ThatDamnedPanda
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth
Regarding the other point - In your opinion how much longer do you think it will take before 'faith based' voting, party or individual, would be considered "dumb"? Personally, and confirmed by many examples of such on CM, we passed the 'dumb voter' benchmark about a generation ago.
Oh, we are definitely way past that point. A generation sounds about right, depending on how you define the term. I'd say roughly around the early 80s was about the time elections began to be primarily about ideology rather than issues. Sometime around the first term of Reagan was where the road first began to fork, and the change in course was unmistakable by the early 90s.
This polarization is one of the reasons I have no hope that this country will ever reverse the course we're on. As an electorate, we have lost the ability to evaluate issues on the basis of their individual merits, or candidates outside the narrow context of their party affiliation. It doesn't matter anymore how carefully a candidate explains their position or breaks down the details of any particular issue, because too many people just don't know how to hear that anymore. So candidates don't bother, because it's actually reached a point where you're probably going to lose the election if you do. Too many people want to hear how bad/stupid/evil the other candidate is, and that's pretty much all they're listening for. If you don't speak to that, they don't hear you.
It's natural and predictable that on any list of 10 given issues, most liberals are probably going to break mostly in one direction on most of them, and most conservatives are going to break mostly the other way on most of the issues. That's because people on different sides of the fence really do think differently in some key ways, and prioritize things differently. That's a good thing, because a healthy political system depends on the balance between these different prioritizations and ways of thinking.
It's understandable, for example, that liberals who study the issue are more likely to (in general terms) support national health care, because that fits with the way that liberals tend to prioritize things. As they analyze it and evaluate it, they're looking for things to like about it, and if they find enough things that meet their priorities, they're probably going to wind up favoring the proposal. But if you reach the point where a majority of liberals support a national health care plan simply because they're liberals, and they don't even care what it says, that's where the balance no longer works. Or even exists. It's understandable that most conservatives are going to support strong military action against Iraq, because that fits their belief in a strong defense. But when you reach a point where a majority of conservatives support military action in Iraq simply because we've got to do something to someone somewhere, and they don't even listen to any of the arguments against that action or in favor of a different course of action, the balance is not working.
And that's where our country is now. The majority of people on both sides seem to have lost the ability to judge issues on their own merits, and depend almost exclusively on their ideology to tell them what to do. I understand that this trait has always been present to some degree in American politics, but this is the first time in my life that it is the overwhelmingly dominant - even defining - characteristic. I don't see a way out, because as far as the politicians are concerned, this is working just fine. It makes their jobs much easier, and they're going to keep working it as long as it works. Until someone can give me some reason to believe there's a way to make it not work anymore (I mean, beyond vague assurances that some day we'll all get tired enough of it that we'll stand up and demand change, or whatever), I'm going to keep believing that this country has already driven over the edge of the cliff, and the only thing left to be resolved is where we land and when.
_____________________________
Panda, panda, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Made you all black and white and roly-poly like that?
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