The Hill, noted for the record last week:
Nearly half of Republican voters say that ACORN – the community organizing group that closed in 2010 – aided in stealing the 2012 election for President Obama, according to a new poll released Tuesday.The survey, conducted by Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling, found that 49 percent of GOP voters believe that the president did not legitimately win reelection because ACORN interfered with the vote. A full 50 percent of Republicans said Democrats engaged in some sort of voter fraud.
More from Public Policy Polling’s election aftermath polling memo:
Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren’t sure.One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we’ve seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%. [Pols emphasis]
“Swastika Guy,” circa February 2009.
Almost from the moment President Barack Obama took office, the opposition to his agenda took on an extreme, overheated sense of urgency on the right. Political rhetoric on the right evoked a sense of desperation trending toward outright rebellion–generally based on false, and often hysterical, predictions of what Obama’s agenda would mean for the country.
This irrational radicalization of the grassroots right wing reached its peak during the passage of health care reform legislation and the 2010 election cycle. The fact is, “Obamacare” as finally passed by Congress and signed into law is a far cry from true left-wing aspirations for health care reform, and has more in common with conservative proposals for reforming health care from the Heritage Foundation (or Mitt Romney) than anything one can legitimately call “socialized medicine.” This resulted in a situation where liberal base Democrats were nonplussed by Obama for “giving away too much,” while the right wing painted Obama as a “communist” unfettered by objective facts about his very much centrist actual policies.
Today, their failure is evident everywhere. The intense four-year campaign to irrationally vilify Obama is bankrupt. Only a declining number of hardcores (see poll) are not aware of this.
But those hardcores aren’t going away. Indeed, they think they define “true conservatism.”
We’re not saying this one poll is gospel, but a drop in Republican self-identification, if it’s corroborated and if it continues, could portend an historic re-alignment–real upheaval in the party, or perhaps even a new party to represent the half of America with ideologically conservative predispositions. Among many Democrats at least, there’s a sense that the GOP is permanently marginalizing itself, hastening an irrelevance for political conservatism that many even on the left would say doesn’t fairly represent the views of our ideologically divided nation.
If that’s what must happen, the question is, how many elections will it take? The answer is almost certainly more than the one we just finished. It’s not going to be pretty. The traditional Republican core of wealthy business interests has always required a coalition with other popular movements to survive, but they chose poorly in subsidizing the “Tea Party”–the latest iteration of the John Birch radical right they used to be much better about keeping at arm’s length.
Like we said last week, Republican elites who would like nothing more than to euthanize the “Tea Party” now that it is no longer useful can’t do so–because as this poll indicates, the irrational grassroots they whipped into a froth in 2010 have a life of their own. This is their base now.
And if it is pushing the GOP out of the American mainstream, nobody is stopping it yet.
It’s not a question of will voters change their views. That will continue but most of it has already occurred. The big change is due to demographics – every day old people die and young people reach age 18 and can vote. And that shift over the next several year will decimate the percentage identifying as Republican.
of Republicans polled definitely want their states to remain in the United States of America? That’s pretty stunning.
I’ve seen this voter fraud claim before but I haven’t seen it accompanied by specific allegations of specific cases. No allegations that voting machines in specific places were tampered with or boxes of uncounted mail-in ballots from R leaning precincts were found in a landfill, etc.
I suspect their proof of voter fraud goes something like this. The lying mainstream and Dem leaning polls said Obama would win and they always lie. Our polls were fair and balanced and said Romney would win. Since Obama did win, it can only be because the election was stolen.
No wonder Republican identification is shrinking. Almost half of what’s left has already seceded, not yet from the country but from reality. So much for the effort to broaden the party’s appeal. The base appears to be doubling down on driving out minorities, young people and women.
They expected to win this time by suppressing the Dem leaning vote and just can’t believe all those “urban” (minority) voters were successfully “pulled out of their apartments” (where they imagine all minorities live) to vote and actually stayed in line for hours to do so. So they’ve decided it didn’t really happen that way.
As demographic change continues and their voter suppression strategy proves ineffective, how do they expect to win next time and the time after, outside of their safe gerrymandered CDs? Rejecting loyalty to country and denigrating everyone but a shrinking pool of angry white men is no way to attract the votes they’ll need to survive as a national party. On the other hand, losing the crazies now means losing most of their base. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of monster creators.
I don’t really care if there is a “new party to represent the half of America with ideologically conservative predispositions.” Calling BS, Guvs. The fact that Republicans have engineered their own destruction cannot be separated from their whole movement’s essential moral bankruptcy and lack of redeeming goodness. It is one and the same.
The true GOP agenda has strayed so far from the interests of the majority that maybe it’s just time for them to burn, then exist as a semi-permanent minority for awhile. Maybe fuck ‘em.
Like a tax incentive to denounce their citizenship? Anyone that no longer wants to be an American because their side lost an election needs to know they have the opportunity to make that happen, and I say we should help them.
Call it as Twitty’s job stimulus program.
Give the sorry losers (for want of a better term) a tax write off for the expenses it takes for them to leave at the earliest opportunity (excluding any oversea expenditures), thus injecting money into the U.S. economy and opening up employment opportunities.
Well, I mean unless its all just talk. Then it wouldn’t work.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/dan-froomkin/republican-lies-2012-election_b_2258586.html?icid=hp_search_art
Run! It’s the Zombie CORN!
This is yet one more example that despite how smart we are as a species (at least relative to most other animals), despite our technologiws,and art accoimplishments, we can be stunningly stupid.
Making up the “fact” that ACORN, a tiny, defunct activist group, could steal an election – without leaving a trace – is just like religion. Making up “facts” without evidence.
And these unfactual facts are impossible to let go of. People die to prove that their hallucinations are true and yours aren’t. People, humans, discuss these unfacts with passion and duration, yet there is not one shred of evidence.
And people wonder why I’m a cynic?
What’s happening to the Democratic Party?
It seems to me that the words “progressive” and “liberal” are no longer considered frightening labels in the party at large. Maybe the tenets of this “fringe” are becoming more mainstream in the party? Or have Democrats who hew to the left, and have always been there, lost their fear of “coming out”? (If Bill Clinton were to declare today, “The era of big government is over.” he’d be showered with demands to, at the least, explain himself.)
It’s commonly accepted that the Democratic Party is more unified–in its diversity, yet–than ever before. Why? It can’t be only because Republicans are silly.
Did the Occupy Movement touch our guilt and awaken our more progressive instincts? Have liberals finally worked through their battered spouse syndrome? Why are blue dogs no longer as handsome as yellow dogs?
Besides my jealousy that Republicans are having so much fun navel picking, it seems to me Democrats too should be studying themselves, so down the road we can replicate this seeming reincarnation–say, in about 20 years when the Republicans, whatever they’ve become or named themselves, come slithering back.
… that poll wasn’t exactly fair.
Look, if you’re an average voter and get a poll question asking whether ACORN helped steal the election, you’re going to assume that there must have been some credible evidence to that effect, or else you wouldn’t be getting the question in the first place.
This is the flip side to those polls asking whether Obama was born in Kenya, or is a Muslim. The mere fact that the questions are being asked lend the point of view some (unfounded) legitimacy.
And as for Republicans believing that there was “some sort of” vote fraud in 2012 – well hell, I’m a Democrat and I’m sure that there was SOME vote fraud – if miniscule – going on. It just stands to reason.
What does disturb me, though, is that 25% of Republicans favor seceding from the Union, and only 56% of Republicans oppose (while the rest don’t even care!). That is absolutely disgraceful for the party that regularly cloaks itself in the flag and cheap, tawdry displays of patriotism.
Dinesh D’Souza is our next contestant on Hypocritical Family Values Conservatives!
D’Souza, author of “The Roots of Obama’s Rage” (basis for the box office smash hit “Obama: 2016″), is out as President of King’s College this week. Why? D’Souza went to an evangelical conference in South Carolina with mistress in tow. D’Souza being married and King’s College being an evangelical university didn’t mesh well with the whole mistress thing…
D’Souza was a vocal advocate of many of the whacky theories believed by thousands of this year’s conservative voter base.
….to spell “Hypocrite.”
It’s as predictable as the sun coming up.
Apologies to Janis.
I think your analysis of the “proof” that ACORN stole the election is right on.
Here is a link to the latest edition of the American Co0nservative magazine and the lead article written by Bruce Bartlett, a Reagan era conservative, who was hounded out of the Republican Party because he dared to face facts honestly.
Mr. Bartlett reflects on the fact the Republican Party and the conservative movement has entered a world where “epistemic closure” is a required state of mind to be accepted in the conservative world. He defines it “as living in their own bubble where nonsensical ideas circulate with no contradiction.” David Frum raised this same issue in a New York Times article in 2010.
http://www.theamericanconserva…
Mr. Bartlett relates how conservatives and Republicans denigrated him because he was part of the “reality based community.” In other words, if the sky is blue but right-wing ideology says its green, then it is green no matter what the objective facts show. Reality be damned.
Since the election I’ve run into this in my precinct. A right-wing Republican told me he wasn’t worried about President Obama’s second term because the U.S. Constitution allows each county sheriff to override the President’s decisions and he expects each sheriff to do his duty. He went on to tell me that he knows the President isn’t a U.S. citizen and therefore can’t serve (I was waiting to here the usual rant about being born in Kenya but I was wrong) because when his mother took him to Indonesia when he was a child he had to relinquish his citizenship. Finally, the same person told me he knows the President will serve a third term because he has already arranged it. Everyone knows that in the real world these contradictory statements are complete nonsense but this person really believes each one because he lives in a cloistered world where no one ever questions any right wing statement. If Rush, FOX News, or one of the other conservative outlets says it, in his opinion it is considered true and beyond questioning.
If the Republican Party continues down this road to nowhere, it is doomed.
Love it or leave it
There must be a few of those bumper stickers still laying around somewhere.
A great first laugh of the day.
Maybe I’ll wander down to the county Publican HQ and have another.
You pretty much nailed it. (I never stopped calling myself a liberal or FDR Democrat.)
I’ve held that although the Occupy movement may have failed to directly impact changes in our society, they definitely opened the average Foxian News viewer to some unavoidable facts. Americans suddenly are no longer asking, “May I have another bowl of gruel? Sir?” They’ve seen how many jobs The Job Creators have created.
Great social movements come about when things get very bad. The original Progressive movement, the New Deal, the Civil Rights movement, the Great Society, all because people in effect, were saying, “Something’s really wrong here. This is not America.”
The Right Wing Propaganda mill has had the curtain pulled back, the wizard is a bunch of selfish, nasty, uber-rich that don’t need one more penny of income to live full lives.
Until November 6th, I had been pretty much long term depressed at the direction America has been headed, especially as I head into old age.
Now, not so much.
Or, as we say around here, Welcome To Fruita.
to an Obama hater and Bush lover who states that “of course we found WMDs in Iraq. That is why we had to invade”. And, “you just wait, we are going to get all that oil”
to an Obama hater and Bush lover who states that “of course we found WMDs in Iraq. That is why we had to invade”. And, “you just wait, we are going to get all that oil”
All that money coming from a handful of (batshit crazy) donors really opened a lot of eyes. And who wants to live in Adelson’s America? It would be like living in Potterville.
Historically true. Good point. But darn, that’s sad, huh.
Another question: In addition to BC’s observation on the decreasing stupidity of America’s majority (though I don’t fully buy Bill Maher’s rants about this), could it also be that they’ve just been too busy to pay attention? A lot of my neighbors seem absolutely harried: back and forth to their jobs (Most have jobs, thankfully, whatever they pay and however long they last.), walking their kids to and from the bus stop (Not many soccer/ballet/scout parents here.}, fixing up their homes and tending their yards, working on their cars, etc. Their too-busy-ness fueled my campaign contact conversations.
Another sad “when things get very bad” thought: Getting laid off is a powerful, if tragic, waker upper. A lot of folks got a strong gut check in 2008 and early ’09. The challenge is to remind them of that timeline and hanging their plight on the responsible administration without obviously pushing the “blame Bush/Cheney” line. Maybe all those people out of work were able to take the time to pay attention and understand some political realities.
Anyway, I hope Democrats aren’t content to merely “profit” from this awakening, but double down on demonstrating our rock solid support for Americans in the middle class and economic (upward!) mobility for people who are poor.
that all that money didn’t succeed in buying them the election? That voter suppression didn’t work because people, including the media, were really paying attention this time? That some voter suppression attempts were successfully challenged in courts and others were countered by voters willing to spend up to 9 hours in line to exercise their right to vote no matter how inconvenient the would-be suppressors made it? That the old social/religious wedge issues failed to work to siphon off minority votes for the second presidential election in a row?
That after decades of getting stupider and stupider the American majority is showing distinct signs of wising up?
In fact, if it weren’t for the gerrymandered safe red CDs, the GOP would already be dead as a national party in both houses of congress and the White House.
If a mixed race guy with a Muslim middle name can win the popular vote, as well as the electoral, twice in a row, the second time in hard economic times with a base that has experienced a lot of disappointment during his first term, what chance does the contemporary GOP have without totally reinventing itself, something the wacko monster it created makes it impossible for them to do?
Looks like Citizen’s United along with all the ridiculously naked GOP voter suppression efforts woke enough people right up.
A year ago I was wavering between agony and despair. Now (against my nature) it’s “Life is sweet!” Nice, huh.
I used to think we were truly doomed by the public’s incredible ignorance and stupidity.
I thought they’d never stop buying the Frank Luntz tested slogans (haven’t heard much from the golden boy pollster lately), never stop reacting like Pavlov’s dogs to the wedge issue stuff against their own economic interest.
Now here we are and, in the same Colorado that used to be so reliable red, personhood couldn’t get enough signatures to make the ballot but legalizing pot made it and passed. Somebody pinch me so I know I’m not dreaming.
Don’t worry, though. We’ll still, no doubt, have plenty of opportunity for agony. Those grumpy oldies can probably be relied on to keep fighting their desperate rear guard action for some time to come before they go the way of the dinosaurs. And I’m getting kind of oldie myself. I do have just a sliver of new found hope that we’ll join the rest of the civilized 21st century world with a civilized single payer health plan before I check out.
predictable.
He just makes you want to puke watching him in an interview. But he won’t miss his salary at King’s College. His flick brought in a lot of bucks. I hope this is just the beginning of a rapid fall to oblivion. (Oh, why waste he hope. Some other hateful bastard will just take his place. Will it never end?)
if they’re in control. Don’t ya know, “their country” has been taken away from them. Frankly, I’d like to see a state like Texas be able to secede – I have an image of them building a wall the full perimeter of the new nation of Texas – on the south to keep out the Latin Americans, and on the north to keep the new citizens of the nation of Texas from escaping! I don’t think many of the secessionists have factored in having to create their own national defense . . .