Day Two: It Still Isn’t The End of The World, But It Is The End Of Something… Part 1

By jen

I have been reading a lot of things in the last day and this morning.  Is this a rejection of conservative values or the man who represented them?  Intellectually you have to wonder if this is a total rejection of small government and an individuals right to success.  I think it might be, I am not going to say there isn’t some of that in play. I just find it hard to give that kind of credit to a populous who hasn’t earned the right to be considered that damn cerebral about it.  More likely it is a love affair with an idea and a celebrity, Obamamania.  Kind of like Beatlemania, or BeanieBabymania, or Nymphomania.

To assume everyone who voted for Barak Obama, and there was 60 million folks who did give or take, was voting against the conservative viewpoint is a leap of faith I am not willing to take.  Not when you consider how fucking stupid the average American voter is with regard to the world they live in, the world abroad, and the way their own political system works.  The average American voter is just not that damn smart. Pew Research Finding follow 1989 & 2007 statistics:

In 1989, for example, 74% could come up with Dan Quayle’s name when asked who the vice president is. Today (2007), somewhat fewer (69%) are able to recall Dick Cheney.

I find that particularly telling considering the level of Cheney Derangement both in the far left population and in the media.  The man is like Emporer Palpatine to the Democrats and yet just more than half the people surveyed knew who he was.

There are substantial differences in the knowledge levels of the audiences for different news outlets. However, there is no clear connection between news formats and what audiences know. Well-informed audiences come from cable (Daily Show/Colbert Report, O’Reilly Factor), the internet (especially major newspaper websites), broadcast TV (NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) and radio (NPR, Rush Limbaugh’s program). The less informed audiences also frequent a mix of formats: broadcast television (network morning news shows, local news), cable (Fox News Channel), and the internet (online blogs where people discuss news events).

Aside from news media use, demographic characteristics, especially education, continue to be strongly associated with how much Americans know about the larger world. However, despite the fact that education levels have risen dramatically over the past 20 years, public knowledge has not increased accordingly.

Why hasn’t it increased?  Because people in general do not give a fuck.  They do not care who is in charge beyond a President and even that is marginal.  When people elect a president there are usually two states of mind involved.  If you feel the world is a dangerous place as it has been and for all us without our head our  asses know it still is, you make a decision for the person who makes you feel safer (republican).  You want the proverbial big swinging dick who isn’t afraid to blow shit up to keep you and yours safe.

Seven years removed from 9/11 we live in a nation with short term memory loss who has learned nothing from the events. We, as a nation, might have forgotten 9/11 but the lunatics who made it come to pass haven’t.  They are back to waiting for us to get sloppy and waiting for the court of public opinion to turn soft AGAIN.  So here we are in 2008.  The majority of Americans feel untouchable again.  The war is just a thing you use to hear about on the news when we were not winning, now it is simply fucking nonexistent.  Nada!  I think it is safe to say Americans as a whole feel safe from the big bad AQ and the Terrorist monkeys of the world, yeah people are that stupid, but they are no longer voting with their sense of self preservation.  They are voting with their touchy feely nobody loves me like He does mentality.  Hence we had a man with NO experience, a past clouded with subversive ideology, radical figures, and religious bigotry win the candidacy of his party by virtue of nothing more than pretty words and the added bonus of being black.  For some he could wipe away the last of their misplaced white guilt (yeah the baby boomers fucked us again), for others he was a rock star, for some he was just charming and made them feel important.  All great qualities if you are hiring a personal fucking assistant not the leader of a the free fucking world.   But moving on…

Basically Obama is the feel good candidate voted into office not because of what he stands for but for how he makes folks feel, at least 60 million of them, many spread across important battleground states.  Blacks voted for him in larger numbers though not in a substantially larger base of voters than in previous elections) 95% and I understand why. So much is tied up in the civil rights “moment” and I cannot begrudge that.  Still Barak Obama was elected by White America with some help from Brown America (more on Brown later) not with any significant help from black voters as a simple math equation.  So why the big number even if you factor in elitist white liberal guilt?  Celebrity, pure and simple.  Charisma always wins the day, Hello Bill Clinton. In fact we had very much the same formula as the second Clinton race.  Charming though tarnished celebrity vs old white guy (though a good man).  Not that simple?  Yeah it really is.  My point is made here I think:

More people know who Beyonce Knowles and Peyton Manning are than who Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are.  The two people who control what is happening in the world around them.  My point, though I tend to get sidetracked by numbers, is that people are voting for the man and how they perceive him personally not politically.

We just had a Democrat run on tax cuts and he was believed!  That fact alone is so hilariously ridiculous  I have to stop and breath between bouts of gut wrenching laughter.  If I were your landlord and I told you that your rent was going to 800 dollars a month if you made less than 250k a year and then the next week I was it was going to $800 dollars if you make less than 200k a year and then the next month my business partner told you it was going to be $800 dollars a month if you make less than 150k a year then the next week my office manager told you it was going to be $800 dollars a month if you make 120k a year and then you were looking online and found out I said a few years ago that it was gong to be $800 dollars a year if you make 70k or less a year what would you think?  You would think you were going to get fucking hosed on your rent for the duration of your 4 year lease.  A lease you cannot break.

Still he was believed and voted into office.  He has also said he will meet with our enemies, fund more money to the UN, and make sure every American baby has a fucking carebear.  Still, he was voted into office.  Why?  Because he is a fucking celebrity.  Because Americans are obsessed with name recognition, flash over substance, chasing the shiny object off the cliff, whatever you want to call it.  They are also sick of Bush or at least the Bush the media has vilified and the left has successfully blamed for everything ranging from the housing/mortgage/bank crisis to the unjust war for oil, to the decreasing number of bigfoot sightings.  Bush Derangement Syndrome at its finest.

Really a brilliant move by a party of petulant 12 year olds that do not want to keep their room clean so they blame their parents for being ogres when they point out their room is a disaster or God forbid try to make them clean up the mess.  Daddy is a big meanie head and it is his fault I do not know who to clean up after myself.  Stomp stomp stomp.  Fascist!  Warmonger!  Liar!  Yeah, that is the constituency that elected Barak Obama.

I guess what I am trying to get at rather long windedly is it isn’t about the ideology or the tax plan or the population of yellow belly sap suckers in Eastern Alaska.  It is about the man and his ability to make them feel all special.  The man in this instance made it clear that they wouldn’t have to clean their own rooms in order to go out and play with their friends on the weekend.  He would just make someone who already knows how to keep their room clean come and do it for them.  He promised them they would not have to feel inadequate anymore for being cowards and not wanting to actually prove their own worth.  He is willing to believe their worth on blind faith if they simply vote for him.  What the fuck do you expect them to do?  They have nothing to worry about, right?  There is not terrorist threat, hell 9/11 was a scheme by the Bush White House and the cast of The Unit to bring about a war with only oil in mind.  Suicide bombers are not going to happen in our country.  Oh no, that could never happen, our borders are so freakin secure!  How can they possibly get through customs when two of my buddies got stopped trying to bring in Cuban cigars?  We all know terrorists go through customs, right?  Basically we are safe now and it is high time we get back to what really matters… free shit.