A new Gallup Poll, conducted in late January, reveals that just 39% of Americans approve of the way President Bush is handling Iraq, with 58% disapproving.
Over half (53%) now say the administration "deliberately misled the American public about whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction," with 46% disagreeing. Gallup notes that this finding is "essentially reversed" from one year ago.
Further, some 51% say the U.S. "made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq."
I wonder how that translates into a change in support for the Republican Party, or the Neoconservative ideals, or the big Religious Right issues like abortion or gay marriage. Maybe I can reframe my question. Is the current Rightward shift in the American political scene something that is primary that the current Administration opportunized on, or did they actually create it? If it’s the former, I think we on the Left need to consider why.
It is so much a part of the Reagan/Bush/Bush mantra to demonize the Left, and, to be honest, so much a part of the Left’s M.O. to do the same thing to the Right, that it’s time to begin to think about getting our political pendulum near the middle for a while. It would be a big mistake to recover from Bush by staying as divided as we currently are. I think it is a shaky proposition to presume that these disapproval ratings will translate into either Democratic votes or into a shift away from the current Conservativism. I think that at least some of the current split was actually created by the Bush Administration as a strategy. If that is true, it would be tragic to let it persist.
I was personally disillusioned with Bill Clinton. While I thought he was a good President, and that his thinking about the country was sincere, his personal sheenanigans were too much for me. It wasn’t just Monica. His philandering and story telling were already legend. I just didn’t like it being part of the presidency. I didn’t vote for him the second time [No, I certainly didn’t vote for the Republican either!]. But my disillusionment with Clinton didn’t change my politics at all. My worry is that these polls are measuring disillusionment with the man boy, George W. Bush, not with the extremely conservative/reactionary trend in the political climate that he has participated in creating. George W. Bush is going to be very hard to get over…
The Fundies hijacked the GOP sometime back in the early 90’s and the Republican party has not been the same since. Bush is a born again on a mission with many followers. Collectively I think they will do whatever it takes to acheive the goal. So what’s going on right now is definitely a big problem that’s not going to get any better. If anything, it will only keep getting worse. Looking at the bigger picture can be very helpful in understanding what is going on presently imo.
“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.” U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, R-CT, (New York Times, March 23, 2005). Theocracy is derived from the two Greek words Qeo/j(Theos) meaning “God” and kra/tein (cratein) meaning “to rule.” Theocracy is the civil rule of God. To quote an educator and author seeking theocracy in the United States: “It is Dominion we are after.” The term dominion in this sense means dominance or power through legal authority. http://www.theocracywatch.org/index.html
The Project for the New American Century is arguably the most influential right-wing advocacy group since the Committee on the Present Danger in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Established in 1997 by two leading neocon figures, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC aims to put the United States back on a course toward “global leadership” and to promote a “Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity.” http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/pnac.html
evilpoet,
I agree. Bush is an odious guy all by himself, but I’m more worried about the forces behind him. P.N.A.C., A.E.I., the reconstituted Committee for the Present Danger, the Federalist Society, and the Consortium of the Christian Right. Any political thinking about the U.S. right now that doesn’t look to these groups as the underlying problem is simply postponing disaster. They have just too much access to money from right wing business interests, Zionists, and The Christians [the Theocrats]. Bush is just a ‘front man.’
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done
again; there is nothing new under the sun.” -Ecclesiastes 1:9
http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9410/concerned.html
Have a good one. See ya on the flipside! 🙂