[lbo-talk] RE: Wishful thinking (was Wow!)

Gary Mongiovi MONGIOVG at stjohns.edu
Mon Oct 3 15:10:12 PDT 2005


For what it's worth, over the past year or two I've noticed a real shift in attitudes among my student, a historically conservative demographic. I teach at a large Catholic university in Queens, and my students have over the years been steadfastly right-of-center: capitalism's the best thing since sliced bread, government's the problem not the solution, pro-death penalty (mostly), Bush is a strong leader who knows where he stands, Clinton's a sleazeball (well, OK, they're right about that) etc etc etc.

The latest crop, though, seem to be mulling over the possibility that the political right is out to fuck over anybody who gets in its way. They're starting to worry, I mean REALLY WORRY, that the system is stacked against them. They value hard work, but don't relish the prospect of having work consume their lives, which they fear is a real possibility for someone who wants to have a career and a middle-class lifestyle. If they could vote for Clinton or Gore today, they'd toss Bush out on his ear. The guy couldn't get elected dogcatcher on this campus right now, though I'll be dollars to donuts he'd have polled strong here two years ago.

Admittedly it's a small sample, but in view of how conservative St John's students have always been, this shift seems to me to be significant. Maybe it's too soon to say that meltdown is on the horizon for the right, but I've been teaching here for twenty years and I've never noticed this degree of disenchantment with that side of the political spectrum.

I will permit myself the luxury of optimism.

Gary

Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 16:22:42 -0400 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Wow! To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <p06230908bf67435c4eba@[192.168.0.16]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"

You would think. The guy's such a major scumbag that it's a lot of fun to watch him squirm. There's a lot of this going around lately - is the right in a meltodwn phase, or am I just thinking wishfully?

Doug

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