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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2012 / Americans, Not Completely Fucking Stupid

Americans, Not Completely Fucking Stupid

by John Cole|  August 9, 20117:39 pm| 79 Comments

This post is in: Election 2012

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Some moderately ok news:

A lot of that anger seems directed toward the GOP. According to the survey, favorable views of the Republican party dropped eight points over the past month, to 33 percent. Fifty-nine percent say they have an unfavorable view of the Republican party, an all-time high dating back to 1992 when the question was first asked.

I don’t know if 33% is in the MOE for the crazification factor.

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79Comments

  1. 1.

    Cain

    August 9, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    you seem to be burning up the twitter feed

  2. 2.

    beltane

    August 9, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    33% = 27% crazy people + 5% nihilistic rich people + David Brooks’ ego.

  3. 3.

    RossInDetroit

    August 9, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    Don’t worry on behalf of the Republicans, there’s a year and a half for the MSM to patch up the GOP’s image for them.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    August 9, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    6 points away from the theoretical estimate of the crazification factor? Sorry, I’m going to have to score that as outside the reasonable error estimate. Call me once it hits 30 percent.

  5. 5.

    Jenny

    August 9, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    The Democratic party is at 47%, so that’s a 14% advantage.

    Of course, that’s Great News for McCain!

  6. 6.

    JGabriel

    August 9, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    @dmsilev: Seconded.

  7. 7.

    aisce

    August 9, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    the moral of the story is don’t cost the american people fucking money in a way they notice in real time.

    slow and subtle evisceration? the sheep don’t pay no never mind. but loud and undeniable? curtains. god bless our noisy, noisy teabaggers.

  8. 8.

    General Stuck

    August 9, 2011 at 7:48 pm

    If you really dig into current polling all around, you start to get a fuller picture of what voters are feeling right now, and what is their underlying judgments concerning the dire econ straights we are in.

    They are impatient and anxious with Obama on the economy, and give him negative job performance for that parameter, but his overall job approval has been locked in to the 45 to 50 percentile, really for the past two years. With little sway.

    And digging deeper, voters continue to firmly place the lions share of the blame for the economy of the policies of GWB, and the republicans.

    And Obama also maintains the all important, for the POTUS, level of “favorability” at over 50 percent. Or, that voters personally like him. This number will get a president through otherwise difficult times that would hurt the approvals of a less liked president.

    So yea, some moderate good news for keeping the wingers out of the WH, but we got a long ways to go yet.

  9. 9.

    Spaghetti Lee

    August 9, 2011 at 7:49 pm

    Well, it’s 33-59, so maybe the other 8% are the ones so crazy that their answers have to be disqualified.

  10. 10.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    Y’all are too much.

    Yes, there is sometimes a lag in what Americans understand, and sometimes they get it wrong or misjudge. Eventually however, the majority (which will increase with time due to demographics etc) gets it — IF treated with respect, which OBAMA always does. Whatever his mistakes, deficiencies, etc., he is unswervingly respectful of the people. That is why, despite some real set backs, he has basically done ok in polls.

    Hmmmm — do you think some of the progs would get that idea instead of talking about the STOOPID merikuns. You know y’all just make it that much easier for the real stooges, the right wing teahadists who get how to work the room —

  11. 11.

    gex

    August 9, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    From what I’ve seen around, there are some people so ignorant of what is actually happening in government, who are by most measures not crazy, that they are padding that number. They are the “both sides do it” folks such as a guy I know who blamed both sides for holding the debt ceiling hostage.

  12. 12.

    Keith G

    August 9, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    More than “ok”. But yes, it is a bit too early to be indicative. And generic preferences are one thing, having candidates with personalities and platforms is something else.

    link to internals

    edited

  13. 13.

    DarrenG

    August 9, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    Re: the Crazification Factor, remember there’s likely to be a symmetric effect to the Obama/Dem approval numbers where a sizable portion of the increase in disapproval numbers come from people who think the GOP hasn’t been crazy *enough* lately.

    Check out the video of McCain’s recent town hall where nutters accosted him for not doing more to defend against the UN’s stealth attempt to take over America’s farms and pollute our bodily fluids.

    Same for all the Bachmannites that are pissed because the debt ceiling got raised, even on GOP terms.

  14. 14.

    shortstop

    August 9, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @Keith G: I’m glad you mentioned generic candidates! In other news, Obama is finally beating “generic Republican” (as opposed to individual scary-ass named Republicans) in the polls, 45-39. Perhaps it is beginning to sink in that Dwight Eisenhower is not coming back from the dead.

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    August 9, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    @Jenny:

    Of course, that’s Great News for McCain!

    LOLz, sometimes the old lines live still. I already miss the ’08 campaign for its civility.

  16. 16.

    shortstop

    August 9, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    @DarrenG:

    Check out the video of McCain’s recent town hall where nutters accosted him for not doing more to defend against the UN’s stealth attempt to take over America’s farms and pollute our bodily fluids.

    When he said he was unaware of this secret plan, they huffed that he was out of touch.

    What I would have given to be there and see it for myself. As you sow, asshole.

  17. 17.

    MikeBoyScout

    August 9, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    I suppose it is good not to lose hope, but the exception proves the rule.

    We’re f*cked. Get used to it.

  18. 18.

    aisce

    August 9, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    @ elie

    that’s a hell of a card for you to play after spending the last 48 hours telling everybody on this site how fed up you were with white people and how ready you are to go to war…

    paragon of patience and moderation you are.

  19. 19.

    NonyNony

    August 9, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    I don’t know if 33% is in the MOE for the crazification factor.

    Nope, population is too large for 5% to be within the margin of error.

    Which means that the GOP still has a group of folks it can piss off.

    Looking at the breakdowns on page 13, the groups still holding the GOP up above the crazification factor look like White folks (38%), Men (35%), ages 18-34 (37% (see rant below)), who make over 50K a year (36%), attended college (35%), and are living in the suburbs (38%) or rural (36%) areas.

    Notably we’ve hit Crazification territory among Urban voters (26%), self-identified Moderates (24%) and Independents (25%), folks in the 35-49 age bracket (28%), and “non-Whites” (23%).

    So some more attacks by the GOP on rural and suburban voters might shift things a bit. Get them on record as wanting to cut farm subsidies in exchange for tax cuts for bankers, and cut student loan support in exchange for tax cuts for bankers and you might just bottom out their support down into Crazification Factor territory. Also Women are still at 32%, so maybe if you can convince them to go all-out on an assault on the new regulations to make insurance companies cover birth control, you might shift a few points into Crazification land there as well.

    (rant below) What the fuck is UP WITH YOU YOUNG’UNS? You’re not supposed to be dumber than us Gen X-ers – you’re supposed to be smarter than us! We’ve hit the Crazification Factor territory of 28% in this poll but the young’uns haven’t? That’s fucked up!

  20. 20.

    Warren Terra

    August 9, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    The linked PDF in the linked story says the margin of error is 3%, putting 27% outside of likely error.
    Of course, nothing says that the 27% crazification factor is set in stone … sure, at one point in time a whole bunch of studies said that 27% of people were absolutely nuts, but maybe that number was only true at that point in time, and the corresponding number is now 30%. Or 33%.

  21. 21.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @DarrenG:

    Well, I guess you can go there, but I ask you why? What does it do except highlight what is the most destructive and give it undue power. That is just not justified.

    Look. We/the administration/the country, eff it — has been through HAIL… and at the end of the war, where the Repubs threw everything at him and us except physical violence, the people saw and UNDERSTOOD. They (at least the majority), did not give up on the skinny black man or think he was a wimp or anything like that. They like him — overall — and I think that they TRUST him…

    I am by no means either saying 1) Obama is perfect and has made no mistakes or 2) that things couldn’t head south at any point. But think about it — think about the last month and SEE where we are right now — yes, fucked with a lot of work and negotiation and advocacy still to protect what we care about. But we took their BEST shot — and we are on our feet, y’all. Eyes swole shut, teeth loose, ears bleeding and staggering — but on.our.feet.

    THAT is a victory – TODAY…

  22. 22.

    NonyNony

    August 9, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @Warren Terra:

    There is no bunch of studies. The Crazification Factor number of “27%” comes purely from an observation from John Rodgers of the blog Kung-fu Monkey, who pegs this number based on the percentage of the population of Illinois who voted for Alan Keyes in his Senate race against Barack Obama back in the day.

    Independent observation places the Crazification Factor somewhere between 25% and 30%, but I still like to stick to 27% as the floor just for the amusement factor of it all.

  23. 23.

    nodakfarmboy

    August 9, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Sometimes lurker, sometimes commenter, checking in. I’ve been in Ireland for over a week, and while the trip has been awesome, I suddenly found myself missing my Balloon-Juice yesterday.

    I’m not sure whether this is awesome or sad.

    In any case, I miss you crazy kids, and will be back soon, sucking up the massive pool of information/snark that you all offer.

    That is all…

  24. 24.

    geg6

    August 9, 2011 at 8:04 pm

    This does not surprise me. I got my first glimpse of what this poll shows when I took my John to a urologist appointment (probably TMI, but it was a prostate biopsy and still no results!) a couple weeks ago, just as all this debt ceiling shit was hitting the fan. It came up in discussion among the people in the waiting room, a real Merkin bunch in a town where people were packing heat when Obama and Biden came for a rally the night after the DNC. An old woman in a wheelchair, another on oxygen, a couple of middle aged construction worker types, and a 30 or so-year-old grandson with his (at least!) ninety-year-old grandfather. Though there was much criticism for all politicians, the unanimous consensus was that it wasn’t Obama’s fault. That gave me some hope. It still does. Typical Western PAers, a Teabagger demographic and they blamed Congress and W. Amazing.

  25. 25.

    Citizen_X

    August 9, 2011 at 8:05 pm

    @NonyNony:

    What the fuck is UP WITH YOU YOUNG’UNS?

    The extra percentage is due to Palin’s brood. That clan is big enough to be statistically noticeable.

  26. 26.

    Keith G

    August 9, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    @shortstop:

    Dwight Eisenhower is not coming back from the dead.

    I thought he did once or twice.

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    August 9, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @DarrenG:

    Check out the video of McCain’s recent town hall where nutters accosted him for not doing more to defend against the UN’s stealth attempt to take over America’s farms and pollute our bodily fluids.

    He deserves it. Heck, he deserves to be followed around 24/7 by people holding up big signs that read “this man unleashed Sarah Palin on an unsuspecting world”.

  28. 28.

    Linnaeus

    August 9, 2011 at 8:10 pm

    Hey, it’s something to build on. Truth pressed to the earth and all that…

  29. 29.

    DarrenG

    August 9, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    @Elie:

    Well, I guess you can go there, but I ask you why? What does it do except highlight what is the most destructive and give it undue power. That is just not justified.

    Of course it’s justified. It’s important to understand why the numbers are the way they are because it has profound political implications.

    Assuming that everything is rosy and the increase in GOP disapproval/don’t-re-elect numbers are exclusively from people who’ve Seen The Light and returned to sanity would be a huge mistake heading into 2012.

    This is the same mistake dumb-ass pundits and analysts make when looking at poll numbers for health care reform, Obama, or the Democratic Party as a whole — they assume everyone who is dissatisfied or disapproves does so for the same reason (i.e. they agree with the GOP).

    It’s important to understand that there’s a decent-sized minority of the population who is increasingly dissatisfied with the GOP and its leadership because they haven’t repealed the PPACA, impeached the President, bombed Iran, and deported all the brown people yet.

    While these people may help the cause of the righteous by supporting more Angle/O’Donnell-type nutbars in primary challenges in 2012, don’t assume for a minute they’re on our side.

  30. 30.

    gogol's wife

    August 9, 2011 at 8:11 pm

    OT: Pre-code movie with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart and Joan Blondell and Edward Arnold tonight on TCM, 9:45 PM Eastern. If I’m going to have to live in the 1930s, I’m going to live in the 1930s when they had good movies.

  31. 31.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @aisce:

    No I am no paragon of anything.

    Look — I am very very imperfect. I have been out of work for the last four months and I am just looking to survive.
    I am very upset by all of this and very freaked out by some of the points of views that I read here that could be attributed to my so called fellow left/progressives. It feels like betrayal and you have to understand that on a personal level for me, I have experienced that very very keenly lately. So I apologize to all who took exception to what I said and understand why you did.

    I do not want a war on white people. Though I do see, as I hope many do, the role of working class whites in protecting the illusions of being rich, while denying their own vulnerability to remain superior to blacks/browns. That is not an emotional realization, but one borne out in numerous historical and political pieces going back to “Southern Politics”…

    Things will feel a lot better if I can get on my feet and also feel that this country is somewhere approaching sane again.

    You ever had a bad day?

  32. 32.

    PeakVT

    August 9, 2011 at 8:14 pm

    @nodakfarmboy: Pic from a pub or you’re not there.

  33. 33.

    Rosali

    August 9, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    I would love to hear from you all of any examples where some red-staters or GOPers are turning against the republicans. I know it’s anecdotal, but I find it to be the encouragement I need as I prepare to pound the pavement for Obama 2012. I’m afraid that those voters listen to Fox and still walk around with the opinion that “both sides are bad” or that Obama is to blame for the desperate situation we find ourselves in.

  34. 34.

    Ben Cisco

    August 9, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    Hey everybody: check out this douche, favored to be Ben Nelson’s opponent next time around. (h/t Zandar)

  35. 35.

    gogol's wife

    August 9, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    @Rosali:

    I’m sorry, all I’ve got are my supposedly liberal blue-state friends turning against Obama. I am very depressed. But I have to hope it will pass, as my husband assures me.

  36. 36.

    Linda Featheringill

    August 9, 2011 at 8:18 pm

    @geg6:

    Not Obama’s fault:

    Interesting. Somebody else reported a similar experience a few days ago. Maybe the idea that Obama is trying to do what’s good for the country is slowly taking hold in places it never existed before.

    But if they [the right] can’t blame Obama or the DFHs, how are they going to explain the mess?

  37. 37.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    @DarrenG:

    i don’t assume that they are on their side. To refresh my point, why is a minority of the minority so important to you — supposedly (?) on the opposite side of their issues?

    You know what, there will always be that group. Always. Some are mentally ill, my friend. Like the dude in Norway and our own Oklahoma misfit, they can take their pathology and wrap it around ideology or politics and it gives them a framework to act. But we can’t focus on the mentally and socially ill or left behind, to make political policy, can we?

  38. 38.

    nodakfarmboy

    August 9, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    @PeakVT: I was just at the Cobblestone, for whatever it’s worth. No ability to put up a photo link, though. Stuck at a hostel, waiting for my trip to the airport. Dublin is a lovely city.

  39. 39.

    Rosali

    August 9, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    I say I need encouragement because Floridians were pounded by high levels of unemployment, foreclosures, and uninsureds, yet they still elected Rick Scott in 2010.

  40. 40.

    Linnaeus

    August 9, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @Elie:

    I have been out of work for the last four months and I am just looking to survive.

    Just got laid off myself. I know the feeling, even if it hasn’t quite hit me as hard yet.

  41. 41.

    DarrenG

    August 9, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    @Elie:

    It’s important for political strategy. Thinking 65% of the electorate basically agrees with you has very different implications from thinking 30% basically agree, 25% think you’re too conservative, 25% think you’re too liberal, and 20% think you’re Evil And Must Be Destroyed.

    Ignoring reality is never a good plan unless you’ve got a paid media gig and your paycheck depends on it.

  42. 42.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @geg6:

    Hope John is ok. Lots of good things happening in that arena these days. Keep us up to date (as much as you would like to,anyway)

  43. 43.

    PeakVT

    August 9, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @nodakfarmboy: This place? Anyway, have a good trip back.

  44. 44.

    Cat Lady

    August 9, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @Rosali:

    What’s The Matter With Florida?

  45. 45.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    May I recommend, Southern Politics in State and the Nation — (1949) by V.O. Key

    One of the best books about the “set up” for so much of what we have today.

  46. 46.

    The Populist

    August 9, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    @Linda Featheringill:

    Fact: You can only keep going to the “It’s Obama’s fault” well so many times before it dries out.

    The people are waking up to the idea that everything can’t be his fault alone.

  47. 47.

    The Populist

    August 9, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    @Rosali: …and they are regretting it every minute that egomaniacal douche remains governor.

  48. 48.

    Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal

    August 9, 2011 at 8:35 pm

    the crazy factor may need an adjustment upwards for the fact that you really have to be nuts to answer a landline nowadays.

  49. 49.

    The Populist

    August 9, 2011 at 8:36 pm

    @DarrenG: Yes, they are what I call the “Liberals are evil and must be kept out of power no matter what” bloc of voters. I know a few and I won’t discuss any politics with them, even when they try.

  50. 50.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    @Linnaeus:

    Yeah…its like mourning…you go through stages and many of those go back and forth. And then there is the job search fun. Wow! Its a full time job and my mood goes up and down on the weirdest/quirkiest stuff.

    I have tried to use the time gainfully and am knee deep in our local politics. That said, I try not to be bitchy or too shaky (from my diminished confidence)

    Its been quite a time for me. Maybe I will write about it more completely some day. Right now, just surviving it.

    You have my complete empathy and hope your recovery is fast.

  51. 51.

    The Populist

    August 9, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    @Rosali:

    I am seeing video proof on Countdown and Maddow where the tea party congess critters are getting earfuls at town halls. They are yelling out things like tax the rich, etc. So I am hopeful this is a sign of good things.

    Problem is, ask most of these people a question and they still will tell you they hate dems.

  52. 52.

    Spaghetti Lee

    August 9, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    @The Populist:

    I think one of the defining features of American politics is that people don’t vote for you, unless you’re Obama in 2008 or Kennedy in 1960, they vote against whatever SOB you’re running against. So they may well hate Democrats, but if the Republicans keep up their antics, well, there’s two major parties on every ballot.

  53. 53.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    Funny how some things don’t change. This is from the 1950 review of Southern Politics that I reference above. Obviously, this predates the move of southern democrats to the republican party, but you can get the drift. The book is startling in some of its analysis that remarkably is still very very pertinent.Article Preview

    Southern Politics, by V. O. Key, Jr.

    Richard Hofstadter — April 1950

    – Abstract

    The South has never lost its nationalism. Since 1850 its relations with the rest of the nation have been much like the conduct of foreign affairs, or as Professor Key calls it, “a sort of sublimated foreign war.” The Southern Democratic party has been both the army of resistance and the diplomatic corps: through it the South has manifested its solidarity against the rest of the nation, and through it she has contracted valuable alliances with other elements in the country. And just as the impact of an external crisis causes a tightening of the ranks and a lapse of criticism in the nation at large, so the constant potential “enemy” to her race system that the white South sees in the rest of the nation has operated as a perennial inhibiting force in her domestic affairs. Psychologically she is under a continuous state of siege.

  54. 54.

    Ben Cisco

    August 9, 2011 at 8:47 pm

    @Rosali: My workplace has its share of GOPers – damned near had to talk one of them off the ceiling the day after President Obama was elected. TV in our breakroom was bleating about the Tea Party Downgrade (R), and a group of about 18 people (including ceiling guy) were discussing it. UNANIMOUS condemnation of the GOP, and it wasn’t even close.
    __
    Don’t know how representative that is of anything, other than to say that from my personal observations in my AO, this is HUGE.

  55. 55.

    trollhattan

    August 9, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    Just wait ’til Duffel’s generation can vote!

    The extra percentage is due to Palin’s brood. That clan is big enough to be statistically noticeable.

  56. 56.

    Maude

    August 9, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    @Elie:
    50
    Oh, my. It is so very hard.
    I know it’s no comfort, but there are a lot of people wondering what will happen to them.

  57. 57.

    Scott P.

    August 9, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    I have been out of work for the last four months and I am just looking to survive.

    and

    Just got laid off myself. I know the feeling, even if it hasn’t quite hit me as hard yet.

    Maybe we need to take a page from Slacktivist and have a job-seekers thread? Lots of people from all over read this blog. Maybe someone knows some leads.

  58. 58.

    Rosali

    August 9, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    Rick Scott tried to eliminate automatic payroll deductions for public employees’ union dues. Without the payroll deductions, most unions would go out of business if they had to rely on members mailing in dues every 2 weeks. The local police union responded by having a “change your party (from GOP to Dem) registration” drive. I have no idea how many changed or how many intend to vote for Dems in 2012. But I’m hopeful that the message got through to many conservative union members in FL that the GOP is the party of union-busting.

  59. 59.

    Chris

    August 9, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    @Elie:

    The South has never lost its nationalism. Since 1850 its relations with the rest of the nation have been much like the conduct of foreign affairs, or as Professor Key calls it, “a sort of sublimated foreign war.”

    I tend to see the South as having a hugely dysfunctional political culture, even more than the rest of the nation, but is it quite that bad today? Lot’s changed since this was written.

  60. 60.

    Chris

    August 9, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    @Scott P.:

    Maybe we need to take a page from Slacktivist and have a job-seekers thread? Lots of people from all over read this blog. Maybe someone knows some leads.

    Having also been out of work for a couple weeks, I’d be okay with that.

  61. 61.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    @Chris:

    I am sure that its not as extreme. But I recommend reading the book from the perspective of bearing in mind that it was written in the late 1940’s. Yes, things have improved, but its scary and particulary how some aspects of the culture influece and define our national politics – still.

    I give you the reference so that you can read for yourself and not count on my interpretation. That is of course, your choice… but its a remarkable and at least able to provide insight on where a significant population of influence in this country HAS been. I would argue its still valid.

  62. 62.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    @Chris:

    I would support that for sure…though there are so many things that make that kind of thing difficult…

    I struggle with the sense of shame or at least being very self conscious… I think that is why I just suffer in silence…

    But we could definitely share strategies and experiences on what has seemed to work — or not — and how to keep up the morale and enthusiasm as time rolls on…

  63. 63.

    WereBear

    August 9, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    Faulkner said:

    In the South, the past is not past. It isn’t even dead.

  64. 64.

    WereBear

    August 9, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    Whoops!

    ‘The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.’ — William Faulkner

    had it backwards. Can’t edit on iTouch.

  65. 65.

    Chris

    August 9, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    @Elie:

    I think the big difference is that Southerners consider themselves to be Americans today – indeed, the most “real” Americans around. Which definitely wasn’t true for a long time. Even for those who did consider themselves American, there was a whole “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion” culture to remind them that as far as the rest of the country was concerned, they weren’t and never would be. That’s not around anymore.

    As for the job search thing, I understand as I often don’t really like talking about it either… But like you said, just a bunch of posts sharing tips and the like can always be helpful. (If any of our front page masters are reading this…)

  66. 66.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 9:37 pm

    @WereBear:

    I think that is still true — independent of the racial wound.

    My hubby and I traveled across the gulf coast (LA, Miss, ala, Fla), and we were alternately enchanted and apalled at our experience of the culture. It very much felt like we were in a time warp. Folks were “polite” to us for the most part — truly ( Jew and black woman), but just observing the reality independent from us was a trip, That was in 1998. on the good side, the pace, the attention to small comforts, was wonderful…

    Lord, I do not know how black folks live down there — but that is just me.

  67. 67.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    @WereBear:

    Knew what you meant…:-)

  68. 68.

    Derf

    August 9, 2011 at 9:39 pm

    Ha!

    The best John Chicken Little Cole can mustar is “moderately ok news”. Like he seems almost disappointed there isn’t anything he can point to and say “see, the end is near, apocalypse, we are doomed..blah blah yada yada!”

    Stay Gloomy Cole.

  69. 69.

    OzoneR

    August 9, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    you might want to look at the results out of Wisconsin and rethink your title.

  70. 70.

    Elie

    August 9, 2011 at 10:20 pm

    @Chris:

    I would just posit that what you said — that they consider themselves the “Real” Americans — just moves the goal posts, so to speak, about their mindset. They are tribal in the most fundamental sense and whether they call themselves Americans or revolutionaries, their identification with their tribe defines them separately from the rest of the country. In other words, is not the label they give themselves, but the reality of how they view their values and ideas and whether those are in synch with the mainstream of what we call “American awareness”. Race and slavery was/is a focus that neither we nor they can escape. They embrace the racial identify in part because to disavow it means disavowing a history and values that they hold dear. It is hard to progress from that if you still hold it so tight — and they do. The Civil War and their identify as owning other human beings, still seems to be something that they want to hold above moving on to a next phase. Why else do they still celebrate Civil War enactments? Why the flag of Dixie and imposing it on some state flag design…

    The past is not dead to many southeners, just as Faulkner said… they can’t disavow it and their passion keeps it in our faces a century or more after the war. They can’t let it go and like relatives with bad addiction habits, our national family cant move them off of it and they wont move themselves…

  71. 71.

    Comrade Kevin

    August 9, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    Would someone please turn off the Derf-bot? It’s boring.

  72. 72.

    Derf

    August 9, 2011 at 11:54 pm

    @Comrade Kevin: I am so glad you are so ‘bored’ you bothered to respond. I know you are obsessed by me like the rest of my groupies. Thanks for exercising a bit of restraint in your enthusiasm. We wouldn’t want Cole to get jealous.

  73. 73.

    Tim Connor

    August 10, 2011 at 2:11 am

    @beltane:

    33% = 27% crazy people + 5% nihilistic rich people + David Brooks’ ego.

    When you’re right, you’re right.

  74. 74.

    worn

    August 10, 2011 at 2:46 am

    @Elie:

    As a self-employed fellow who spent most of 2010 with no appreciable income and so found myself on “family welfare” (very little social safety net for folks in my position), let me extend my heartfelt sympathies for your current predicament. Fortunately, I had a good solid 6 months of worth of work this year which tapped out at the end of June but have been able to live off that gravy in the meantime (last year’s 5 figure debt pile-up be damned). And I think there’s more work coming down the pike in the next couple of weeks which is good. But I will admit that the past year, while offering a tremendous blow to my pride, also made crystal clear how blessed I am to have the family I do. I makes one quite humble, really.

    And I can’t help but contrast my tottering, but solvent position with my friend and neighbor two doors down who, looks to be joining the ranks of the homeless at month’s end, through a combination of layoff several months ago and depressively downward drinking spiral. It is tragic to witness & I feel powerless to stop his slide.

    Thus, one might understand my white hot anger with the GOP and, moreover, the Teahadists who seem to think that toying around with a fragile recovery is clever or principled or whatever in the fuck they think they’re doing.

    At this point, I’d love to roast them all on a goddamned spit with a little garlic chili sauce. And I really strive to be a reasonable, moderate guy.

    Also, too: love the job board / BJ network idea, since it is crystal clear to me that the path to a job at this point is either perfect, exact qualifications or working your connections. Thus far I’ve been much more successful with the latter than former.

    Hang in there, girl. Things is gonna get better. Or at least I have to believe they just gotta…

  75. 75.

    Yutsano

    August 10, 2011 at 2:51 am

    @worn:

    At this point, I’d love to roast them all on a goddamned spit with a little garlic chili sauce.

    Now why would you waste a perfectly delicious concoction on these horrific wastes of protoplasm? Plus have you seen the teabillies? Gristle and more fat than protein by far. Plus old and tough. Save it for a quacker.

  76. 76.

    TenguPhule

    August 10, 2011 at 3:11 am

    Fifty-nine percent say they have an unfavorable view of the Republican party, an all-time high dating back to 1992 when the question was first asked.

    And if half of these lazy fuckers would remember this and vote when it counts, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

  77. 77.

    TenguPhule

    August 10, 2011 at 3:13 am

    Now why would you waste a perfectly delicious concoction on these horrific wastes of protoplasm? Plus have you seen the teabillies? Gristle and more fat than protein by far. Plus old and tough. Save it for a quacker.

    Soup and stew. You boil them in a slow heat for many hours so the tough fibers break down and all of the flavor is extracted from the marrow. And don’t knock garlic, it helps cover the flavor.

    But always remember to discard the brains first, they’re poisonous.

  78. 78.

    worn

    August 10, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    Re: spit roastin’

    God, I love you people sometimes!

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 10, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    you might want to look at the results out of Wisconsin and rethink your title.

    Those results aren’t bad–successful recalls are pretty rare in American politics, and they actually knocked off two Republican state senators. It infuriates me that the big headlines here are all “Democrats Fail”.

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