of the little historical details that comes to mind when I think about that era is this: Their military guys had belt buckles that said "Gott mit Uns," that is, God is on OUR side. Sound familiar?

What I'm wondering is this: Why isn't there a Karl Rove of the left? Just because left-leaning folks might tend to be sensitive to the needs of others doesn't mean we have to be complete fucking wimps. Fight fire with fire. Or napalm. It seems to me that the left and the right are in an all-out war, only the left ain't fighting back. I'm not spineless and weak, and I sure as shit don't want the people who work for my interests to be, either.

SixOhSix47 wrote:Protestant: 53% of Electorate: 43% Kerry, 56% Bush
-- Evangelical: 22% of Electorate: 23% Kerry, 76% Bush

this doesn't speak to the issue. sure, bush got the majority of the evangelical vote. but isn't that what happened last time? the question is, how did he go from slightly losing the popular vote last time to substantially winning it this time. the answer is, according to that guy anyways, *not* an increase in evangelical vote, but rather an increase in "normal guy/gal" vote.