Why do so many people support the "conservative ideology?"

[begin_within]

[MadisonProgressive]

1. I've been racking my brain over that question

[The Whiskey Priest]

2. Not all conservatives are stupid people

but, all stupid people are conservatives.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

25. I disagree.

Five minutes surfing random threads here on DU will prove that there are an awful lot of stupid liberals.

What is the case is that Conservatism is a form of stupidity, I think.

[MsAnthropy]

3. Money

[iconoclastNYC]

4. A sucker is born every minute.

The right wing uses effective propoganada and appeals to people's base instinicts. They use fear, hate, and jealousy to turn people against liberalism. Most of the media is owned by corporations who benefit from the goals of conservative agenda.

They've forged a succesful cooalition of relious conservatives and corporate conservatives.

[MN ChimpH8R]

5. Religiously based fear

or greed. At least as far as I can tell. What other motivations could there be?

[Somawas]

6. There seems to be a perception that the Republican Party of today

still stands for "limited government" and "personal freedom." And that they will protect the pocketbook of the middle class taxpayer.

It's a stereotype that probably hasn't been true since Ike, but it still hangs out there.

[Al-CIAda]

7. It provides an excuse..nay, a just and noble reason -to be greedy.

[xchrom]

8. i'm torn about that --

polls often show that america at it's roots is a very leftist country -- politically speaking --

but somewher around reagan something changed -- and for my money something changed re: the character of the american peple.

i don't know if it was the clamouring over welfare queens in the seventies -- or the carter inflation followed by reaganomics{you know everybody got rich with all that trickle}.

but something profoundly ugly came to the surface in the public.

it's part racist and part greed and part fear -- but whatever it is -- it's ugly.

[xchrom]

9. i have to also add the effect of leo strauss.

the tax freaks and corporate fixing of media information.

the conservative elite LEARNED to play the public like a musical instrument -- propaganda, mind contro, whatevr you want to call it -- but those forces also come into play.

[Drum]

10. they value connections over ideals nt

[depakid]

11. Because they don't know what it actually is

Empty platitudes on the one hand- objective reality on the other.

[C_U_L8R]

12. Because they hope to get rich

afterall - the reasoning goes - "everyone with money is republikan
and i want a lot of money theredore I should be republikan"

Kind of the Gangsta Bling Bling marketing model of politics.

Call it what you will... the repukes do know how to appeal
to their base's aspirations and desires (as well as their fears)

I'd hope our good guys can debunk this mythology
and counter with some of their own juju (good strong positive juju that is)

[EstimatedProphet]

13. I think it's because it appeals to the selfish and needy side

The conservative ideology really can be summed up in one sentence: Everyone should suck up to me.
That's why we should be able to attack any country we want, and order other countries around-everyone should suck up to the US.
That's why they're against any kind of social safety net-people shouldn't get handouts, they should suck up and beg for things.
That's why they're socially restrictive-people that live their lives as they want don't suck up.

[Jade Fox]

14. The ones I know....

don't have much going for them, have a passive victim's approach to life, and possess a gullibility which eats up the simplified bombast feed to them by Fox News etc.

[turbo_satan]

15. Why do so many people eat at McDonald's?

Why do so many people read Tom Clancy? Why do so many people buy Britney Spears's albums? It's not just because people have bad taste. It's because these things all give a quick fix that demands little investment on the part of the consumer. Conservatism proposes very simple explanations for very complex things.

Why am I poor? Because you're lazy.
Why do people disagree with our policies? They're our enemies.
Why do people hate the US? They're evil.
Why is there crime? Because of rap music.

And so on.

[Cactus44]

16. I think that the reasons are a little more complex.

I'm going to use Bush as an example, but I think the theory is generalizeable.

Now, lots of people voted for Bush becasue they thought he was born again or that he would be gunning for Rowe v. Wade, or some similar single-issue pet project, but I think that for the "values voter" it's a little more subtle. They voted for him not for the person he or waht special competences they thought he had but because they see in him the embodiement of a world-view that they want to see realized. They like the simplicity of a world where the entire globe is one big middle class Midwestern town where everybody looks, belives, thinks, and acts in ways and according to rules that they can easily grasp. In this world decision making is minimal becasue there are no grey areas. Everybody has the same rule book so who is good and who is bad are as plain as in a John Wayne movie. There are no tough choices and good guys finish first.

Sounds pretty appealing really. How could you not want that rosy scenario? But, of course this Never Land that Bush was gonna take them 'back' to never existed and disapointment is pretty much guaranteed. Reagan couldn't deliver it either, but they hoped again. And this probably won't be the last time.

Another 20 or 30 years for them to forget how bitter the dissapointment was, or for a new generation of backwards looking dreamers to be born, and we'll get to go through it all again.

[Tab]

17. There are at least two.

There's socially conservative - traditional marriage, etc., and lots of people support it, between generally held attitudes, religious attitudes, etc.

And then there's fiscally conservative, and for the life of me, I can't imagine how the fiscal conservatives support this administration. It has been anything BUT fiscally conservative.

[Double T]

18. 'They' think being a supporter of the conservative movement is the......

road to riches and wealth. Perhaps it is, but at what cost??????

[ashling]

19. I have no idea why anyone would buy into

the conservative idiotology

[okieinpain]

20. because of dems / liberals supporting criminals, and allowing

social programs to get out of hand. I shouldn't say supporting criminals but these arguments about the death penalty and rehabbing really bad people can get really crazy. especially when we've had so many get out and repeat really horrible crimes.

[Swede]

21. Maybe we're born liberal or conservative?

I can't remember deciding to be a bleeding heart liberal. I just am.

[thefloyd]

22. Other thoughts on Conservative appeal

Conservatives project strength via military. However, we all know how many people that embody the conservative movement served. Also, some who have the self made man/women view believe others can work hard and achieve the same results regardless of where one started. Last thought,Conservatives are the party of god and if you vote for conservatives you are moral. Just my two cents

[Peace Patriot]

23. 58% of Americans opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion. I'll never

forget that stat. Feb. '03. 58%! (It's around 70% now.) 63% of the American people oppose torture "UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." (May '04.) Even after all this relentless fearmongering and warmongering, that many Americans are sticking to their sense of ethics and lawfulness and progressive values. Read the issue polls! You will be amazed. The great majority of Americans disagree with Bush on ALL issues, foreign and domestic (the Iraq war, torture, women's rights, Social Security, the deficit--you name it), across the board, in polls from many sources, over the last several years.

Then look at Bush's approval ratings over the last year--so low, prior the election, that Zogby said he couldn't win. Totally tanked today. The only approval he got was for a brief period after 9/11, when everyone was gripped with fear. Before that, people were disgusted with his tax cuts for the rich, and all the rest.

Then consider the non-transparent conditions of the 2004 election--Bushite corporations (Diebold and ES&S) counting all the votes with "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, in the new electronic election theft systems. The results of that secret vote tabulation were then confirmed by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, late on election day, when they FALSIFIED their exit polls to FIT that secretly tabulated result. Kerry won the real exit polls (by 3%) and that major evidence of election fraud was hidden from the American people.

I think what has happened is that these same war profiteering corporate news monopolies have given the rightwing a BIG TRUMPET to promulgate their views, way out of proportion to their numbers. I think the rightwing is about 30%, and, given a Democrat or a liberal proposal they don't like, an added component of voters (or supporters of some rightwing views) of about 10%. That's what all the issue polls and approval polls show. Rightwing views and support for Bush is 40%, or less.

i think it is arguable that Kerry won the election by about 10% (a blowout)--or at least by more than the 4% to 5% that is obvious from the real exit polls and other evidence. And part of the argument would be the issue and approval polls. Bush and the rightwing simply don't have majority support--never did, never will. That's why they have to fiddle elections. That's why they have to lie and propagandize. That's why they have to punish dissent--even going so far as to out a CIA agent (a treasonous act). They can't afford for the majority to speak, or to have anyone speak for them.

The problem is that so many progressives buy into the ILLUSION created by the corporate news monopolies that we are in the minority. We are not. But they make us feel depressed and disempowered because we THINK we are. We think other Americans have gone nuts. How can they buy this crap? But it isn't really true. We've been suckered into the fascists' most clever propaganda technique--isolating us, making us feel alone.

As for the 30% of hardcore fascists, and the 10% that waiver around, the latter have always been with us. I remember them from my youth (--the "Christian Anti-communist Crusade" out in their tents in the Mojave Desert, and the McCarthyites ("a communist under every bed")). I also know of them from history--the witch-hunters and witch-burners, and Calvinists and Puritans of old, and the power-mongering Inquisitors, and all their ilk.

American inherited a whole bunch of lunacy from Europe, which our Founders tried their best to keep out of our government. That doesn't mean they don't try to get back into power to strip the rest of us of human rights and freedom. As I said, they've always been with us--some sort of character flaw in northern Europeans, and maybe in humanity as a whole. "Christian" mass murderers of Iraqis. "Christian" torturers. "Christian" thieves of the poor. "Christian" gun nuts. Come on. It's lunacy--and very, very often contains a strong element of repressing sexuality, especially in women.

The war profiteers, and the global corporate predators, and their lapdog press, and their Diebold-selected politicians, are just USING this lunatic fringe as a way to get people to shut up and agree to be slave labor and cannon fodder for their profit-taking and their wars. The real powers have NO RELIGION. They believe in money and power. Period.

And I've been glad to have it overwhelmingly affirmed--by my close following of the polls and other measures--that most Americans want peace and justice, and good government, and have not gone bonkers with fear or religious zealotry.

No doubt, SOME feel confusion and fear about our multicultural society. America is a highly unusual, grand experiment at people with big differences living side by side, and it's not always easy. Some may also feel fear of the world in general, because they DON'T know the world. The news monopolies reinforce insularity and xenophobia. (For instance, when they cite the 2,000+ US solders killed in Iraq, they often leave out the tens of thousands of Iraqis whom we've killed, as if they don't count.) Confusion, fear, xenophobia can lead people to turn to religion as a crutch, and to seek out "conservative" values as a refuge from diversity, AND as a refuge from the truth: that "conservative" is hardly the word to describe Bush and his gang of mass murderers, thieves and traitors.

Is it "conservative" to run up a trillion dollar deficit? Is it "conservative" to gobble up every resource in the country to feed short-term profits? To cut down every tree, to pollute every waterway? Is it "conservative" to engage in arms dealing and drug dealing? Is it "conservative" to let our infrastructure--our schools, our hospitals, our fire and rescue services--deteriorate? Is it "conservative" to charge 29% interest on credit cards, and entice people to run up debt? Is it "conservative" to rip up a neighborhood and reconstruct it for cars and Wal-Mart? Is it "conservative" to run sweatshops in Asia, where people are little more than slaves, and bleed jobs from the homefront?

These are not "conservative values." These are the values of pirates and brigands--in their new guise as mega-corporations. And that can be VERY confusing to people, and cause them to feel that their whole world is out of whack. And this may result in some strange, contradictory beliefs ("family values" --how is robbing old people of heating oil in the winter a "family value"? how is underfunding our schools, to pay for an unjustified war, a "family value"?) There certainly are some people out there, who seek out religion in order to bury their heads in the sand (not to awaken their souls)--and who proclaim "conservative values" in a sort of hazy nostalgia for a world they can understand. Very mixed up people, suffering great pressures and mind-boggling discontinuities between what they want and what is real.

Pity the sincere and the genuinely fearful and confused. Scoff at the rest. And have faith that Americans as a whole--the vast majority--have NOT changed their values, and still believe in democracy, justice, peace and progress, as you and I do.

[pretzel4gore]

24. truth is complicated, while the lie is baseless

the lie, by its very existence, hides behind, within or near to truth, while truth must, in order to exist, be absolutely free of any such conveniences; it must stand alone and it must include all the twists, turns, explanations and esoterica involved in itself, therefore it, when it's a subject such as math or religion, requires mathameticians or priests, who themselves have spent time studying the aforementioned twists turns and esoterica- conmen, otoh, can just claim they're experts, or doctors, or soon, cuz they deal in lies. lies are easy, while the truth is, in the final analysis (most western philosophy stems in part, from this fact) impossible...