Sometimes outside observers have a clearer view of what is actually happening in any given situation than people who deal with it every day, and US politics is no exception. This article is from a British journalist with some insights into the Republican's trap they have fallen into.
One of his points is that the Republican base of about 25% of voters is hopelessly dysfunctional and has some extreme beliefs which the majority of the country think are crazy. But the Republican politicians have to embrace these far, far right positions to survive in the party. [which ties in to the next story about Fox News].
If you are at all interested in politics, read this article - very good......
Polls suggest there are between one in three and one in four Americans who would believe anything. More than a third thought President George Bush did a good job during Hurricane Katrina; half of those thought he was excellent.
Throughout most of 2008, as the economy careered into depression, just over one in four believed Bush was handling the economy well. As Bush prepared to leave office in January 2009, bequeathing bank bailouts, rampant unemployment, and Iraq and Afghanistan in tatters, a quarter of the country approved of his presidency.
These are national polls that span the political spectrum. So you can imagine how concentrated the distortions become when filtered through the tainted lens of the right. A poll earlier this month revealed that a quarter of Republicans believe a community rights organisation called Acorn will try to steal the election for Barack Obama next year, while 31% aren't sure whether it will or not. It won't. Because Acorn does not exist. It was defunded and disbanded after a successful sting operation by conservatives a couple of years ago.
Meanwhile, a poll last month showed that a majority of Republicans likely to vote in the primaries still believe Obama was not born in the United States. He was. But no number of verified birth certificates will convince them.
His second and very insightful point was that no social issues were mentioned in the 2010 elections: they weren't mentioned in the TV ads or anywhere else. But now the new Republicans are in office in Congress and statehouses we are back on the abortion trail....the reason is these issues are a given in Republican politics - you aren't nominated unless you are anti-choice and womens rights in general, pro gun and hate gays....
Strategically the division between social and fiscal conservatism has largely been settled. With just a few exceptions only social conservatives (anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-gun) can get elected within the Republican party, so it has ceased to be much of an issue in primaries. Once nominated, candidates stress only fiscal conservatism for fear of scaring away centrists. Once elected they emphasise both, evidenced by the growing efforts to restrict access to abortion by legislators who barely raised the issue of abortion on the stump.
One in four Americans believes everything they see or hear on Fox News....and they are not all stupid - the main demographic who believe the lies on Fox are white males 18 - 49.....
Fox is very clever in the way they present their "news", and mock and denigrate all other news outlets.....this is a chilling story, because it shows the blatant cynicism but brilliant marketing strategy behind Fox - create your warped reality, and make your viewers loyal by basically brainwashing them.....
Read this one in self defence, because if you watch Fox you need to know what they are doing to you.....hmmmm....if you get DDD and watch Fox you would have unsubscribed DDD by now......
This growing audience also puts significant faith in the credibility of the news delivered by Fox, even while trust in other major news outlets declines. Fox is among the most trusted news outlets in the US, despite countless demonstrable instances of their anchors and pundits spreading misinformation. This rise in influence is not an accident or a coincidence. It is the result of a sophisticated strategy to gain market dominance through an almost monopolistic aggregation of media platforms in individual markets, an aggressive strategy of cross-marketing between entertainment and news, and asystematic denigration by Fox News on air of all other outlets.
Fox's pre-eminent position has had an irrefutable and destructive impact on the state of political discourse in the United States. Since its inception, Fox News has performed as a political party, not as an objective journalistic outlet. Since President Obama took office, Fox has succeeded not only in spreading misinformation and lies, but also in entrenching those fictions so that its audience relates to them as irrefutable fact. One in four Americans believes "most or all" of what's said on Fox News, despite Fox's fabrication of everything from death panels to Climategate.
Teenage pregnancy in one Illinois town has spiked - Onion News looks at the reason why....which might surprise you......
n local news from Pennington, IL, a handsome teen who owns his own truck is responsible for over half of new pregnancies. More local news at WONN5.com.
It was reported last week Glenn Beck will be leaving Fox News and starting his own TV channel, so the Times had a stab at putting together a typical day's programming for BeckTV....funny....
Todays traffic joke
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