It's the Ideology, Stupid!

A photo of the Americans being polled. No insult to Penguins intended.




Americans are so fucking stupid it hurts.

No. Really. They are. And I've had it.

And yet, this is what I've feared would happen, all along.

Let me back up a little. I have been saying, for years really, and I do not consider myself to be a genius, by a longshot, that it is dangerous to simply paint the horrors, politically, economically, socially, and in foreign policy, of the Bush Administration as simply being about BUSH's politics. It is NOT "Bush". It is CONSERVATISM (call it "neo" if you want to but who cares...).

My fear was that people who have at least enough brain cells to recognize the disaster that has been 8 years of Republican rule, will simply chalk it up to BUSH being a bad guy, NOT that CONSERVATISM is a bad IDEA for governing a vast, diverse people and economy. Therefore, when given a choice and the opportunity to get rid of the disaster which they themselves recognize, they willingly go right back to it. All we need is another, actually competent, Republican, they say. One who seems more "reasonable", maybe.

And damnit if they don't want to write their own country's epitaph. I just read this article on CNN's ticker, and, long story short, Americans - 81% of whom apparently think this country's going in the wrong direction, but don't seem to have a clue as to why, or who is to blame; almost 70% of whom claim not to approve of Bush's job performance - prove this disconnect. Yep, Americans would go completely apeshit over a McCain/Condoleeza "I-believe-it-said-bin-Laden-determined-to-attack-in-the-United-States" Rice ticket. Seriously. I am not making this up. It says that this ticket would beat either of the two Democrats, AND, either pairing of the two on a single ticket, in an election. In an election in NEW YORK. I am not making this up. They think that the way to get us out of what they themselves recognize is a disaster, is to elect one of the architects of that disaster, along with her trusty sidekick, the guy who agrees with everything she did. To re-elect the very mindset that is causing the problem.

There is now, officially, a complete disconnect in the electorate's mind between ideology, party, policy, and candidates. This is the result of YEARS of the press treating elections as if they were about competing personalities, not competing ideologies. It is the equivalent of a voter being angry at, let's say, a communist president because of his policy of confiscating private property, and then in the next election, because they think he seems like a "stand up' kind of guy, voting for another member of the communist party to replace him.

Truly depressing. Thoroughly demoralizing. I. Give. Up.