I'm thinking about it a lot because I come from the people that you were initially talking about (if I remember correctly). Small, rural, conservative working class town in northern Michigan (which has doubled in size since I left). I ask myself this same stuff all the time, and argue with friends and family alike. My girlfriend too comes from this blood, and we go through the same thing with her family. Why? is definately the question. In addition to what other people have said, I am going to take another stab at it.
They buy into this crap because: they don't see a way out of their own situation; they cannot be upwardly mobile because there is nowhere to go - especially if they stayed in the small town; they don't give a shit because they haven't seen it with their own eyes - never travelled far beyond where they are; when they are down and out, they kick whoever else they can to make themselves feel better, or do it out of desperation. There is also the bit where they honestly believe that the US is a benevolent country - that we really DO do good things for the rest of the world. People have to believe in something and find some way to hold their head up.
My dad came from the UP of Michigan - if you have ever been up there, you know what it is like. He was in the Korean War and thus got to college to become a forester. He feels like the government got him out of poverty and that he owes them something. He is not so like that now since I have been talking about this stuff for years, but he certainly is incredibly ambivalent because he does not like this war, but does see it as his duty to thank the government for what it did for him.
Other family are patriotic as hell - what else do they have to rely on? It does no good to fight becasue no one listens, and you can never change anything in your own life, so why not have something to be proud of? Also, you cannot underestimate the Protestant work ethic here. That got reemed into me as a kid. Work, and you will get out. Work, and do a good job. Work and you will get what you deserve. People consistently tell me that it is ok that some have more than others, because they worked for what they got, and I will work for mine! It doesn't make sense because they work, work and work and get nothing for it, but it is the internalized "pull yourself up by your bootstraps."
My whole life (and an aging 31 I am ;) I have tried to answer these questions so that I can talk to my family and talk to the people I grew up with, and still, I am at a loss.
I'll never forget the day I came home for my first visit after I had been at college for a semester. I went in to say "hey" to all my former co-workers at the restaurant where I worked since I was 14. We were all good buddies and did everything together, but when I walked in the back kitchen door to say hi, one of my best friends there looked at me and said, "Why are you here? You just think you're better than us now because you are in school." That was the last time I have seen any of them. I think therein may lie an answer in terms of working class and poor whites. They feel disenfranchized as hell. They feel stuck. They feel all sorts of things, so they take it out on whoever they can to feel that they have some sort of power, or some sort of say in the world since they don't have any over their own lives. I don't know them now, but I bet they are behind this war 100%.
This is my experience anyway, but it is hard to say now. I got out of there so that my life wouldn't be swallowed up, and may now be too far removed from it to have an accurate understanding.
jessica
From: Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> Subject: RE: poor white Republicans
Matt:
> force. Sure we can blame people for not finding the real
> information but that is easy for those of us with 300 cable channels
> and free or cheap Internet access. The majority of people still get
> their news from tv, radio, and US papers so short of a Dateline
> special explaining why the Ba'ath party and Al Qeada are not in
> collusion this will be difficult to change.
I guess you are probably right in citing the reasons people usually give for their support - but I am not sure whether these are actual reasons or mere rationalizations. The hallmark of fascist warmongering propaganda is to project an image of the majority being gravely threatened by some unpopular minority, e.g. Germany was supposed to be threatened by "Jewish or Bolshevist conspiracy," the Serbs were supposed to be threatened by the Muslim minority, and now the US is supposed to be threatened by a petty tyrant in another hemisphere. Fascist aggression has invariably been portrayed as self-defence.
What I find perplexing is why some people believe in this crap, which does not hold water to anyone with even half a brain. Just think, the people who normally buy the most bizarre goverenment conspiracy theory or routinely dismiss the "liberal media" as a bunch of lies, suddenly take an obviously preposterous government and media story at its face value. Something does not add up here. My suspicion is that these folks look for an opportunity to "kick ass" and use these preposterous claims spoon fed by the media as a convenient rationalization to cover up their bigotry and warmongering.
I am not disputing that anti-war protest attracts people from different walks of life, education or income levels, races and faiths. The same can be said about warmongering. The question that I ask is what turns people who live a relatively safe and prosperous lives, who experienced no harm either directly or indirectly into warmongers. I can understand why Palestinian teenangers danced when the twin towers fell, but I do not undestand why US-ers attend a "Bomb Iraq" party (http://www.citypaper.com/2003-02-19/photofeature.html).
Wojtek
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