a glimpse into what makes bush "popular"

[bishop]

i've noticed during bush's years as president that whenever the issues turn from foreign policy to domestic, his approval ratings always drop. the man is definitely a "war president" who hopes his military conquests will overshadow his domestic incompetence - massive deficits, weak on illegal immigration, etc.. the public seems to have pissed all over his hopes of generating enthusiasm for his social security agenda as well..

the key to bush's success as a politician and president has been the way that fear and war have worked in his favor. if the public were to focus on domestic issues, they'd give him a big ol' F.

and like this article suggests, part of the reason why the public was so against congress's intervention in the schaivo case was because it was angry that congress (principally the republicans) wasn't concerning itself with more important issues.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/funct...1-010648-8343r

"The thing he did so well since 9/11 was terrorism, which was international," said Frank Newport, Gallup editor in chief. "He never did as well on anything domestic as he did when it came to issues like protecting the U.S. from terrorism."
With Americans now focusing more on economic issues such as the soaring price of gasoline, the president's stature is beginning to suffer.
"Ratings of the economy are down," Mr. Newport said. "To the degree that Americans don't focus on terrorism or overseas, and do focus domestically, our data suggest Americans aren't all that happy domestically at the moment."
Pollster Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for the president's re-election campaign, agreed.
"If you look at people's satisfaction about where the country is, it's dropped dramatically in the last month," he said. "People are less worried about terrorism and more worried about their own situation at home -- the price of gas, nervousness about the economy."
Mr. Dowd said Americans also are expressing their dissatisfaction with Congress.
"The interesting thing is that this is not isolated to the president," he said. "The country's generally unhappy, and maybe they think the Terri Schiavo case is taking away from things that Congress or Washington ought to be working on."

[Nono]

Well yeah, if you can brandish an external threat, it scares people and rallies them around you whatever your domestic doings. So, if your popularity starts to dip, just crank up the foreign bogeyman a bit. Huff and puff.

And anyone who opposes you domestically might just be disloyal to the nation, mightn't he? :)

[bishop]

the only thing now, is that the public is increasingly more concerned about domestic issues. so, unless we're attacked again, the public will continue to demand favorable results domestically. bush isn't winning any points talking about spreading democracy and all the rest of his foreign-policy rhetoric. instead, it seems to be lauded by a growing number of people.

at the present, he's viewed unfavorably by a majority of the public. will he rebound from this? i doubt it.. trouble's brewing in the economy again. plus, i think the public is looking to end the republican's control of our government in order to moderate it. schaivo may have been the straw that broke the camel's back.

[ericsp23]

If things get too out of hand for the people in power, they will just use their control of the media to focus on international issues instead of domestic ones and Bush's ratings will increase again. Americans have very short attention spans.
I wouldn't be surprised if we start hearing about new terrorist alerts from HS in the next few weeks. BTW, has anyone else noticed how the alerts that seemed to come weekly before the election just suddenly stopped after it? Does anyone really believe that the terrorists that were supposedly conspiring to cause mahem during the election would just give up and go home when they didn't succeed?

[bishop]

yeah.. that's a good point.. i'm so focused on the economy that i didn't realize that he hasn't been playing the fear trumpet myself. hats off to those who voted for him out of fear though. what a pitiful way to live one's life.

since bush's falling approval ratings are beginning to be commented on throughout the media, and how his social security plan isn't going anywhere - the time seems ripe for a new terror alert. call it "approval rating maintenance" if you will.

he'd have to get creative with this threat warning though... i think the public is beginning to suffer from the boy who cried wolf syndrome - and/or that they're increasingly concerned about domestic issues.. the economy and healthcare aren't any less important to the public than terrorism - and those who'd argue the opposite are simply paralyzed by fear. you probably have a better chance of getting sick and dying because of a lack of healthcare than you do being killed by a terrorist..

[DoloresIbarruri]

I don't think the American population knows what's going on in the Bush Administration, nor do I think they'd have the education and intelligence to understand it or believe it were it to be explained to them. I also do not think they care about anything other than reality shows, Nascar, who's getting divorced/married/charged with pedophilia/dying, and eating the typical American daily allowance of hydrogenated fats.

Most Americans are completely clueless about what's going on in their own country, and are clueless about what's going on elsewhere.

Add to this the fact that their only source of news, the American media, is not real media but compendia of sensationalistic opinions (all kowtowing to the powers-that-be), passed off as news, and you've got a group of people who make assessments about their surroundings from the belly, rather than the head. And they pass this delightful arrogant ignorance and lack of education on to their children!

I think ideal to get the Bushes of this world into positions of power, the following and many other requisites are important: a bad education, no safety net so that people are forced to work non-stop and have no contact with others on a social basis, no workers' rights, schools whose textbooks are censored by a highly-funded right wing Christian group out of Texas, extremely long commutes so you have no chance to socialize daily, no pubs in every neighborhood where people could congregate daily, 100% stupid TV, and brainwashing by churches.

I just gotta agree with this:

"We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing." Michael Moore.

[bishop]

ignorance comes in all shapes and sizes - and ideologies.. i personally believe that the avid socialist is just as stupid as the avid neo-conservative, christian fundamentalist, etc...

have you ever heard of the "silent majority"? that group of middle class people, who tend to be college educated, and are the fabric of our society.. the charade that goes on every day in the media and in politics rarely ever reflects their lives or desires.. since life isn't so painfully rough for these self-accomplished individuals, they seem to prefer to work within the system to carve our a decent life for themselves than to turn radical. in general, that seems to work for them as they continue to be silent.

the point of that speech is simply to say that it's an easy stereotype to blanketly bash the american public. it's also an ignorant and arrogant action - especially since it insinuates that you are superior to them.. better to cast insults in a more intellectual way imo.



back to the topic.. even these people who supported bush this past election seem to be diminishing - as evidenced by the trend in his poll numbers. we have some big domestic battles that will be fought in the coming months, now that congress is back from easter, and will be working straight until summer recess. in fact, it seems that all of the issues that we'll be talking about this year will be domestic issues. i wonder if the GOP has the balls to try and legislate their religious views while they still control congress and the presidency.. if they're going to do it, there's no time like the present. i don't think the public has any appetite for that, though - and they'll be increasingly wary of any politician who attempts to legislate religion.

[Samildanach]

Sounds like time for bush to take another 6 month holiday.

[bishop]

heh, that's another trend - his poll numbers tend to go down when he takes his vacations.. they go down when he works on domestic issues.. the only time they go up is when he starts talking about war and terrorism.

[Nono]

Dolores puts it in rather stark terms (in fact she sounds like Syracusa) but I have to agree with her that, as far as I can tell, most Americans (by which I mean most you meet in the street in the US) don't have much of an idea about what's really going on, at home and especially abroad. And I think this is largely because the media have an obvious interest in keeping them that way. When I was a kid, US TV was a lot more informative than it is now, but even then news tended to be that five-alarm fire at the corner of Tonawanda and Genessee or the axe murder uptown.

This isn't a superior put-down of Americans -- it's just my observation. Of course there are millions of honourable exceptions, and they deserve our respect precisely because they have to go that extra mile to stay informed.

As for the silent majority (which, when Spiro Agnew coined the phrase, was supposedly to the right of the noisy minority), they exist, but why are they sitting there so silently while their government bankrupts itself? Why so silent? Could it be anything other than large-scale media-induced stultification? Getting on with one's life is one thing -- watching wordlessly while the baby is poured out with the bathwater is quite another.

[Gorgo]

People (that includes avid socialists) are not particularly stupid, they're just taught a lot of bullshit. They're taught that Hayzeus saves, they're taught that WE need to win the next football game and WE need to win the next war, and that the US of A has been busy fighting on the side of all that is good against all that is evil since it's inception. It's all bullshit.

[DoloresIbarruri]

the point of that speech is simply to say that it's an easy stereotype to blanketly bash the american public. it's also an ignorant and arrogant action - especially since it insinuates that you are superior to them.. better to cast insults in a more intellectual way imo.

If the American public is easy to "bash" (your word), surely there's a reason. You prefer to ignore that reason. I don't. It is the very reason we have a Bush in power for the second term, and all the harm that it has wrought on this country. As for the ones that are not "ignorant", but merely choose to ignore the ignorance, they are equally ignorant. Ignoring is what took place among intellectuals in pre-Nazi Germany. What's more, if a country cannot handle to look itself in the mirror, I predict it's going to be riddled with many more Bushes.

And are we digressing? Or are we still discussing what makes Bush popular, for example, ignorance?