I, like most, was seriously deflated after the loss in Wisconsin. We had tried so hard to make the case for collective bargaining rights. It was like a dream. A governor of a state can meet with a billionaire, be caught on tape, and then say how he wants to pit neighbor against neighbor, and then gets support from his state. How did this happen? Walker is backed by billionaires, who aren't giving him money just because they like his slightly dumb look. What happened to Americans? Corruption is dangling in their faces, but they're spending most of their time worried about the new blueberry oatmeal at McDonald's. Who exactly are we dealing with in November, and how do we keep from being blanketed in a false sense of security?
There are the old people, in their 60s and above, who have Fox News on in the background 24/7. They've spent most of their lives working very hard for their families, but they've sacrificed a lot of what they wanted to do in the interim and haven't lived out all their dreams. Now that they have a lot more time, they find new social cliques and the authoritarian, super glossy, Aryan look of Fox News is comforting and appeals to them. Many of these people were in the army, so a lot of the Americana that Fox Noise spouts at them is familiar. Then, the droning starts. They start sending you rancid political emails and it makes it almost impossible to talk to them.
Then there are the people making $75,000 who claim to be moderate with libertarian leanings, but really haven't examined their far right views well enough to understand how bat shit they are. They think that a hospital has a right to leave a patient to die because it'll raise their hospital bill, and they hate the fact you point out they are an asshole for it. These people are miscreants, but they have money and they're not going to lose it, so as long as they feel like winners, better to beat down the losers. Many of these people are just plain bullies and get their jollies from beating up on other people. When you point out to them that killing 70 million Iranians is horrific genocide and that the Iraq war has left a country in shambles, they fall back on the terrorists are going to get us meme. You can see a faint glimmer of humanity in them, but then the right wing machine gets going, and well, there you have it.
Then there are the superior centrists. These people are not real moderates, they like to feel superior and above the fray by claiming no allegiance to a party and saying "everyone does it." These people love politifact and such sites, even though politifact screws up a lot and trips over their own tongues trying not to appear too partisan even when Republicans blatantly lie. The Lawrence O'Donnell fact check where politifact discredited his true remark because the word "dole" was used instead of "welfare," despite being equivalent words, is the superior centrist mindset. It's a sort of mix of intellectual laziness and simply not being of the mindset that there is such a thing as the truth, where party A is for X and party B is for Y, and that they do in fact do different things. Barack Obama is not rich in the same way Mitt Romney is, so they don't treat them the same, but you'll have Andrea Mitchell saying otherwise.
The real threat here though, are not these known values, but that 20% of Democrats who always seems to go against the party in everything they think and do, but still call themselves Democrats. Walker/Obama supporters are an absolute mystery. They just didn't think that there should have been a recall election in the first place, whether or not they agree with Walker and his agenda of selling out Wisconsin to private interests. They believe the spin. "Walker balanced my states budget, and for that I thank him." Sadly, he didn't, he plugged his budget holes with money he was supposed to use for helping underwater home owners, and the gigantic cuts in government simply send the economy into an economic spiral as a section of the population no longer participates in the larger economy the way they used to. His budget isn't balanced, but you just believe it is because the nice authoritarian man said so. All you have left are pro-corporate serfs who are somehow okay with making $25,000 a year with no health care and a pension that can be raided at will, so long as no one makes a fuss and they don't have to think for themselves.
Obama will win and he's doing well in the polls, but we mustn't be complacent about our chances, nor underestimate the ability of our fellow Americans to confuse issues and not share our values. People use SS, Medicaid, and Medicare, child tax credits, go to great public schools, and then turn around and vilify public workers and people they feel "don't work" while taking all the goods for themselves. It makes no sense to us, but other people don't share our priorities, and we must always remember that.
