Reply #52: Most people don't pay attention to politics at the level DU posters do

[TayTay]

They don't actually care much about political parties or the discussions about background and generational responsibility for economic calamity.

Voters want the system to work. They want jobs and the ability to progress economically. Should this process be interrupted, the voters will punish those in authority at the time the vote comes up. Politicians know this. Bad pols count on it. Bad pols choose this time to ramp up the fear factor and try and inject massive doses of xenophobia into the discussion and blame "those people" for the troubles. (You know "those people" right? "Those people" are the newcomers, the poor and those with any kind of attribute that sets them aside from a mythical average American. It is irrelevant that the "average American" doesn't actually exist. They only need to exist in rhetoric or desire in order for this to work.)

Beware the fear mongering going on now in light of the Christmas terror scare on the Detroit plane. The Republicans will try and create a whole xenophobic storyline for the fall election and incorporate all the elements of their fear narrative into this. It's what they do. It's what history teaches us about what happens to human beings in bad times. We look for scapegoats. We look for someone to punish or blame for our troubles. Bad pols know this and use it to get power.

Democrats need to wake up. Pretending that voting is all a rational process that can be "explained" by talking points and well-reasoned appeals to the public is a way of lying to ourselves. We are in a propaganda war and the other side is currently making big headway. We need to remember the non-rational, very human part of our nature and start speaking to that side as well.