"America is great, everyone should be grateful to be in America, even Black people. But if you Black, America is like the Uncle who paid your way through college, but molested you."

--Chris Rock

Writing a lot of papers makes me scan political blogs to goofoff.

One thing I've noticed that I find fascinating: democrats seem to be genuinely surprised that Kerry's campaign hasn't taken off in terms of the poll numbers. It appears that, no matter how badly dubya fucks up (Abu Ghairb, Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, scandal, lie, scandal) somewhere near fifty percent of the public continues to back him up. It seems like they feel that once Kerry's unleashes the pure, whitehot fury of his liberal platform, the Republicans, in particular Rove, Cheney, Bush et. al, should simply wither away back into the darkness like vampires in the sun. Since this hasn't happened, despite Kerry's shiny new 25 million dollar ad campaign, everyone seems a little despondent.

Why isn't this earnest, centrist, fiscally conservative, decorated, pure bred candidate simply slaying Bush in the polls? Why can't Americans see the light?

Again, I think this is yet another example of the blindness of the political left and inability to understand the right's ideological strategy. The underlying situation of significance is simply this: this country is divided in terms of culture and thus ideology, not politics. Republicans understand and exploit this every single day, while democrats remain charmed by their liberal illusion that people care about issues and their votes represent their interests in policy. This position is no longer true.

What is becoming more and more clear is that this country is divided along ideological lines, not politics. This divide is clearly supported by a glance at the Times list of non-fiction top sellers. The Atkins diet stuff aside, these books represent the far side of both spectrums. Moore vs. Coulter, O'reilly vs. Franken, etc. This divide is not indicative of increasingly partisanship in terms of issues -- Americans are not becoming more interested in politics. Rather, they are becoming more interested in finding discursive justifications for their cultural ideologies. These books feed upon that, providing comfort to those who see their worldview as beseiged (thus the cross-accusations of "bias" levelled against each other by both sides as well as the sense of victimization).

So why is Bush still up? Because the republicans deeply understand this. The vast majority of people who vote in this new era of modern politics don't give a shit about issues. Bush could lose the war in Iraq disgracefully, kill ten thousand soldiers, crash the economy and still hold steady at 47 percent or so. Why? Because he has (or better yet, Rove has) exploited the cultural fears of an entire subpopulation of the United States. For this population, the election of a democratic candidate is the first step towards the destruction of their culture, equal to the destruction of their identities as American. For them, American is a dominantely white nation made great by puritan values and low taxation. No gays allowed. No abortions allowed. Women keep quiet. These are not just fringe issues, these are cultural markers and the Republicans have been apt at using them. Thus, "latte-drinking" and "volvo driving" become dirty words along with "liberal." These terms conveniently represent the whole array of values that are in opposition to the conservative American ideology. Asking a conservative of such a mindset to vote democrat is tantamount to asking him to burn his houses, move into a commune, and marry a dude named "Ted".

So where does that bring us? Nowhere really. So far it's still a deadlock. Red states, blue states. It's becoming less and less of a unfunny joke and more and more of unescapable nightmare for me that the next President of the United States will elected on a coin flip, a whim, twenty thousand people who woke up on the wrong side of the bed . . .

New template! Looks nifty, very centered. It's like a really nice soccer jersey, what with the big ad at the top and all.

I'm going to start blogging more often. One of my favorite political blogs, the left-leaning centrist "CalPundit" got moved to the Washington Monthly or the Atlantic Review or something like that, so I lost track of it for a while. Anyway, he just put up an interesting blog about the advantages/negatives of blogging, be it as a form of journalism or just to further the public discourse on current political issues. I thought it was interesting read, I'll link it later.

Also, Andrew Sullivan wrote a column for The New Republic about the intrigue of a Kerry/McCain ticket. That would be amazing, a complete slap in the face of the bipartisan divide through Washington. But he points out that McCain is prolife and pretty loyal to his party (personally, not through his stances, for sure), so for now that possibility remains in fantasy land.

As for the Abu Ghraib abuses, I'm really with Ed on this. Not surprising at all. If you're a prisoner in an occupied land, being subjected to wearing women's underwear on your head would probably be the last of your worries. The rapes and mass graves, that's bad. But the whole situation is pretty rotten.

I talked with my cousin on the phone yesterday for the first time in a while, and he pointed out that it's unfortunate (blatant Democrat bias here) that it seems like Kerry really hasn't been able to capitalize on the Abu Ghraib fallout. Right now he hasn't captured the public's attention, but once he picks a running mate, the race will really be on.

The summer will be very interesting, with the Presidential race and the supposed turning-over of Iraq on June 30. Also, I will be interning with the Lead Investigator at the Hilo Public Defender, and Matt is interning in washington DC with an Asian American advocacy group, so I'm sure we'll both have interesting stories and insights to share.

This is a depressing article written by a WaPo writer, taken from sfgate, about Iraq.