I finally figures out who the die hard 36 % are and why

[Sydnie]

We are always saying, who are these people that still support this President and this war and why do they still support all of it.

At another forum where I visit, one really neanderthal poster usually responds to posts with the most asinine responses that you actually feel bad when you body slam him with facts and why he is not right about what ever the issue is.

But, tonight in a response to someone else, he revealed what we all have been wanting to know ... why do you "stand by your man".

He said, and I quote --

"Well I for one am still with him on the war. Mostly because I was for the war when it started. I'm not like Clinton, Kerry, or other democratic leaders or any other hypocrites who were once FOR the war and then changed their minds after insurgents started blowing people up and pointed their finger at Bush."

Obviously, they are afraid that if they change their minds about anything that they said they were for before, that they will be no better (in their own minds) as those on the other side that they made such fun of during the campaign.

There you have it folks. That's the answer. We can put that question to bed now.

Now, the next question is ... how do we get them to the place where they can forgive themselves for being wrong and retain some dignity for themselves? If we can find the answer to that, we can assure that we will win the next election and the one after that too.

[ChristianLibrul]

1. Hatred for libruls trumps facts

They're not teachable, just persuadable.

[file83]

2. You'de have to some how trick them into changing their minds without

them knowing it. Hmmm....

[sandnsea]

3. "troops are held hostage" to Iraq politics

They're dying while Iraq is frittering away the opportunity for democracy those same troops gave them. They need to get on with it, our troops have done all they can.

That's the only way I see for these guys to save face and stop supporting this disastrous war policy.

[Kare]

4. You notice how much stock that put into flip-flopping

They can't understand apparently that things can change
just because you were for something at one time
doesn't mean you can't be against it at another time
It all depends on what has happened in the interim

put it into ideas that they can get there minds around....

for instance I like swimming in july but...
I certainly don't like doing it in December

Now I changed my mind on the whole subject..
I flip flopped.. but the fact is in july its 80+ degrees
and in december its 30+- degrees outside and the
pool is frozen
so it makes sense to change my mind

Stoop to their level :) tell them its a kiddy pool

[Erika]

5. I have a co-worker who had our flag and a big W on his briefcase

The W has disappeared. I say nothing to him even though he knew that I resented W as CIC who sent our troops to die for corporate profits.

He may have gotten the message, but I don't know when he'll get the message that W is the worst thing to happen to America.

[tulsakatz]

6. Stephen Colbert made a comment..........

........that relates to this. He was doing one of his interviews with someone and he said that he takes a comfort in the fact that Bush always says the same things even when facts have changed, he never changes his mind.

He was being funny but there is also some truth to it. A person who still maintains the same position even after facts have changed the reality is either a moron or someone who is so stubborn that he is incapable of possessing an intelligent thought.

Republicans have believed Saddam was a bad guy for so many years, it will be difficult to change their minds on that subject. Probably the best way to present an argument like that is to say that Bush & Co don't have a plan and, in fact, have never had a plan beyond the shock and awe stage. Conditions keep getting worse and yet none of them have presented a workable plan.

At least the Democrats have been coming up with a few solutions such as Murtha and Kerry.

[Sydnie]

9. Yeah, I heard that interview - with Kos, wasn't it?

In this guys case, I would vote for total moron actually. He's not just stubborn, he's dumb as dirt. Having said that, there are others out there that are just being stubborn, IMHO, not because they don't see what's happening in the deep recesses of their hearts and minds, but they just refuse to admit out loud that they might have been duped for fear of "what the neighbors will think". Those are the ones that I think we can reach if we just find a way to tap that place within themselves that allows them to forgive themselves for being a rube, even if they never say it that way out loud to anyone else. It's changing the mindset that is important. We need to give them the message that we will "forgive" them just as they should forgive themselves. Not that we ever will, but we need to have them think we will so they can forgive themselves.

We don't need for them to scream it from the rafters or anything, just to let that little voice inside their head tell them that they are forgiven.

[tulsakatz]

17. It could have been Kos...........

...I honestly don't remember who he was talking to but now that you mention it, I think it may have been Kos.

To me, the measure of a mature individual is the ability to admit they have been wrong. Facts change and when facts change, our own perceptions have to change too. If we insist on having the same position even after the reality has changed, well........that, to me, is just plain stupid!!

If they are too embarassed to admit they were duped.......lots of other people were duped too! So they're not the only ones. Maybe they can take comfort in that fact.

And if they are too embarassed to admit they were wrong, when at the time, it looked like a logical conclusion, it would be much worse to continue being wrong now when the facts really don't justify their position.

[serryjw]

12. ........Or a Dittohead,

I have heard so much distortion of facts in 5 years. It's just easier to 'stay the course' than try and learn what is fact and what is spin.

[Sydnie]

14. Oh he and a good number of the other posters there

are both dittoheads and ministers. Some nasty racisits among that group too, which surprised me too.

[serryjw]

16. As I said to someone this week

Bushit could be standing with his pants down behind a donkey and they would believe whatever Bushit explanation he gave for it. 30% of this country will believe whatever he says and I wouldn't waste my time with them. Worry about the people that Clinton got in the '92 election that he lost in '96. That is the swing voter.......the rest are too far gone,( 5 years of drinking kool-aid)

[Sydnie]

19. So, 6 % of the remaining 36 % are redeemable still?

I would sure like to find a way to do that.

[serryjw]

20. I think that number changes slightly

from election to election. I think MANY are so pissed at BOTH sides and the whole process that they see as corrupt. Look at the Senate..On Thursday they agree on a bill , 12 hours later it fell apart. This is not what Americans want. We send them there to do the 'people work' and they don't

[saltpoint]

7. I accept that people don't like to be in the wrong, especially in

politics, but politics is the very arena where people are OFTEN wrong. LBJ's decision to keep escalating the war in SE Asia came from advice from a gaggle of military experts. LBJ could be strong-willed, but he was not a fool, and he sought counsel from experts when he needed to.

Dubya's decision to invade Iraq appears to have come from a dark cabal -- the sinister pack of rodents comprised of Kristol, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rumsfeld, and of course Uncle Dick Cheney. LBJ was wrong, but he wasn't intellectually stupid. When he realized that Vietnam was a horrendous and irretrievable disaster, he stepped down (March of 1968) and hoped his party would not suffer for his personal misdirections on the war.

It did. Humphrey ran a very respectable race against Nixon, but the tide had turned; the Southern strategy was upon us; George Wallace was still a viable force; and with McCarthy out of it and RFK dead, the conservative beast was loosed upon the land.

But even Nixon, desperate, psychotically paranoid, and power-mad though he was, even HE couldn't coordinate deception and misinformation and outright lies on the scale that this president has. Dubya & his team are liars on a mythic scale. These aren't the used-car-salesman lies of the common politician. These are lies to rival the gods and goddesses at their Olympian best.

U.S. voters wanted to believe Johnson but their sons kept coming home in coffins. Eventually the president lost credibility and very soon after that, support for the war effort plummeted. My uncles used to blame Jane Fonda and "the hippies" for bringing down the war effort, but the actual source was the government and its torrent of lies, from the rationale for the Gulf of Tonkin all the way to troop casualty numbers. And the Army then was not a volunteer force.

The people who still support Bush may want a way out but don't have one. I don't think we owe them a way out, since their vote so greatly aided Bush's immoral war. It's for that 36% to get down to 32%, then 27% and so on, until people stop believing that war solves problems, or that the U.S. has a viable foriegn policy in the Middle East. I don't honor their vote much (their RIGHT to vote, yes, but not their judgment) and I think they're the ones who have to make the adjustments and re-evaluations of conditions. They have to have the brains and balls to change their minds.

Bush by now knows he has failed to meet even modest goals in Iraq. Afghanistan is by no means completely secured. Pakistan can't decide if it wants to be our ally or if it wants to assassinate Shariff and become an even more radical Islamic state against the West. Bush may not even know where Pakistan IS, let alone how precarious and tense things are there right now. And then there is Iran.

It's handy to blame Rumsfeld and Rice and the entire lot of these thugs, but that 36% is still too high, and I don't think anything less than another helicopters-on-the-Saigon-embassy-roof scene is going to put a dent in their thick skulls.

[Erika]

10. Yes, those who supported W want a way out to save face

as to what they have done to our country. They remind me of all the people who said they never voted for Nixon the second time.

We told America what would happen to America if W was in again. The stupid cowards chose W because they thought he could protect them from some bogeyman.

Surprise, W is the bogeyman. W's supporters allowed this.

[saltpoint]

13. Yep. 'Saw a fragment from another blog earlier that read:

"Dubya says he wants to get to the bottom of this leak business, but maybe he IS the bottom..."

But at least a lot of neutral-to-conservative pollsters are saying the GOP will pay a price for Dubya's troubles.

[Sydnie]

11. Of course you are probably right but

in an attempt to speed things up and get on with the next election.

[saltpoint]

15. I hear you. It's just that I feel they have a responsibility here before

the Kerry-Edwards voters do, or the Gore-Lieberman voters for that matter.

The Far-Right fundies in particular. On one hand they purport to emulate the ministry of Jesus and on the other they are voting, in a long line, in the RAIN, for a ticket that runs torture chambers.

These folks have a lot of soulwork to do before they're rehabilitation-worthy.

(Your post was excellent, Sydnie. I'm just pouting, I guess, over the stolen elections. I appreciate the point you are making & salute the way you're opening it up for comments and reactions.)

[Sydnie]

18. I would just love for us to be seen as

the party of forgiveness ... if you see the error of your ways. ;) I want to figure out how we can be seen as uniters and not dividers and allowing them the space to forgive themselves seems like a good place to start.

I appreciate your additions to the conversations as well.

:hug: ... let's keeping working so the numbers are so high that flipping them again would be so obvious to everyone, ok?

[SoCalDem]

8. They are the same ones who ragged on Clinton for all those years

..The "dirty thirty" percent.

They have no shame..and no brains:)

[Raksha]

21. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."

I forget who said that, but it definitely seems applicable here. And of course, "small minds" are exactly the ones under discussion!

[Speck Tater]

22. Isn't that just another way of saying...

I haven't learned a thing in the last few years, and I'm just as stupid now as I was then, and as I will always be.

It's like so sad pathetic people who still believe that disco will make a comeback, or those 40-something ex-jocks who think of their 3 years in high school as the best part of their lives.

Maybe it's our ability to make progress that earns us the label "progressives".

Perhaps the right comback is "So you mean that today you are as smart as you're EVER going to be?"

(ed:sp)

[Sydnie]

24. for this poster, that is the dead on balls correct response!

"So you mean that today you are as smart as you're EVER going to be?" :rofl:

Thanks for that giggle. I needed that!

I will probably use that one on him too. :rofl:

[BattyDem]

26. That's a great line!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[BattyDem]

23. Say this to them:

Let's say you went to a doctor with chest pains and he examined you and said, "Don't worry, it's just indigestion. Take some Rolaids and you'll be fine."

Two days later, you still have chest pains, but now you have shortness of breath as well. You go back to the doctor, he runs some tests and looks a bit concerned, but he won't tell you what the results are. He simply says, "It's just indigestion. Go home and take some Rolaids. You'll be fine."

Three days after that, you still have chest pains and shortness of breath ... and now your left arm is tingling. So you go back to the doctor. He runs a few more tests and looks very worried while viewing the results, but still insists, "It's just indigestion. Go home and take some Rolaids and you'll be fine."



Now ask yourself ... would you continue to see that doctor? Would you think he was a strong, trustworthy man because he refused to be hypocrite and change his mind about his original diagnosis even after learning more facts about your health? Would you respect him because he chose to "stay the course" with your treatment instead of altering your treatment as more information was available?

I didn't think so. So now I must ask you ... if you wouldn't want those qualities in a doctor, why would you want them in a leader? After all, both men hold your life in their hands.

By the way, don't you dare tell me that you would have given up on the doctor and gone to the hospital instead because that would mean you changed your mind about your course of action (treatment options) when you acquired more information (discovered the doctor was an asshole) ... and that would make you a hypocrite!

:evilgrin:



edited: typo :blush:

[TheBaldyMan]

25. Is that all they are worried about? Welcome them as voices added to those

already speaking out against this administration. It is one thing to be on the wrong road, it is another thing to keep on the same route when you know you are going the wrong way.

I don't mind when people turned against the administration. If it someone who never fell for Bush's act or someone who slowly came round and changed their mind in the last week. The most important part is they are doing the right thing now.

Nobody likes being lied to, nobody likes having their freedom curtailed, nobody supports having torture carried on in their name, nobody wants their democracy to be eroded.

George W. Bush has finally become the uniter that he said he would try to be, it's just that he is uniting the country against him.

[EFerrari]

27. The 36ers will never rethink their position because it has nothing

to do with thought for them.

They are a cult.

[originalpckelly]

28. They believe God chose the President...

They are actually the biggest threat to this republic because they will never really question the President. I doubt if they number that high though. I would say about 18% of the President's supporters are like that. Those are the same people who think Cheney is God-Blessed. I feel bad for them, because aside from being completely judgmental, they deserve better than him. They repent for their sins. I doubt the President does.

[Sydnie]

29. mid-morning kick - for more eyes and more thoughts n/t

[Toots]

30. All I know is I was against Bush* before it became popular

I have not changed in that regard. A lot of the country has.

[July]

31. I think the diehards are really only around the 18% that still like Cheney

You have to be taking the Kool-Aid by IV to still like that creep. I think his favorables are the rock bottom of winger support.

[Batgirl]

32. But for a lot of them this is like a religious "test"

I've heard enough rightwing callers to AAR insist that no matter what Bush does they're standing behind him because he's "a man of God" .

It really was a master stroke when the rightwing originally decided to use the religious angle as the basis for their epic scale flim flam. They took this privileged, middle-aged boy, a failure and nonentity with only his family connections going for him, and molded him into a savior figure. Packaged and promoted to appeal to a particular religious type, those with an extraordinarily fearful, hostile and paranoid worldview, who want to be encircled safely in the arms of a stern father figure. A Father-President who is all-knowing, all-powerful, and infallible. A Bushgod.

For these followers, believing in Bush is so important for the well-being of their psyches, they have to dismiss any contrary realities. This is a test of religious faith for them. And on some level I can understand. I also have the human weakness of needing a few illustions to cling to in order to face the world. Lucklly most of mine run along the lines of "I still look okay in these jeans" and don't involve throwing in my lot with authoritarian madmen.