Mountebank Blog

Those red and blue maps we’re seeing everywhere are too depressing in their picture of an utterly polarized country–and of course, the reason for that is that they’re too simplistic. Over at boingboing, a reader, Jeff Culver, thought about this and made a more nuanced (and accurate) picture.

He says:

I was thinking today about how the ‘red v. blue’ states graphic is really misleading considering the slim margins that the candidates won some of those states by, so I sat down and created the map that’s attached. In the dozens of hours I’ve been watching the news I haven’t seen one like it, but thought that you and the BoingBoing readers might find it interesting. I think it definitely portrays our fellow states far differently than the extreme way we’ve been seeing to date.

Still looking for a silver lining today–and not finding anything. I badly misunderestimated this country, and I’m badly disappointed. 😥 Not only the Bush victory, which would be bad enough, but 11 states (eleven!) deciding that gay people are not really, quite, people in the same way as straight people. Thanks to Ruru for sending along a map that shows our current landscape.

PIPA–The Program on International Policy Attitudes (a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA) and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland) has released a study that lets us know just how well-informed one portion of the electorate (the portion that supports Bush) is these days.

72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD (47%) or a major program for developing them (25%). Fifty-six percent assume that most experts believe Iraq had actual WMD and 57% also assume, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had at least a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

Similarly, 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has been found. Sixty percent of Bush supporters assume that this is also the conclusion of most experts, and 55% assume, incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Here again, large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

But it’s not just Iraq.

Bush supporters also have numerous misperceptions about Bush’s international policy positions. Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues–the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)–and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush. Kerry supporters are much more accurate in their perceptions of his positions on these issues.

There’s more in the study, too, and it’s just as disheartening.

Bush supporters, it seems, just like that Bush. They really, really like him. Anything he says, they think it’s good. And anything good, they think he must say it.

I hate to say it–but I want to see some passion! Some fireworks! A calm, scripted debate is not going to help. Let’s turn up the heat, so Bush can stumble, and Kerry can demonstrate that he really does have a personality!

Matthew Yglesias picks up on a comment from Julian Sanchez that

the putatively “real” portions of America — which, as another commenter pointed out, are less the South than the midwest — also just happen to be the whitest portions of America.

This is an excellent point–and one that seemed particularly relevant when we heard so much from the delegates to the RNC about bringing the perspective of that “real America” (aka “God’s Country“) to NYC. But my internal response to those Republican’s comments (“so what are we, chopped liver?”) leads me to add an additional perspective to Yglesias’ point.

To those who talk about the “real America,” “white America” is part of what they mean, certainly, but another big part that I notice is that they also mean “gentile America.” Not only is “real America” the whitest portion of America, but this “unreal America” that they disparage–we “New York Liberal Elite” or “Hollywood Media Liberals”–are just too, well, you know, Jewish.

Their picture of a lovely white and real patriotic America, with leafy suburbs and Christmas decorations, leaves out African Americans, and Latinos, and Asians, and any kind of immigrants (except in some very strictly defined labor situations). And even more, it leaves out the Jews.

Slate reports that at least one speaker at the Republican convention has gone off-script to flash a sign of what’s really behind their facade of “we’re just moderates, not scary at all, we want to be friends, but we’re misunderstood.” We know what far too many of them really think, even if they’ve been instructed not to say it…

Mississippi congressional candidate Clinton LeSueur strays from President Bush’s carefully inclusive religious rhetoric. Instead of making the nonsectarian statement in his prepared text–“The very foundation of this country is faith”–LeSueur says, “The very foundation of this country is Christianity and faith in Jesus Christ.”

And in the New York Times, we see that they really want to turn us (NYC) into some kind of Stepford-shadow of them (“God’s Country”):

“I left God’s country,” said Leon Mosley of Waterloo, Iowa, co-chairman of his state party. “They could use a bunch of people from Iowa to come here to show New Yorkers what life is all about, what being patriotic is all about, and what country is all about. I’m as confident about Bush being re-elected as I am that eggs are going to be in New York tomorrow morning.”

Well, tomorrow (or a day or so later), there are going to be eggs in New York (scrambled on a roll with bacon), and Leon Mosley can go right back to Iowa where he belongs, to await the destruction of all his confidence come November.