Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Election Night of the Living Dead

"I don't get how people can not vote for Obama. He's so inspiring. Every time I see him I think of the Foo Fighters song, "There goes my hero". That's pretty much because Obama is my hero.

I think he will make this world a better place. I'm pretty sure he will end world hunger and probably AIDS too. I just know he can do all this cause when I hear him speak I get excited on the inside."

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081014094746AAd2S8M

I quoted the genius above recently for the sake of the shock value; but I didn't realize then, which I certainly do now, that the shock's on me. Unlike the thrill of the Night of the Living Dead, I'm not enjoying this zombie take-over of the land. In fact, this horror-show is really scaring me. I don't mind being scared, as a rule. I live a pretty rough life, and part of the reason I do so is because it's so scary. But that's my personal life. The nation, that's a different story. That's something far more interesting and important than my own petty doing, no matter how important my petty doings might be to me. Unfortunately, many, maybe more than half of Americans, don't see that their petty doings are no more important to the nation than mine. They seem to think they actually matter to everyone. Sorry, but no one is that important. Nope. Not me, not even you, and especially not that f*****g weasel Obama. The beauty of knowing ones one relative unimportance is in the knowing that none are much different, and that we must all go our own ways as well as we can without recourse to demagogues and demiurges. A nation of ordinary folks doing their own thing is what makes the nation so great. That's America. What we see below is from one of Dante's middling circles of Hell. Which one? Maybe the one for the self-obsessed, for gluttons and sloths and card-cheats. Here's our America. Look out, here come the zombies!

Rick Moran, "Meet the people who are going to put Obama in office." American Thinker. 15 Oct. 2008

This is really incredible. It stunned Ben Smith over at Politico where I got these quotes. It floored a GOP consultant who conducted the focus group where the people were quoted.

And it is perhaps the single most depressing thing I've read this entire campaign season:

The GOP consultant emailed Smith about a focus group he just finished conducting. Evidently, he showed a hard hitting ad on Ayers to the group and this was the email he sent:

Reagan Dems and Independents. Call them blue-collar plus. Slightly more Target than Walmart.

Yes, the spot worked. Yes, they believed the charges against Obama. Yes, they actually think he's too liberal, consorts with bad people and WON'T BE A GOOD PRESIDENT...but they STILL don't give a f***. They said right out, "He won't do anything better than McCain" but they're STILL voting for Obama.

The two most unreal moments of my professional life of watching focus groups:

54 year-old white male, voted Kerry '04, Bush '00, Dole '96, hunter, NASCAR fan...hard for Obama said: "I'm gonna hate him the minute I vote for him. He's gonna be a bad president. But I won't ever vote for another god-damn Republican. I want the government to take over all of Wall Street and bankers and the car companies and Wal-Mart run this county like we used to when Reagan was President."

The next was a woman, late 50s, Democrat but strongly pro-life. Loved B. and H. Clinton, loved Bush in 2000. "Well, I don't know much about this terrorist group Barack used to be in with that Weather guy but I'm sick of paying for health insurance at work and that's why I'm supporting Barack."

I felt like I was taking crazy pills. I sat on the other side of the glass and realized...this really is the Apocalypse. The Seventh Seal is broken and its time for eight years of pure, delicious crazy....
For the first time, I really feel scared about the future. These people are like the Germans in the election of 1933. They know what's coming but they don't care. Back then, all they cared about was that Hitler was going to give them a job and keep their lunch pails full. And stick it to the Jews. And restore Germany's "rightful place" in the world. They knew full well that Hitler would destroy the independent unions, crack down on dissent, and turn Germany from a very free country into a fascist dictatorship.

Part of this is McCain's fault. He bought into that populist crap about greedy Wall Street. Well, so as ye sow, so shall ye reap. And we're about to reap the whirlwind.

In this kind of atmosphere any kind of a government is possible. And I don't know if Obama can resist the kind of raw power these nincompoops are willing to give him. Who could?

You need a license to own a dog but any fool can vote.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/10/meet_the_people_who_are_going.html

I'm keen of Godwin's Law, i.e. that to call an opponent a Nazi is to lose the argument. I'm not calling Osama Barka supporters Nazis. I refer to them instead a Death Hippies, Conformity Hippies, Povertarians, Irrationalists, Communitarians, and nutters. Many of the intelligentsia in support of Osama are Left dhimmi fascists. Few are going to be Nazis. But many of the above are going to feel emotionally right at home living the nightmare that was Nazi Germany.

First they'll come for Truepeers, then they'll come for Charles-- by which point I hope to be long gone outta here, maybe in some mountain hide-away in the jungles of Paraguay, formerly but seemingly not for much longer, "The Last Place on Earth for the Worst people in the World."

****

What about Sarah Palin? She spoke to Rush Limbaugh [transcript]. Of him I know nothing. Of Sarah Palin I know this:

"So, you know, I’m going out there and I’m just simply speaking. So be it that I’m a simple talker, but I’m just going out there and letting people know the differences and how absolutely paramount it is that voters are paying attention and that voters are understanding candidates’ records, their associations, their plans for the future; instead of being kind of wrapped up into all this rhetoric of Obama’s and buying into it and not holding him accountable for the things that he’s done, the things that he’s said, his associates, and where he wants to take America."

6 comments:

truepeers said...

Oh, I didn't complain when the 'Bammers charged by credit card; so I'm guessin you're first

Dag said...

Now they're really coming for you! They'll get what's left after the CHRC leaves. OOOH.

Charles Henry said...

These types of voters aren't new, from what I've read of President Andrew Jackson they existed as far back as the 1830s.

It's just that now with the never-sleeping, all-encompassing, always-hungry media, we get to hear about them, or even from them directly, more than usual. So it feels like "suddenly" they have multiplied beyond count.

This focus group is not even the worst case I've seen; for a recent example, have you heard the obama voters who were being candidly interviewed for Howard Stern's radio show?

They were given (more or less) all of McCain's policies, and told that they were obama's; they didn't bat an eye as they said they agreed with all of them. Right down to "obama's choice" of Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential pick... these obama supporters even declared that they thought he had made a sound decision in picking her!

Eowyn said...

There was a time, dag, when I'd confidently tell you, Oh, don't worry, Congress will keep the Obama-type presidents in line. Especially when they're so nearly evenly split, as they are now. No WAY could he get any legislation passed that was clearly wrong.

Now, I'm not so sure. Was just discussing tectonic shifts in conservative thinking with Walker. Conservatives are doubting themselves -- thus not standing up to real threats -- because the rules of the very game itself are changing. Conservatives, right now, are too insecure to stand fast by their principles, because those principles themselves are changing. Or, I should say, evolving, given current reality.

I look at it as a good thing, in the longer term. In the short term, conservatives are going to lose ground. (We don't tend to adapt too quickly, because we stick so closely to principles, even when the demands put on them are changing in front of our faces and demand new perspectives.)

But only for a while. We'll regain our place as guardians of common sense, which is the natural place we've always wanted to inhabit. Sooner or later, people will realize that it's not a "dominance" thing, so much as a Rodney King-style "let's just all get along" thing.

We're in limbo now, till we figure things out. But we will.

Dag said...

Yes, but no, Charles. No, many people haven't become better informed bout how to choose a president in the intervening years and centuries. People are still people, the same kind of people they have always been. The gloss of eduction has vitiated many of them, making them think, making them assume they are intelligent. They hve no better sense now than, and perhaps far less sense than before, in times when there was a serious struggle to get the crops in before the weather turned. But there were the candidates who had to out drink anyone they expected to vote for them, too. It's not better, nor a worse world, I admit. But mostly, people stayed home and didn't vote, or couldn't vote. Now, even convicted felons can vote in Ohio.

More to come later.

Dag said...

Eowyn, I didn't post my response to Charles on time. Didn't see your comment till now. Off and running right now to see Charles and Peers. Will be back!