I’m depressed about the election. It’s hard for me to watch election news lately, because it gets me alternately angry and down. Polls that show McCain in the lead? It absolutely flummoxes me.
How can this man be in the lead? How can it be that Sarah Palin, a woman who has done absolutely nothing to show that she can be president of the United States, is winning people over? What the fuck is wrong with people? I just don’t understand why Christian fundamentalists want her to be in the White House just because she’s a Christian fundamentalist too. What does fundamentalist Christianity have to do with secular government? What does it have to do with being the leader of one of the most powerful countries on the planet?
Why don’t people know how to THINK?
It’s not just Americans. There are plenty of complete idiots around the world. Middle Eastern terrorists are idiots. Conspiracy theorists are idiots. European anti-Semites are idiots. There are idiots on all seven continents. Yes, Antarctica included.
And it’s not just today. Human beings throughout history have been idiots. Look at the Crusades, look at ancient wars.
I tend to think of myself as an intelligent person. But when half the country can support a man who has shown no inclination to change any of the current administration’s policies, policies that have driven us over a cliff, it makes me wonder if the problem is actually me. Am I the idiot? Am I the delusional one? Should I stop insisting that there are four lights?
No, seriously. I don’t understand. Are people really this stupid?
Okay, clearly the answer is yes. Four years ago our country took a look at George W. Bush, one of the worst presidents in American history — and re-elected him.
But what I’m more interested in is why. Why are people so stupid? Why can people make these decisions without actually thinking? Why don’t people know? How? To? THINK????
I know there are so many different types of people in this country. I have no idea what it’s like to be a religious fundamentalist, or to be so busy with a job and kids that I get all my news from talk radio, or to have spent all my life in the suburbs and never lived without a car. Our political views are formed by our life experiences.
And I know we all have different brains, and different chemical makeups — different personality types, different talents, different interests. And these affect our political views as well.
In a country of 300 million people, it should be no surprise that people hold different opinions.
But come on! What the fuck is WRONG with these people?
It really makes me want to cry.
And I have zero faith that my opinions on ANYTHING are correct anymore.
My two thoughts on this:
1) Polling is a bit unpredictable in the wake of two conventions, two running mate nominations, and a hurricane. (And the likely voter screen on that one poll is so fucked up I’m inclined to discount the poll altogether.)
2) The people who vote for the same policies are the people who will suffer most from them. In New York we might as well be in a separate country with its own economy and its own social policies–frankly, fuck the rest of those idiots. We’re going to take back the state senate this year just because the national GOP has been advertising on behalf of local Democrats.
I am cynical about the American public too. I blame the mentality of reality TV. Everything is reduced to a superficial visual. Voting is a gut-check reaction. The winner is a staged surprise, audience grabber. American “Idle†Politics.
Interesting. I’ve been composing a post all morning on the same issue.
The problem is that, as liberals, we expect too much of the people and hold our fellow countrymen to a standard that they’re simply not capable of meeting.
I disagree, Antartica only has smart people.
I suspect that the more people get to know Palin, the less they will like her. But I have been wrong before :(
“Four Legs [Republicans] good!
Two Legs [Liberals] bad!”
Repeat sufficiently until the unthinking sheeple automatically vote correctly when the time comes.