|
Even as Bush goes around the country, from one supporter-filled town hall to the next, he is not gaining any support for his plan to privatize social security. I am quite baffled by this, as it seems to me that Bush/Rove would not champion something unless they knew it was going to be a sucess for them. Even though the corporate donors are surely pushing Bush to get this through congress, I don't think that Rove would choose to sacrifice the party's chances in '06 on this.
Enter Frank. I was reading What's the Matter with Kansas last night. One of his theories is that the Republicans are insituting a class struggle based on culture, not economics, the so-called Cultural Civil War, also discussed in Lakoff's work. One of the major tenants of this theory is that the "Middle Americans" view themselves as always on the losing side of a nation-wide cultural war between themselves and the "liberals." They represent everything about good, tradtional, American values. Liberals represent snobby, latte-drinking overlords of the American cultural behemoth that is always advancing their pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-sex, anti-Christian values in to the American culture, as viewed in Hollywood movies, on TV, and in modern fiction. Obviously this is preposterous because the people they vote for support the people who _own_ this fiction, but that is not important. It's what the people who vote for Bush perceive that is important.
So I propose, in order to perpetuate this view of "Middle Americans" being victims to the "Liberal Machine," Bush champions a seemingly winnable issue to most of his supporters in the flyover, while being a seemingly lose-lose issue to most people in mainstream politics and mainstream culture, the very people these Bush supporters view to be the "liberal machine." Granted, some of Bush's supporters do not support the cause themselves, but the conservative conservatives will ignore this because it does not fit in to their frame of being victims to the liberals. The end result, when the social security plan does not materialize, is that the heartland of America will feel themselves to be victims of the liberals once again.
|