[lbo-talk] tea party numbers

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Wed Sep 1 12:18:41 PDT 2010


On Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 2:46 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:


> ^^^^^
> CB: I didn't know that. But I'm not sure comedy shows are causing vote
> switches. Also, Colbert and Stewart are causing people to vote
> Republican. I guess they might create some stay away from the polls.
> ^^^
>

APR: Really? No one I know, and not a single one of my students, who watches these shows sees them as anything other than critiques of conservative/Republican hypocrisy and contradictions.


>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: Yeah the stay away factor.
>
...........................


>
> I think part of it is that a lot of Obama voters took a big personal
> step in voting for a Black man; their support was tentative. So , they
> are vulnerable to the demogogy, easily persuaded by it. However, I
> doubt that many of this category are watchers of leftish comedy shows.
> The leftish shows might have contributed to the general, vague sudden
> reversal of popularity , but not because of the left content of what
> they say , but just the "anti-O" tone. And the comedy "content" comes
> through in making jokes and fun, not serious statements of affirmation
> of left positions.

Granted, I hang around with professionals and academics mostly but, again, what I've been hearing from liberals/progressives is that - after selling hope and change - what Obama's done is copy Granholm and capitulate, fold and pursue an idiotic bipartisanism, that anyone with any consciousness of the last thirty years was dead in the water before the starting gun went off. Liberals/progressives I know expected the man to lead, to change the nature of the wars faster, to actually embrace government transparency, to end rendition, to actually push for climate reform, to designate people to push for clean energy, and to at least follow Stewart/Colbert to the point of periodically calling Repugs on their BS. These folks believed, hoped and wanted change. They're disappointed in the man and his administration, not rueing voting for a black man.



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