Why are Americans so damn conservative?

While this obviously dosen't apply to the people on this site, I always wonder why collectively Americans have strayed so much farther to the right than people in other first world countries.

Why exactly is it that people who embrace evangelical Christianity while opposing things like universal healthcare tend to wind up on this side of the pond? History? Demographic trends? National character? Something in the drinking water? (Turns out floridation was a left wing plot after all...)

I'm just curious if anyone has a good explanation for the red states...

My guess is apathy, and greed..... Who gives a shit about the war in Iraq and how many people are dying so long as I get to drive a Hummer.

since its inception and it is getting worse as more and more EU and Balkans and Russians with Facists tendencies are immigrating to the US, either becoming citizens or holding dual citizenships. Many have no investment in this nation by way of contributions to the society or family ties. They are the families of the EU and Balkan and Russian rich who have pilfered much of their wealth from the lands of Africa and South America. They are a type of sociopath who care only about themselves and their wealth and this nation is wreaking with them, especially in the mid-west and south west. Don't take my word for it, just check out the demographics for yourself. Their own countries are being inundated with immigrants who are undesireable to them but the socialist tendencies of their countries make it difficult for them to deal. They come to the US where they can comfortably discriminate, amass wealth, and carry on their orgnized criminal businesses with little or no accountability. Don't ask me how I know, because my family would be incriminated.

Scintillating. Tell us a little.

increasing numbers of a certain ethnic group?

When something unexpected and tragic happens people cling to religion and so called "traditional values". Just my opinion.

while shunning social programs for the poor. Those are traditional values?

I mean, hell, Europe was ruled by religion for hundreds of years yet somehow it's turned out alright.

The people who came to this country came here to have religious freedom. Turn around what do we get, fudamentalists pushing their values on a secular country.

but to me part of the reason.

Europe may have dealt with similar religious issues, but it wasn't founded by a mass of Puritans. A country founded by the Protestant ethic run amok, plus a strong sense of Rugged Individualism grown by a frontier (cowboy) fantasy, in my opinion, gets us where we are today.

Centuries of brutal religious persecution and conflict eventually turns people off to dogmatic, strict interpretations of religious beliefs.

conservative?

I remember one poll indicating a large number of Bush supporters who held views the opposite of his. They would have been Kerry supporters if they had understood which candidate they actually agreed with. This wasn't a case of letting one issue trounce the others; they thought Bush's positions were the opposite of what they were.

One reason for ignorance- when you're working 2 jobs, it's hard to keep track of politics.

I'm sorry, but that seems to be the basic situation for many people, including DUers, yet they haven't been swallowed in apathy and ignorance. Just as one example, my grandmother had eight young children running around and she still made time to read at least two newspapers every day. Although not formally educated, she was politically conscious and highly opinionated, long before one could access information instantly from hundreds of different sources on the Internet.

I did read the study to which you're referring, and it was one of the most disturbing that I've ever seen. I don't know what to do about people like that.

Americans still cling to the Horatio Alger story as a cherished sacrament of our culture despite the fact that the very people proclaiming the glories of the free market are the last ones to believe in it. Unfortunately, the average, Freeper-type conservative has been lulled into believing that hard work, dedication, and competence will result in success. Due to this, the working class Freeper has a sort of political and economic version of Stockholm Syndrome in which they identify more with their captors than the very people who are seeking a bette life for them. Many here look at Freepers with disgust, but to a degree, I pity the ignorant, mean spirited bastards. Think of how many Freepers are working at dead-end shit jobs while professing their love for Big Brother.

And the less educated less read you are, the more likely you are to believe the lies....

When you don't know squat, it is easier to fall into line with the most vocal idiots.

BTW, not all evangels are bad. Fundamentalists in any religion are the root of all problems.

* was able to wrap himself in it. People are too lazy and too disinterested to learn what's really going on. Others just can't believe that someone would lie about going to war. It's misplaced national pride. It's no excuse, but this is what is happening. If 9/11 had not happened, I doubt * would still be in the Oval Office (unless, of course, he cheted again. He wouoldn't do that, would he? :eyes: )

who thought that the old country was too liberal!

Two jobs, two kids, two car garage with a two hour daily commute and being two months away from living on the street make the average American more than willing to watch two hours of mindless TV each night that doesn't have to deal with the hell that their lives are.

Microwave the food and flick on the tube after a long day overworked and underpaid and a traffic jam on the way home to pick the kids at daycare for two grand a month.

It's no wonder people believe Chimpy. They're too exhausted and too clueless about what's going on outside their miserable lives.

political ideology

I am finding more and more that Americans are extremely self-centered.

 ...committed to delivering the electoral votes of Ohio to the President."
   Walden O'Dell, C.E.O. Diebold Corporation

And once they push through the DRAFT they'll own our bodies too.



That's what Boosh** really means about this "ownership" thing.

The "pendulum" only swings ever further to the right now.

The problem is perception of reality, and that is largely dictated by the news media. Who owns the news media? Thus, who has great influence on what people see, hear, and think? Who also influences the politicians with money and access to resources?

There's only one answer to all these questions. Find the answer, and you've identified your problem, and that's the first step towards liberating your fellow citizens from the system. (or the "matrix"?)

no universal health care, no 35 hour work week, no qualms invading other countries, no same sex marriage, minimal social safety net, and the heavy influence of fundamentalism in public discourse. The U.S. is off the scale to the Right when compared to other industrialized countries. It could be argued that the people themselves are moderate, but this isn't being reflected in the policies of their government.

...I do not say that as a knee-jerk remark, I mean there is within the American personality, a tendency to think in terms of the obvious Goodness of material wealth and also to fantasize about the world around us: we see ourselves with a "homey" kind of vision, where there is this lovely middle class amber glow cast across the USofA, and that is Reality As We See It and we are happy to believe all that is told to us by our beneficient government from whom so many blessings flow, as well as to rally 'round any warmongering that may occur; and finally, we have an oddly strained relationship with the truth where our own immediate self interest and the status quo are concerned: we simplly insist on seeing things from the side that supports our own immediate self interest.

but they voted against their self interest! i think that the shrub voters think they are part of the right wing elite . . . and that their ship will be coming in any time now.

ellen fl

The country was founded as a colonial endeavor. Colonies are about harnessing material wealth and handing it to a small class of rulers, who use it to gratify themselves. Colonial societies have formulations of religion that justify social and political oppression and killing of people unlike themselves. They tend invariably to be magical/occultic and impute demonic possession to people opposed to themselves. Economic oppression is the logical extension. Technological advantage tends to be a major factor at the beginning of the process and an ideology of outpopulating the Others as well as retaining technological advantage remains throughout. That's U.S. history to 1900.

Colonial societies run into problems when their expansionism is halted, their Messianism denied, and their triumphalism broken. They run out of purpose when, then, their natural resources and human resources are maximally utilized/exhausted. They then engage in wierd mutual exploitation schemes- Ponzi and the like- that undermine stable economies. That's what happened to the U.S. between 1870 and 1930.

Noncolonial -native- societies tend to be adaptive and insularly conservative/preserving rather than bent on conquest of problems and obstacles and innovative/destructive. The U.S. has pretended to be a society of people of native character since about 1900- this is why the reactionary yahoos all wave the Stars and Stripes, but nonetheless they sell off their parents' farms to housing developers as soon as the price is high enough. This is also a country where, unlike most others, being 'a businessman' or being a management sort is considered admirable rather than assumed to constitute a way of life characterized by cheating and lying. The dollar is the true entity and dignity of American social life. This is also why being 'patriotic' and yet not wanting to fight for the U.S., and while being a respectable member of society not actually obeying or wanting to obey its Constitution, is socially acceptable. Failure to be a fellow believer in this makes you either a dupe or 'Un-American'. This is American society from ~1900 until the present.

Colonial societies come to an end when either the colonial overlord class is semi-assimilated or expelled, as in India/Pakistan and Latin America, or the native population takes control and the colonizers become the political minority, i.e. Rhodesia and South Africa. The transition period is highly messy. The U.S. will probably become minority white around 2050 and Latino people intermarrying with whites, blacks, and Asians will be what caves in racial segregation. The U.S. entered into this demographic shift around 1980.

The problem with colonial societies, as in the American South, that are very much intact is twofold. One is inherent- when the material limit is reached, when there is nothing left to exploit, there's really only causing trouble elsewhere (i.e. Halliburton, or 'missionary' work) or local sociopathy left for the Believer. That we'll call the South African approach- annoying the opponents of The System into resistance, then fighting them as a kind of time filler. The other is the Modern Age- the breakup of the colonialist social order and its internal arrangements caused by failure to believe its ideology by increasing numbers of people within it. We hit that first point in the late Fifties, or so, and it explains Nixon as well as Goldwater and the 'counterculture'/1968. The second started to bear in hard with the end of the Cold War, ~1990, and is the reason for the political polarization of American society for the past fifteen years. And no colonial social or economic order will survive the transition to the Modern.

Equal protections and due process given all groups. Diminishing/dying out of the preexisting and transition stages- e.g. first generation feminism, 'ghetto'-defined social groups, the 'Christian' subculture attempt, cult groups, redneckism, pro/anti abortion movements, closeted homosexuality, pro/anti gun, pro/anti drug people. All that is solid melts into air- the Divine Order Of Life will vanish, the universals of anthropology and psychology and sociology and religion will remain. The hatred of mankind and of people excused in the name of a petty and jealous Nature God will yield, the theocrats will be discredited, humanism and post-theistic religion will become the center.

Economic adjustments to match follow on social developments. A fairly comprehensive safety net forms...but pretty strong incentives will form to be productive/creative, I figure social ones. People will stop touting that they are Believers in theories and some utopian notions of Heaven after suffering this existence, and they will start Doing and Living more intensely and carefully.

Ethnic integration will become obvious to everyone and be evidently unstoppable- young people won't even 'get' why their elders were so determinedly against it. Latino people intermarry all groups, to my knowledge that's the social center of the phenomenon. White people will begin to 'disappear'- and so will black and Asian people. It will become a continent of people who look rather a lot closer to its original inhabitants, red/brownish in skin tones and black hair, with a wider range of diversity.

That's the future I think will seem obvious and immediate around 2020. American historical cycles are about 75 years- a lifetime- in length; our present one started between 1941 and 1948, it is 'about' the society living up to the 14th Amendment guarantees and Modernity. Hell, there might even be a decision in there to become a civilization- even if it's a second choice to a lot of people who just can't do without empire.

The next cycle will be larger stuff. My guess is that it will be a fight to end the sociopolitical privileges of the corporation (the last institution of the colonial system), coupled to the ending of structural poverty. Its scope is most or all of the Americas, and the Constitutional issue involved could be the limitations imposed by the English language.

Structural poverty involves organizational and historical-political factors: political instability, unmatured economies, colonial social orders, lack of resource commitment to education. But a fundamental factor greatly obscured by these is: mental disorders and traumas. We have what amounts to a primitive technology to deal with mental disorders at present, biomedically, and immature therapies. That's the technology that needs a great deal more good work. Since 1945 great advances have taken place in extending physical life for average people; in 2010 or 2020 or 2030 I think we shall see (if we get that far) great advances starting in the extending/restoration of mental life for average people.

The other major crisis we will have to face is the end of petroleum. It's going to be pretty expensive, but some massive amount of nuclear power generation will become the norm. It will be used to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels- which are far too practical to be dispensed with- from e.g. coal, and power desalination plants. In turn, large rural areas will be returned to wilderness and/or forested again.

Need I say more?

Extreme Christianity is total selfishness: save me and fuck them; they're inferiors anyway. Hell, you can't be picked from the crowd for happyland if the rest of them aren't such rotters.

Think about it.

pendulum swing, media manipulation, right wing strategy, the ease of doing nothing, perception, some peoples values, theres so many reasons.

contamination or other factors that affect the brain's function.

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church lose its membership to these large mega churches--often called the "contemporary Christian movement" or "non-denominationalism" (Of course they are a denomination--far right and fundamental.)

The large church shifted from a community focused message (what can we do for the community in terms of feeding the poor and helping local families) to a hardline "witnessing" message. Big churches need big money and a LOT of members who attend regularly. Members are still encouraged to feed the poor, but most of the sermons focus on witnessing to your neighbor and bringing them into the flock.

This contemporary Christian movement has been in the works for over two decades--many traditional churches have added contemporary services to compete with the mega churches, often bringing rightwing fundamentalist ideas into the mainstream Christian tradition.

I fear where this is headed--I've lived among these people and their belief system is frightening.

Most Americans are just so uninterested that they go for whoever tells most, nicest, and most convincing lies. That is why the Republicans have been so successful (and 9/11, of course).

B/c of our conservative-biased media feeding them propaganda.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

We all know that. Its propagand, or coprporate news or the best we have, like CBS is often too timid for fear of appearing too "left wing." So we have no real TV news. And people have become lazy. A lot less of them read newspapers anymore. I know so many college educated, professional people who have no clue what they are voting for. They want their privacy and believe in other things we support but they voted for Bush because he is "such a decent guy and he is tough on terrorism" or some other equally stupid reason. These people are not proactive when it comes to getting informed. Instead they tune into Faux or Conservative radio stations and that is their only source of "news." Rather than being curious and skeptical, as most Americans used to be, these people are content to have their news spoon fed to them like little babies being fed Pablum. No thought or analytical skills needed. Just listen and you will know what to think because the guy on the tube or radio will tell you what you need to think.

it's smoke and mirrors.

I have found that the difference between MANY "liberals" and "conservatives" is that conservatives put on a fake public face of coservatism but in private they still have their "sinning" lifestyles (gay sex , banging the babysitter)which includes using their AARP card for discounts in hotels despite calling it a communist organization in public. I am related to these people, I see it.

super-rich. Rich people have a tendancy to think they owe nobody anything.

,...to adopt their baseless assertion that they are "so damn conservative".

Ya' think? :shrug:

Its like solinvictus said, there are people who believe that working hard, playing by the rules, and thinking positive is all you need to succeed and those that don't are lazy, dishonest, and negative. Of course, they explain their lack of success by explaining they're working toward that goal and the payoff will be coming with patiences.

The problem with this gullible view is that you can work hard, play by the rules, and think positive and still get screwed over ... the problem most of these Repukes have is that rather than squaring away the fact that their expectations of the world is a little unrealistic they blame others for the reason the world doesn't match their ideals

Makes us too isolated and has prevented us from seeing the horrors of war.

Just incredibly ignorant. So-called conservatives are just better at pulling their strings.

that's come about from having over fifty tv channels - all of them crap - to pick from. Add video games and DVDs into the mix. Toss in a big dose of rightwing propaganda being spewed from AM radios everywhere. Put "People" magazine on newsstands.

Provide low wage, no benefit jobs for the masses forcing them to struggle to get by. When they return to their heavily mortgaged house or overpriced rental for the evening "collapse ritual," expect them to turn to one of the above for escape. Rightwing nutcases on the radio are especially vital because they reinforce the idea that all of the problems people are experiencing are the fault of "godless commie liberals." It's no accident that Rush calls his listeners "Dittoheads."

In other words create a society where people are uninformed, and one in which thinking original thoughts is at best unnecessary and at worst unpatriotic, and you've arrived in the modern day United States. The founding fathers would weep.

that's what I see

"Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king."

--Sideshow Bob on the "The Simpsons" after committing voter fraud
Episode 2F02 : Sideshow Bob Roberts

Ask any Independent or moderate Republican what W stood for. You will get a definite answer (even though its mostly based on Rove's lies to hide the true agenda). Now ask the same people what Kerry stood for. Silence. Ask them what the Democrats stand for. Either more silence or you hear the Fox News and Rush caricature.

We need a message. Here are some good places to start:
The Principles Project - http://principlesproject.com/
SFAM - http://sfam.blogspot.com
Political Strategy (Framing Project) - http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001118.php

:think:

Red states: Civil War? :shrug:

I think Americans are not well informed. I think many Americans are being told who to vote for by their churches. It is hard to understand why so many Americans would vote against their own self interests by voting republican. A lot of it has to do with the popularity of right wing "hate radio" shows, right wing newspapers, and of course, Faux News.

The republicans are doing the same thing to this country that Hitler did to Germany before and during WW2. They use hate propaganda. They target homosexuals, environmentalists, poor people, old people, people with disabilities, minorities, and Liberals as the enemy. Just like Hitler did with the Jews.

along with most other Democratic policies. They are uninformed, however, and vote republican because republicans package their message better.

IMO, this book is mandatory reading if Democrats are ever going to run a successful candidate.

According to the author, Thomas Frank (who was once a right winger himself), there is a broad segment of Americans who are in a state of perpetual backlash -- they are pissed off at the fact that most of their "culture" comes from both Coasts, and it doesn't feel all-inclusive. They also feel that they've been ignored and talked down to by a partly-real, partly imagined cultural establishment, to the extent that people voting right-wing actually feel righteously rebellious in their position.

The GOP is running the table on the social-issues vote. Note that, weirdly, the economy has little to do with the way most of the Red Staters are voting. Even though Red State jobs are drying up, and farms are in hock, these folks continue to lurch ever rightward, voting **completely** against their own economic interests, making the fat-cats even fatter, etc.

This does not mean that the Democratic Party has to veer rightward, too. IMO, the first thing to do is for DP bigwigs to get their asses out into the Red States, and states that went Blue by narrow margins, and start **listening** to people. When there's trouble in marriages or relationships, usually one or the other party (or both) isn't actively listening. This is a basic, fundamental step in repairing damage in communication.

It's enormously complex and deep-rooted, but it's not an insurmountable problem, IMO.

Just my nickel's worth.

I know this sounds way over simplified, but Americans have collectively grown to believe they and they alone are entitled to EVERYTHING. They shouldn't have to work weekends, but someone should be around to answer to their beck and call when they get a wild hair up their ass to get a haircut, buy a car, have their eyes examined, catch a cold, or want a Pepsi, and they damn well better speak English because they live in AMERICA! Oh, and the people serving these Americans should do so with a smile on their face at all times and God forbid they DARE have a bad day in front of the public. That is so uppity of them to assume they have a right to be HUMAN! AMERICA has become like a religion for some Americans.

I am not saying all American's believe this, but take an adventure into the suburbs and deal with the children of moderately successful Americans and you will understand what I mean when I say this. As a parent who teaches her children that they are no more entitled to ANYTHING than anyone else is, this is the most difficult battle I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Evangelical Christians are particularly prone to this belief. They have begun to believe the rhetoric their churches and politicians throw at them so much that they have truly become a religion that practices something the Bible expressly forbids. Evangelicals don't just attempt to recruit people to their religion. They now actively attempt to HURT people who refuse the offer! BTW, the rhetoric is that THEY are GOD'S CHOSEN. There is no room in their God's kingdom for those that are different from them. God NEVER names ONE exclusive group or religion that is his "chosen" group in the Bible. In fact he explicitly says EVERY single group and/or religion has flaws that could exclude them from heaven if they focus on them as the meaning of God's words.

I am not an Evangelical. I used to call myself a Catholic but that no longer describes me. I even tried calling myself, just a Christian but lately THAT feels like a dirty word. I have this sense of a world that has grown beyond "traditional" religion and a desperate group of religions attempting to give Americans a reason to believe that all the accumulated knowledge of the past 2000 years really doesn't disprove the need for "religion" and the traditional Bible. I have finally reached a point where I can accept that I have a right, indeed a duty, to believe that God gave us science to help point us in the right direction and make our existence here on earth better.

Anyone got a clue how threatening that is to religious leaders? that is why they are desperately preaching "traditional" religious beliefs at all costs and that is why Americans are being bribed into conservative ism (not a word I know)

Folks in rural areas are not around other and different people as much as urban folks are and therefore do not really understand how to live in a multi-cultural environment as their environment is a uni-culural one, usually. It may consist of work, their family, church, close friends, and what the TV feeds them.

Imho.

an doan hold wit no book lerners tellin um what to THANK when its all laid out in tha BIBLE.

An that floridashun is why dem KIDS got all they TEEF, thinkin they better than folks. If that ain a librul plot, I doan know whut. Tha BIBLE doan say nuffin about havin TEEF when yer 40 an thinkin you all high an mighty. Tha BIBLE says if you knock out a TOOF, you gots to knock out anudder one, and after a few years a SHINE and MEFF, that ain no TEEF lef.

They are just not as "liberal' as the left is portrayed by the corporate media. Why would they choose a snake like GW Bush over a war hero, otherwise?

The right wing has skillfully exploited the biases and fears of White Americans. From "Welfare Queens", gays in the military, "latchkey kids", what have you. It's all about making mainstream Murkins think that somehow they can return to this nonexistent 1950's paradise where men are in charge and the women and darkies know their place.

With ours being a more business run society. When TV was invented and the public owned airwaves were to be used, in most countries, they had the government run them for the benefit of the public. The US gave them free of charge to business to make profit. The same with radio. Business propaganda RULES in this country and it has had the desired effect. When anything starts to empower large groups of people, business goes to gov. and gets it stopped. In the thirties every rural county had a grange hall and there were public meetings. Those grange halls still exist but town hall meetings are a thing of the past. Our country has by far the most violent labor history of ANY industrial country. In 1877, the year of the great upheaval, when railroad strikes crippled the country, they called out the ARMY and they shot striking railroad workers all across the country. With this abject control business goes about the business of convincing Americans that there is no alternative to following their agenda. That the only way they can be helped is to oppose the policies that would help them directly and maybe, possibly by helping business, they will help themselves indirectly, no matter how illogical this is, a large portion of Americans seem to buy it and thats because its the only side of the story they hear.

Why did the Germans support the Nazis?

There's a lot more stupidity here than in Canada, Japan and Australia, and the countries of Europe. Now, the question becomes, Why is there more stupidity here? That, I can't answer.

excessive wealth.

IMHO, The Repuke "echo-chamber" has done a fantastic job defining liberalism by the extremes in our party. We have not.

Because of that being called a "liberal" is like being called a "serial killer". You see, we're EVIL! Liberals are to be shunned like terrorist, communist, and despots. Think I'm wrong?? Then I urge you to go to the local bookstore and pick up Hannity tome "Deliver Us From Evil, Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism", or Coulters "How to Talk to a Liberal, If You Must" where liberals are accused of everything from the Lindbergh kidnapping, to the Holocaust.

It's past time we began defining conservatism by it's extremes.

That's why every chance I get I emphasize "BTK Killer=Typical Republican Voter"

I'm tired of playing nice.

great answer to your original question.


What's the Matter with Kansas by Thomas Frank

http://www.qpb.com/doc/full_site_enrollment/detail/fse_product_detail.jhtml?repositoryId=851170B102