Watching the first of the Presidential debates, at the same time seeing my Facebook wall plastered with status updates from my conservative friends along the lines of "Obviously Romney/Ryan are right," thus the President isn't, coming from people who would gladly take George Bush back today if it were possible, rooting for their team because it's their team. No way on earth will you ever convince me that a single one of them has any idea what the President has done, what he will do and what he stands for. They don't care because he's on the other team.
I guarantee you that if I put the President's positions in front of them but put a picture of a man, preferably white, with a Republican label on him, they'd lap it up. How else can you explain them being for a guy, Romney, who stands for nothing except for everything when it's convenient depending upon who he's talking to at the moment? They blame the President for the very things his predecessor, that Bush guy again, did, while they stood back and did nothing but applaud. Many, many of the things the President has put forth and done were previously supported by Republicans, even originated with Republicans, before a Democrat decided to do some of them.
So I'll say again, if you switched the labels in front of these guys and somehow made them both unknown to conservatives, they'd pick the guy they don't want to pick.
POST DEBATE UPDATE: First, let me say that I'm very disappointed in the President's performance tonight. Not once did he really in some way, shape or form call Romney the liar that he is or take him to task for sounding like a Democrat tonight -- yet another reincarnation from the Supreme Flipflopper. Now he's for things the President and liberals are for and I can still see my conservative friends lapping it up. They truly are not paying attention. Color me scared that this is even possible.
4 comments:
Tribalism at it's finest, to be sure.
I have to say my initial reaction mirrored yours. The problem is, the President has quite the needle to thread. Should he hit back, and call out the lies? Yes. Can he do so without appearing to be an "angry black man?" That one is tougher. In the same way that 2007 tape of the Hampton speech was re-released and highlighted across Drudge and the Daily Caller, culminating on Hannity on Fox the night before the debate shows us how the conservatives use race against this President.
The fact that they were discussing the speech and dissecting the mannerisms during that speech is very illuminating. Either the President is "too black" or her falls into the stereotype of the "angry black man" or "thug" if you will. I find it amazing how non racial this President has to be in order to try and get anything done.
I do think there was an effort to have the President stay above the fray. I do not doubt that they got some great video for television ads against Romney from this debate. I also think the fact checkers are going to run roughshod over Romney if they can resist the temptation to fall into the "both sides do it" trap. I guess we will find out in a few days how the polling goes. Important to remember, not everyone watches is as engaged as some of us political junkies, and many don't watch at all.
Because of my work schedule I didn't get to watch the debate but it sounded like Obama didn't want to be bothered with preparing for it. Very disappointing.
He's already got my vote, but not because I want him to win. It's because I want Romney to lose.
I feel most of the time, that the conservatives don't know what they're talking about. They don't listen. They don't pay attention. They don't read. They hear 2 minute (or less) sound bites,) and they muckle on.. (is muckle a word?) and don't let go to save their lives. I'm thinking of ridding my facebook account of every single one.. that i know of, anyway. Because it seems they never learned to THINK. And yes, i was seriously disappointed in Obama's performance the other night. But, i saw so many fb comments like.. 'well that was an ASS KICKING!!!!!!' with literally 6 exclamation points. I mean, we're not 14. Grow the hell up. Think will you?? Think for goodness' sake! These people have no idea what Obama has accomplished....
Thanks, friends, for reading even though I've been mostly absent here lately. Keep being angry, Mary, we need to be.
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