A View Of Republicans

[ThomWV]

Here is an honest view. I think that most people who consider themselves to be Republicans are honest hard working folks who's party has been hijacked by a ruthless bunch of meglamaniacs. I think that those good people vote Republican more as a matter of brand loyality than they do to promote idiology. There is not a thing in this world wrong with these people or their reasoning, they are just lazy.

I recently came to realized that most of the people that I know and talk to frequently who are Republicans were folks who, for the most part, had never read an Editorial or OpEd piece in any newspaper, ever. In fact I'd opine that very few of them could tell you the difference between an Editorial and an OpEd piece.

This occured to me too, were most of my Republican friends to take the time to take a look at the political philosophy of David Boaz they would find themselves a lot more in agreement than they would with Rush. Very few of them are mad about much of anything.

It also seems to me that I sense that most of them have this notion back in the deep recesses of their minds. They believe that the Democratic Party is the party of inner-city welfare receipients and wack-case tree huggers. They just can't immagine suburb-living, two-earner-family, couple of kids, lilly-white, church going Democrats. Can't immagine it a bit.

Without exception they think the Democratic party would be more than willing to let the nation fall into ruin or shrink under attack.

I for one do not know what to tell them to dispel any of these misunderstandings they have. Nothing seems to work.

[Skittles]

1. I think they are more bigotted and easily deceived than honest

I believe they have always been a bunch of selfish assholes who like to blame all their woes on gays, immigrants, welfare mothers when it is really republican policies that puts us in recessions and mortgages our future. Republicans make me sick.

[HereSince1628]

2. You can't change personality, but you can try to understand it

You've made a critical observation(if perhaps somewhat exaggerated in its reporting, every republican probably doesn't think our party would let the nation fall into ruin or run in the face of attack, although many may)

You captured it here...
"Without exception they think the Democratic party would be more than willing to let the nation fall into ruin or shrink under attack."

What you've correctly recognized is that that the republicans you know are motivated in their political orienatation by fear.

In an article published in May 03 issue of Psychological Bulletin, Jost et al identified FEAR as the most powerful personality trait associated with a person being a conservative. The article is titled "Political conservatism as socially motivated cognition." You can google the title and get to both pdf and html versions...

Now, you might say that being conservative and being republican aren't the same thing. Once upon a time I would have agreed with that, however, I know longer believe in the mythic liberal republican. I am having doubts that anything like a moderate republican exists. I do think we could describe a statistically average republican and that average descriptor would be conservative.

So, although the research on conservatism can't perfectly parallel republicanism, the statement of your republican contacts' fear suggests that you ARE dealing with conservatism.

So...expect them to be fearful, expect them to resist change, be dogmatic and to recreate history to provide a mythic Utopia with flawless leaders (free market capitalism and Ronnie Reagan). Expect them to prefer "doing SOMETHING" to thoughtful planning, and expect them to characterize the world in stark terms good vs. evil, black vs. white.