re: #246 ericblair

Not surprising when you consider the information gatekeepers in most countries. They are on top of the hierarchy and want to stay there, so feed everybody a steady diet of conservative bullshit, including the politicians who should know better.

If you’re a politician, being completely deluded about your electorate is going to catch up with you, hopefully sooner than later.

Well, not be too much of a downer, but while you are certainly right about the first bit, the “catching up” part seems to have been definitely shifted to the “later” category, at least in the US. Hopefully not permanently…

The problem isn’t so much that “the voters” (as a whole) aren’t as rabidly “conservative” as perceived, but that *just* enough of them are - considering that the right-most tend to vote regularly, consistently, and in blocs - to skew the perceptions (and realities) of the political structures of this country. Yeah, poll after poll shows most of the right wing’s political/cultural obsessions (abortions, guns, gay issues, etc.) are “unpopular” by about 2-1 margins; usually at worst 60-40. But unless “the voters” get off their backsides and actually translate those opinions into electoral results, we’re still going to to be stuck with, effectively, minority rule for the foreseeable future.

An unfortunate fact of life in a democracy: a cohesive and committed minority will [?usually? ?often? ?sometimes?] be able to direct the political scene no matter what the apathetic majority might think. And even more unfortunately, too many of that minority just want to simplify the political scene by getting rid of democracy altogether…