The problem with electing Democrats, as I see it...

[Brucey]

About 55% of the sheeple approve of chimpy. But chimpy has only been successful at two things that I can think of: 1) looting the national treasury to give to his wealthy friends; and 2) bombing brown people. This seems to mean that roughly 55% of American sheeple believe in some form of trickle down or grants to the rich and/or getting revenge for 9/11 by killing Arabs. If this logic is correct (which it probably isn't, but stick with me here), then the Democratic candidate must either convince sheeple that these are not good things (a really tough thing to do, I believe), or convince them that a Democratic administration would do those two things bigger and better (another tough row to hoe, I think).

What do you make of this?

[jiacinto]

1. I hate the term sheeple

I really do. It's arrogant, elitist, and self-righteous.

[demgrrrll]

2. I do not think that many people really like Bush. I think that he retains

his core supporters but I do not think he is winning converts and I think even those who may answer in the affirmative in a poll may be on the fence. People are afraid to speak up about politics. Remember when Clinton was President? Hell everybody had an opinion and no one seemed afraid to express whatever was on their mind about him. I notice a real silence that takes over when a group of people who do not know or trust each other well are confronted by a political topic.
People wait for someone to make the first move and then they join in, no one seems to want to be the first one out of the gate. What I am noticing is silent support of the strikers here, it may be different in other neighborhoods but the parking lots look like ghosttowns and the independent stores that are close to me are stripped of merchandise. I do not recall anything like this in prior years when there were strikes. I do not know what to make of it but something tells me that it is a way people can protest without saying a word.
I may be wrong but I think Bush is very beatable and Democrats are very electable. Just my opinion.

[Brucey]

3. Yes, you are probably right. Sorry.

[salmonhorse]

5. That's nonsense ~

Bush feels the same way about the term 'liberal' now nobody is allowed to express or think or say what they may consider they need to for fear of being branded "arrogant, elitist, and self-righteous" by the so-called 'liberal' wing, PC/Brain Police themselves. I'm sorry; but that's just Hogwash!

My sense is that you've just proven Bush's point assuming of course that he has one. My sense is that you want to see "arrogant, elitist, and self-righteous" now that you down in Miami...watch what Bush is about to do to Cuba. He is already gathering his flock; call them whatever you will they will follow.

"sheeple" indeed ~

[Gore1FL]

15. Problem is

"Sheeple" is pretty accurate.

Judas goats include:

Rush
Hannity
Ingram
Scarborough
et al

[LastKnight]

4. but from some aspects its correct

individuals(in general) are smart, however the 'herd' of people have a tendency to believe any plate of BS the government or other authority figures will tell them, especially when repeated by mainstream media for months on end. i dont like the term sheeple either but it is accurate u gotta admit

-LK

[mikehiggins]

6. Americans are not sheep

Mocking people who don't share your views is fun when you're sitting around the bar with your buddies, but when it shows up on a newsgroup it just means someone is unconcerned with how they appear to the rest of the world.

It reminds me of the cartoon in which one dog says to another, "on the internet, no one knows you're a dog."

What President-with-an-asterick Bush succeeded at was managing to convince a shocked and terrified public that he had somehow gone from being a semi-literate buffoon to a world leader.

That's it. That's all he did. We did the rest. Thanks to our inabiity to figure out how to deal with the GOP attack squads we had already managed to lose both the House and the Senate (the Supreme Court was the GOP's long ago) to a reactionary bunch of liars. Instead of girding up our loins and taking the battle to them we allowed our "leaders" to sit back and play along in a comfortable game of incumbency. And then we managed to so thoroughly ignore what the people were thinking that we lost an election that should have been a cakewalk. Blame Al Gore? Go right ahead. But somebody who should have known better nominated him, right?

Why? Because WE are the stupid ones who never learned from what was going on around us because it didn't fit in with the old ways that our party had thought would always be reliable. Well, guess what? They weren't.

So, if there are any "sheeple" in this equation, its those of us who watched Newt Gingrich take the Congress away from us and couldn't even understand why, let along how to counterattack.

Don't ever put down the American voter as a sheeple. They know what they want, even if they end up with something much worse. Bush put together a confusing mishmash of platitudes and confusion, but our side didn't do any better.

Generally speaking you can't beat somebody with nobody, but in 2000 laziness and complacency managed to pull it off. Maybe after eight years controlling the White House our guys figured it was a lock.

So who were the sheep then?

[salmonhorse]

8. 2003 ~ Too many Americans are apathetic, self-centered/self righteous...

...to a fault. There're many who follow blindly of that there can be little doubt amongst they with eyes. Sanction 'lemming' if you prefer but it is still there. And the Rove/RNC/Nixon-Bush-Cheney Admin are able to recognize this even if others are not and that is what they are playing to...the apathetic, self-centered/self righteous American voter of 2004.

Don't kid yourself unless you want to find yourself in the pack going over the cliff next time along with the same ole Bum's Rush ~

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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[uberotto]

7. I think that you are wrong...

As I see it, and using broad generalizations to simplify the math, the country breaks down something like this:

25% of Americans are loyal Republicans, who will almost always support their party, right or wrong.

25% of Americans are loyal Democrats, who will amost always support their party, right or wrong.

50% of Americans, whether they label themselves Democrat, Republican or Independant are people who generally have little to no interest in politics, do not spend much time watching news and aren't all that interested in what is going on outside of their own lives. It would be difficult for any sitting president who isn't facing some huge national scandal ( something that resonates with the "average" american ) to get an approval rating below 40%. Bush lately has been scoring in the 45% to 55% range which is actually low for a sitting president.

So instead of writing these people off as mindless sheeple, maybe it would be more beneficial to all involved if you made more of an effort to understand these people. Figure out what are the subjects that they are interested in and how you can relate to them your ideas in these particular subjects. My guess is the subjects which typically resonate with this group are such things as Education, National Defense, law enforcement and taxes. That is why you see so many soundbytes targeting these areas. Remember, these people don't spend much time, if any time at all, watching the news so they won't know if a candidate actually followed through with their promise to make "Category X" better or not. I'm also guessing that subjects such as "looting the national treasury to give to his wealthy friends; and 2) bombing brown people" are examples of subjects that these people don't usually relate to because it doesn't directly affect them.

I've seen the term lemming used and think that it better represents the above mentioned group. The trick is figuring out how to get them to follow you instead of the other group.

[RichM]

9. "Sheeple" is a perfectly acceptable term; it describes the reality well.

I think your logic is actually quite sound. Unless there are far more deaths in Iraq, or intense economic pain, I think the record is clear: the American people can be effectively controlled by television.

And what's worse: even if things go badly & the sheeple get angry, they do not understand how our society works well enough, to know who to be angry at. They are just as likely to think it's all the fault of liberals, who "tax and spend" & are traitors to this great country, as they are to blame Bush.

[maggrwaggr]

11. "the American people can be effectively controlled by television"

Indeed.

Says it all.

It's the new opitate of the masses. To hell with church. The church was NUTHIN compared to this

[maggrwaggr]

10. personally I think the term "approval rating" is misleading

because when they do those polls with a question such as "would you vote for him in 2004" the numbers are quite a bit lower.

A lot of people say they "approve" because they just don't know what they'd do different, but it doesn't mean they don't want somebody in there who's got some better ideas.

[burr]

12. not difficult to deal with.

If Repukes can convince people that stagflation and the Iran Hostage Crisis were Carter's fault, then it should be easy to convince them that 9/11 and the quagmire in Iraq are shrub's fault. On dropping bombs in Iraq, just remind people that for every bomb dropped in Iraq their taxes will go up by $25,600. And for every tomahawk cruise missile launched..taxes go up by $1,000,000.

Some people will never care about the value of a human life, but they will care about the price for each attack.

<http://loper.org/~george/trends/2001/Nov/61.html>

[sandnsea]

14. That's about it

People really think the less taxes and regulation, the more money that will go into creating businesses and jobs. And it will, but not in the U.S. Just like drilling oil in Alaska doesn't mean the oil comes into the U.S., giving the wealthy tax cuts doesn't mean they'll spend those tax cuts creating business in the U.S. And people do think we have to fight the terrorists to protect ourselves from more attacks. We need somebody to explain that you don't fight 1% of a population by killing the other 99%. And you don't fight anything by creating nuclear/bio/chem weapons that we'll never use. That's the only smart thing Andy Rooney said in his apology plus commentary.

What they think is wrong and we're going to have to have a strong Democratic message centered around those two things.