[lbo-talk] Americans as politically confused as ever

[Somebody Somebody]

Quote: Ten days into my cross-country road trip and I'm not finding much of the fist-shaking, Tea Party anger that you see on television. People are freaked out, though. They're frustrated and anxious. They're not too thrilled with Barack Obama's policies — although even his detractors see him as sincere and trying his best to turn things around — and they're not at all convinced that the Republicans are prepared to offer anything better, but the anti-incumbent, anti-Establishment mood is palpable. They can diagnose the problems, but they don't have any strong ideas about solutions. Most of the people at brunch say the government is spending too much, but when I ask whether they'd rather see the government closing the deficit or spending money to create jobs, most of them say jobs. There are ideological contradictions aplenty, which leads me to conclude that the notion of America as a conservative or moderate or liberal country is a fiction created

 by those of us who sit on top of Mount Opinion. More than a few voters I've met seem to be conservative, moderate and liberal all at once. Pat Moll, a police officer who doesn't like Obama at all, thinks the government should spend money to "put people to work in real jobs that last."

Link:
<http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2019450,00.html>