Fool Me Once, Fool Me Again
I have often wondered in amazement as to how Bush, in the light of several months of scandal, lies, lawbreaking and bad news in general, has been able to hold steady in the polls over time. Part of it, of course, is his base constituency, but I also think a great deal of it has to do with the old saying, “you can fool some of the people some of the time”–although, more accurately in this case, that should read, “you can fool some of the people all of the time.”
How so? Remember when the poll was taken saying that 69% of the American people believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks? Well, even after Bush came out and denied that publicly, he and others in his administration have persisted in tying pre-war Iraq with terrorism, and the lies have worked. Despite there being absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support the concept, fully 57% of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein gave “substantial support” to al Qaeda. While not the exact same position as the previous poll, it is very close, so much so as to be virtually the same. Bush’s campaign of lying to make people see a tie between Hussein and 9/11 has been so effective that Bush can come out and say there was no tie, and yet he can still make more than half of the American people believe it.
Further numbers from the survey: 45% think that there is “clear evidence” Hussein worked with al Qaeda, and 60% believed that Hussein either had WMD or had a “major program for developing them.” All of these beliefs fly directly in the face of known fact.
And so Bush remains steady at 50% in the polls. Even if Bush’s base is as low as 30%, I guess this is evidence that he can so completely fool at least another 20% into believing things that are so obviously false. The only question remains, what is the reason these 20% of the people believe such clear falsehoods? Fear? Blind patriotism? Stupidity? Possibly a combination of those three, and some others to boot. That people would choose to accept such an openly corrupt president for these reasons is reason for dismay, to say the least.
Fear? Blind patriotism? Stupidity? Possibly a combination of those three, and some others to boot. That people would choose to accept such an openly corrupt president for these reasons is reason for dismay, to say the least.
Agreed, agreed! If it wasn’t such a relevant matter for me (being my country and all) I would be able to laugh about it. I wish I could travel to the future and sit in on a history lecture about this period.
I would like to talk to an expert about just how indoctrinated they think the United States population is. The Iraq-9/11 concept was, quite simply, engineered through one of the most coordinated and effective propaganda campaigns in modern history. I often get into discussions about this with conservatives, and they object–“the government can’t tell the media what to say” is a common line. Of course you don’t need control, just complicity. Embedded journalists, FOX news, Rush Limbaugh…what better set of cheerleaders could they ask for?
It resembles the debate about evolution vs. creationism, in a way. Religious types object to evolution, among other reasons, because they think it makes humanity less special. But as a political science professor of mine once put it: “is there not grandeur in complexity, in the interrelatedness of all things?” In the same way, isn’t a complex, subtle and insidious propaganda campaign more impressive (and effective) than an blunt, direct one?