ext_87321 ([identity profile] mojave-wolf.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] solarbird 2009-02-21 07:34 pm (UTC)

I'm somewhat curious as to how you are defining "it seems to be" working. Granted I've had even less time than normal lately to keep up with things

I'd say it's working with a certain segment of the population who is already predisposed towards thinking either in Republican, racist, or fanatically anti-Obama terms, but the vast majority of the public still seems to be on board with the Obama program (hell, I'd say those who would be on board w/Obama even if he went all Bush-y on us are in equal #'s, still, to the combined amount of those people on board w/the Republican memes and irrational hatred, which is a whole 'nother problem).


Of course, if you get a band of nutsos w/weapons sufficiently angered, voting #'s suddenly matter a little less, but I don't think even the fundie / neocon types really want "blood in the streets" just yet, or that the people who might really show up somewhere w/guns (which I don't think Santelli's crowd would be gutsy enough to do in a million years, unless they had an escape exit if bullets started flying, hordes in front of them, and thought their side was sure to win easily) are that pissed off at Obama just yet. Most of the ones like that I know who at least vaguely fit that bill aren't particularly pissed off at him at all, or at least no more than they usually are at nearly everyone. Quite a few of them voted for him.

They are almost that pissed off at large corporations, so I think the corporate types in the GOP should be very careful how they stoke these particular fires.


If you just meant long-term voter sentiment, that'll depend on whether his plan works at all (my take on this likelihood is basically the same as Krugmans, except w/more hopefulness that my take is wrong than he seems to have, probably because he's doing more #-crunching and thinks these things are more predictable than I do).

That said, some people at a website I once considered allies and had a great deal of fondness towards do seem to have bought a lot of this crap, and it's a very popular website, but they seem to have alienated nearly all other left-leaning websites who used to be sympathetic to them. If you care to see some interesting/horrifying/depressing discussions running hordes of comments (and a couple of intra-blog disputes), e-mail me and I'll send you links. I used to like these people so I don't feel like holding them up to public ridicule, but they're the only non-Republicans I know of who are buying the Santelli crap (and did indeed either buy or tolerate, depending, the earlier repub memes about mortgages and "those people", so you're not wrong about this stuff festering in the same places).

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