Anatomy of a Bush Voter

Who is this creature that has condemned us to four more years of Bush? The Bush Voter is the end result of decades of work by our media system. He/she is a perfect example of a brainwashed American. Not all are perfectly brainwashed; some even suspect that something is wrong with their worldview — they just can’t put their finger on it. There are 58 million of these folks, and, because he is one of them, they have elected that fucking chimp back into office.

He’s always right

Bush never changes his mind and he never makes mistakes. Why should you doubt him? He doubtless has our best interests at heart, because he is one of us. He’s “authentic”.

The Bush Voter has been told over and over again, by the radio and the television, that the worst thing one could do is to change one’s mind about Bush Why? Because we need “resolve”. We need to “stay the course”. Changing your mind is bad, because it shows weakness to the enemy. The important thing is to lead, “steadfastly” and “resolutely”, somewhere — it doesn’t matter where. Sense of purpose is the important thing, not actual purpose. It’s more important to want to do something than to actually accomplish it.

Plus, and this is a big one for some people, because the Hollywood liberals would love it if you agreed with them. They should stick to acting, because they don’t know anything about politics. They’re all stupid and should just leave the politics to the politicians. Thinking is hard; let someone else do it.

To a Bush Voter, not voting for Bush, or even questioning anything he does, makes you the enemy. If you don’t think he’s good for America, then you are wrong. There is no middle ground and there are no reasonable arguments against Bush; it’s all liberal hysteria, making the world look worse than it is.

Facts are for pussies

Bush is a straight shooter who is “authentic” and has “morals”. That’s hard to swallow until you realize how liberating it is to be unhinged from reality. The scientific method, and it’s tiresome pleas for “proof”, just gets in the way. The world is easier to understand when reduced to one or two simple details. Simply repeat them until all else ebbs away. Repeat them loudly until everyone agrees. Then it magically becomes true.

And, please, remember, it does not matter if the facts you’ve chosen to believe are true. That’s where the faith comes in. That’s where our “advanced” society has done us the disservice of preventing people with world-views completely disjoint from reality from dying spectacularly horrible deaths when reality comes a knockin’.

In the old days, if you didn’t believe in gravity, you would die when you walked off a cliff, confident that God would save you. Most people are clever enough to know, subconsciously, that that’s not true. They’ve made up a little excuse for it, explaining why God won’t help in that particular case.

That was then. Today, we have a society that prevents people like that from hurting themselves for an extremely long time, letting them get old enough to vote. This is a society of lemmings, reacting to primitive stimuli. If Bush said that gravity was something that only the French paid attention to, there are 58 million people in the US who would stop worrying about falling down.

Granted, you can’t stimulate them with just anything. That was proven by Kerry, and Gore before him. You have to appeal to their basest, most selfish instincts. If you say that countries in which the government runs the health care system tend to run it for a lot less than private companies can, they’ll nod and seem to agree. If you then tell them that government-run health care is a French, socialist idea under which they end up paying for poor people’s health care, your “facts” about other countries’ health care systems have become lies meant to delude. You’ll be lucky to get through the next 24 hours without a visit from the Secret Service.

This ploy works, apparently, even if the person is poor and would actually benefit from the idea. The Bush Voter has no idea what his own interests are. That’s why he can vote against them so consistently.

Environment’s falling apart? Bush says the “skies are cleaner than ever”. Vietnam II in Iraq? Bush says “freedom is on the march”. Worse than before in Afghanistan? Bush says “freedom is on the march” (it’s multi-purpose!) Crime and poverty spiraling out of control? Bush says that “America is safer than before”. Terrorism on the rise? Bush says we’ve caught “75% of Al-Qaida” No money for schools or health care or anything? Bush says tax cuts are good because “you’ve got more money in your pocket”. No job, no money, a lot of debt? Bush says the economy is “back on track” and better than ever. America’s reputation in the toilet? Bush says he couldn’t care less.

As soon as you delve further into an issue than one sentence, you’re already too complex for the Bush Voter. As soon as you dare to suggest that something Bush wants can’t be done, you are, at best, a nattering nabob of negativism, and, at worst, a communist and a fool. As Victory! (WhiteHouse.Org) put it, Bush simply tells them a story: “Once upon a time… George W. Bush killed the Bogey Man, then made everyone rich. The end.”

Or a terrorist, traitor or anti-American. If you’re one of these, chances are you’ve made an argument that actually threatened to convince them that they, and their fearless leader, might be wrong. For a split second they realized that, at some point, big, bad reality is going to crash their party. The typical response is anger and derision. Pity that “you just don’t get it” is also popular.

God is on Bush’s side

Bush was right about one thing. God won him this election.

If you look closely at the cartoon above, the stars on the flag are replaced with a cross. It is Bush’s blatant appeal to fanaticism that won him the election. It is these people that can easily reconcile directly conflicting ideas, but only if they come from Bush. Abortion is bad. Stem cell research is bad. Killing people in foreign lands … doesn’t exist … it’s exaggerated … it’s a liberal myth … it’s anti-American hogwash put forth by traitors. Hence, not bad.

These people voted their faith; they voted to prevent stem-cell research rather than for education and health-care for their kids. They voted against gay marriage rather than for not getting their kids needlessly killed in combat (though Kerry wasn’t going to help here). They voted against women’s choice rather than for an economy that won’t implode in four years.

This is drastically short-term thinking. Mention that the environment can’t handle four more years of Bush and they look at you like you have two heads for thinking out that far. The phrase “rose-colored glasses” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Chatting with the Bush Voter

I ordinarily welcome other opinions, but the real Bush Voter will not discuss anything with you. Data is irrelevant, so what’s to discuss? You either believe or you don’t. It’s views held so deeply, depsite everything, that it’s more like religious conviction. Faith explains everything. Anything that doesn’t gel with their worldview is simply not accepted, regardless of how blatantly true it is.

The Bush Voter thinks Saddam was behind 9/11. The Bush Voter thinks another attack could come at any time. In Smalltown, USA. The Bush Voter thinks Iraq, though tragic, had to be done. The 100,000 dead Iraqis is an exaggeration. The 1 million dead Iraqi children since the end of the first war is a liberal lie. If they have even heard about these things. The media provides one layer of filtering and their belief does the rest. The Iraqis are animals that let their children die. They need to be taught not to be savages. By us. So we can enlighten them with our “freedom”.

The Bush Voter’s world view is built out of a few “facts”. Anything that does not agree with those ideas is either evil and must be destroyed or simply does not exist. As with their leader, being told there is something that they don’t know is the deepest affront possible. Other ideas are a threat that must be eliminated. If you know anything that they don’t, you are a “know-it-all” and can be safely ignored. Intelligence is a handicap; ignorance, as they say, is bliss. Or, if not exactly bliss, at least self-satisfied and confident. “Resolved”, as it were.

If George Bush raped and killed someone on the White House lawn, the Bush Voter would blame it on Clinton.

We’ll get ‘em next time

For the rest of us, we simply have to make sure that there are fewer Bush Voters around in four years. Otherwise, we’ll get Giuliani or Schwarzenegger for president. That is, if we even still get to vote. It’s kind of sad that we have to look forward to the next election already. Its kind of fitting, too, that the year the Red Sox finally don’t have to say “we’ll get ‘em next time”, the rest of us have to start.

All unattributed quotes above come from various Bush speeches.