October 02, 2006


IMPEACH BUSH




IMPEACH CHENEY


THE GREAT UNRAVELING

When you follow politics for a while you learn that logic is not the driving force in how people vote. Emotion and mythology play a big part. Conservatives have been able to exploit those factors very well since the days of Ronald Reagan. Most working people are frustrated. Most of us work at jobs we tolerate at best, and probably hate. We get paid far less than the people we work for, although we do most of the work. And the thought that someone is getting a free ride somewhere at our expense is enraging. Reagan was able to use mythical "welfare queens" to attract working class voters. Most people in this country believe in God or in religion. They feel very threatened when their religious beliefs come into question, and Republicans have been able to exploit that fear. But now we are seeing the right-wing power structure in this country beginning to fracture. They have always been bad for the country, and now things are bad on so many fronts people are putting aside their fears and myths. This article by Paul Krugman is at welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com:

At its core, the political axis that currently controls Congress and the White House is an alliance between the preachers and the plutocrats — between the religious right, which hates gays, abortion and the theory of evolution, and the economic right, which hates Social Security, Medicare and taxes on rich people. Surrounding this core is a large periphery of politicians and lobbyists who joined the movement not out of conviction, but to share in the spoils.

Together, these groups formed a seemingly invincible political coalition, in which the religious right supplied the passion and the economic right supplied the money.

The coalition has, however, always been more vulnerable than it seemed, because it was an alliance based not on shared goals, but on each group’s belief that it could use the other to get what it wants. Bring that belief into question, and the whole thing falls apart.