> But what Dem voters whisper in the ears of pollsters, or what Kos
> righteously writes on his blog, coexists with their voting for
> politicians who proudly slash government programs and openly expand
> foreign wars and with their employing and hyperexploiting of ethnic
> and sexual minorities.
People don't know much about what politicians actually do. Most people who voted for Bush thought he was for the the Kyoto Treaty, because they were mostly for the Kyoto Treaty. Most people, to one degree or another, think Democrats love government programs, hate wars, and protect minorities. Every time Congress votes on a budget, something like half the population think the largest spending item is foreign aid.
> Their actual actions and
> movement reveal and enact a certain politics, and that's what we
> should be concerned with, not their self-image or what they reveal to
> a pollster. Who cares what they believe. (Seth, this, to me, is
> actually dealing with the world, or whatever anti-intellectual
> pejorative you used: reckoning how people move and act, not with the
> picture they have inside their heads.) Opinions mean nothing.
Again, you started this topic by asking skeptically whether voting Democrat is a barometer of anything. Yes, it is - it's a barometer of people's opinions. Granted, you don't think opinions matter - apparently you don't think they have anything to do with people's actions, which seems like a hard position to defend.
SA