The Lost Tribe: One Quarter Crazy

The latest polls show that 27% of Americans believe that George W. Bush is doing a good job. Sure, that means that an unprecedented 73% have concluded that Bush is a failure, but that is no mystery. A trillion dollar war illegally initiated and incompetently executed would discourage most. For those wavering, Bush offered an impressive menu of ineptitude and cynicism leading to a financial meltdown, record foreclosures, malignant neglect of the environment, civil liberty violations, torture, treasonous exposure of a an active CIA agent, obstruction of justice, Watergate-like politicization of the Department of Justice, cronyism, corruption and destruction of our global reputation.

In the remaining few months, Bush is finishing off with a fine wine of voter fraud, keeping Obama supporters from reaching the polls with a trifecta of sleaze: deleting legitimate registrants, creating illegal barriers to new registrations and using the FBI to investigate bogus claims of fraud on the side of Democrats to create the foundation for challenging the results of an election the Republicans know they will lose.

Yet in the face of this gourmet buffet of criminality, we are left with that mysterious quarter of the population who seem unable to process facts, embracing fantasy in lieu of rationality. Other than Bush's nuclear family, the man should have no support. In a sane world, the polls should show an approval rating for Bush of 0%. No one person has done more to destroy everything Americans stand for, nobody has been more corrosive to American values, nobody has done more to weaken our national security. Any citizen with a pulse should rightfully be disgusted with everything Bush has done to damage this great nation. Yet we have the crazy quarter. I so desperately want to ask each and every person swimming in that ocean of irrationality the following questions: what exactly would it take for you to stop supporting Bush? What would Bush have to do for you to say, enough, I can't take any more? Is there anything, anything at all, that Bush could do to lose your support? Is there any horror that Bush could perpetuate that would cause you withdraw your support? I fear that the answer to all of those questions is that no crime, no injustice could change the mind of these Crazy Quarters.

The real problem, though, is not the zealotry of the last of the lost tribe holding down Masada. We could comfortably write them off as extremists who will never support mainstream America. But that quarter is, frighteningly, metastasizing beyond the borders of zealotry into the broader electorate. That is the only reasonable explanation for how something close to half the voting population can support Sarah Palin as a viable leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Support for Palin is no more reasonable than claiming that George Bush is doing a good job. Both require a suspension of disbelief, a surrender to faith over fact, an embrace of the absurd.

Democracy can survive only with an educated electorate. We can now dismiss one-quarter as hopeless, unable to evaluate issues beyond a religious-like devotion to right-wing ideology, immune to reality. We have eaten into our margin. We cannot afford to lose too many more voters to fantasyland.

So, please, tell me, what would Bush have to do to lose the support of that remaining one-quarter of voters? How much more would Palin need to reveal to slap people back to sanity? Please, somebody tell me.

Comments

[Cactusman]

I've also wondered exactly what it would take to get this core 25% of Bush-blinded people to reject him. Would Dubby have to kill a puppy and eat it raw on live television? I don't know, and actually I am not quite sure we need to. This is because the other 75% or so have woken up, to varying extents, and are hopefully going to be firmly in control of their brains from now on.

There's not enough room to get deeply into how messed-with we've been, but the answer to your question lies within the way societal norms, morals, and values have been framed by those with a superior understanding of how to wield power. (Inappropr­iately.) This framing is done via education/­indoctrina­tion, religion, money, and energy policies, among other things, all interlocking like a jigsaw puzzle. That's why reform of only one area doesn't result in the comprehensive changes we seek.

Social change is like a developing body: All systems must simultaneously grow for successful evolution. You cannot grow the skin first and then do the bones, blood vessels, and nerves later. For us to effect wholesale changes properly, everything must coordinate and grow at once lest impossibly weird and biologically detrimental things happen.

Fortunately we seem to be in just such a change-eve­rything-at­-once election. That crazy 25% will eventually catch up, or slough away. Biology is rife with extinct lines of evolution, and the religious nuts are on a dying branch.

[milo h minderbinder]

So what would it take for the rest of the people to give Bush a thumbs down?

[seatea1967]

I believe that the majority of those who still support Bush are seriously low-clue when it comes to current events. These people don't read newspapers, don't watch the news, don't really associate with anyone with a different viewpoint than theirs.

They simply said at some point "I'm a republican, I always vote republican, I support the guy in the oval office if he's a republican" and then they unplug from the real world and do other things.

[Jeff Schweitzer - Huffpost Blogger]

True, but sad; rather than evaluating a candidate or an issue of his/her or its merits, these holdouts simply support Republican with no further thought.

[Lt]

The religious need no facts or evidence to proclaim their belief,

it is for this reason that one can not argue a point with any religious person,

best to simply avoid these fools, sadly they still are allowed to vote.

[Jeff Schweitzer - Huffpost Blogger]

That is the important point; these people vote, and do so with no connection to reality or rationality.

[Libbydoe]

You have adddressed an issue that has been troubling me since McCain selected Palin as his running mate. I socialize with a group of people who are professionals and, therefore, presumably educated. Yet some of them are McCain Palin supporters. I have tried in vain to ask them to convince me that their choice is the correct one. Without exception, all they can do is regurgitate right wing radio talking points. I find this so distressing as these are people who should be reading up on the issues, separating political hyperbole from reality ,and so forth. Sadly this is not the case.

My spouse, who right now is concerned with my mental health, keeps assuring me that these people in question will actually vote for Obama, but are afraid to admit that fact to their friends, since all are life-long Republicans. A sort of reverse Bradley effect. I certainly hope so. But still unless racial prejudice is the determining factor, I don' t get it.

[Jeff Schweitzer - Huffpost Blogger]

I think your spouse should be concerned about the mental health of anybody who believes Palin is qualified to be president.

I feel your pain. There is no easy explanation of a nation gone half mad.