One possible reason why we get inspired and they get angry

[DFW]

We listen to:

Howard Dean
Alan Grayson
Anthony Wiener
Barack Obama
Joe Biden
Bernie Sanders
Rachel Maddow
Keith Olbermann

Republicans listen to:

Bill O'Reilly
Rush Limbaugh
Sarah Palin
Bonehead
Sean Hannity
Ann Coulter
John McCain (as long as they manage to stay awake, anyway)
Dick Cheney


The only thing that bothers me about this is that they find their people are as inspiring as we find ours.
That is an indication of broad failure of both our education and mental health programs over the last few decades.

[LiberalLoner]

1. I think a lot of it is due to authoritarian personality versus not so authoritarian

[FarLeftFist]

2. Very true....

Tea-partiers behave as they do because they have been culturally conditioned to believe they are entitled to do whatever they want, and to whomever they want, because they are the "real Americans," while all who don't think or look like them are not.

[DFW]

3. But the question remains as to who conditioned them, and how they did it. n/t

[FarLeftFist]

5. We are all products of our environment...

Their environment just happens to be filled with religious extremism, lack of cultural diversity, racist parents, a warped worldview, political extremism, and more racism. Plus many other factors that your above mentioned RW'ers spoon-feed them on a daily basis. Not to mention hate, hate, hate.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. My dear DFW!

And another thing: our guys and gals are not angry or loud (except as needed). They are reasonable and smart.

Their people are angry, because yelling is what you do when you don't have any good ideas.

Also, education and mental health programs are both areas where Republicans have made huge inroads as to funding, the type of textbooks and like that...

So, no wonder these areas are suffering.

:hi:

[truedelphi]

6. As to conditioning: Three years ago, my closest neighbor was a RW

Christian lady. She held TWO master's degrees. She was extremely literate and extremely given to follow the Bible when people around her needed help. (It was her and her husband who helped us so much when my husband got ill - only weeks after we moved across the street from them.)

But in terms of politics, it was all "Bush is able to talk to Jesus and every single day, Jesus shows him how evil the Muslim people are."

I did my best to steer the conversation over to aspects of our life we had in common - our love for gardening, our love of the rural wild life, her interest in children (True to the Bible, she worked in
a Day Care center for under-privileged children.)

However one day, out of the blue she began discussing her background. Like me, she had been born in Chicago. But where my parents were both mature and responsible (and loving) people, her mother left her father when she was thirteen months old. Her father took to drinking even more heavily. This meant by the time she was two, she was in charge of her younger brother, still in diapers.

Her father left at seven in the morning and often was not home till after seven Pm. Often when he was home he drank.

The entire description of her childhood was so intensely awful that I cannot imagine having succeeded in keeping my younger sibling alive and also surviving it.

So suddenly the scenario of her needing to have a President (i.e. father figure) that had Jesus Christ guiding his every moment made a great deal of sense. If I had been raised like that, maybe I'd be like that too.

[truedelphi]

7. This post was supposed to have gone under DFW's post, but in

Any case, Hi Peggy!

Hope you can stay dry and warm today, wherever you are in Calif.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Hi truedelphi!

I'm sure he (DFW) will read it!

We're dry so far, but rain is coming!

:hi:

[DFW]

10. Maybe you would have. Still, I'd like to hope not.

Abuse weakens many, makes some strong. It sounds like your neighbor had quite a few strikes against her
before she ever got to the point of being mature enough to make judgments on her own, and at that point
in one's development, it's often any port in a storm. I just regret the port she landed in.

[Xenotime]

9. Don't forget...

Mark Levin
Dave Ramsey
Joe Pagliarulo
Dennis Miller

[DFW]

11. My list was by no means complete, that's for sure!

You'll notice how many of the people on the priogressive side are, or have been active in politics,
and how many on the other side are nothing but talking heads out for ratings to garner advertising
revenue or enhance sales of books they "wrote."