Iran had been holding hostages from the American embassy for nearly a year. I don’t remember the details, because, in my little protected world, I didn’t pay attention. I only know that long months of negotiations had brought no results. Then, out of the blue, came the announcement that the hostages were coming home…THE DAY AFTER REAGAN’S INAUGURATION! My eyes popped open at that moment, and over the next few years I stopped voting, simply because shifting loyalties had created a massive sense of uncertainty inside me. I began to pay attention to the “boring,” once-despised news programs…and immediately noticed that they were something my high-school journalism class had held up as anathema: SLANTED! Then I began to recognize things in the Democratic party that threw my loyalties into an absolute uproar. I began to recognize the rhetoric that had spouted from the lips of the despised “peaceniks” of the 1960s. My parents and my older brother, who was in college at that time and saw first-hand the bakground hypocrisy behind the anti-war protests, made sure I saw and understood the Communist roots of their ideology. Now I was beginning to see those same roots in the Democratic idology. The Democratic Party was no longer the working-stiff supporter it had once been; it had become elitist. So I began really LISTENING to Reagan’s speeches. Where I had once avoided “State of the Union” speeches like the plague, I began to pay atttention to them, and I liked what he had to say. From there, I began to listen to other Republicans. And I liked what THEY had to say. It became clear to me that American politics had undergone a fundamental paradigm shift, the two major parties had literally reversed roles, with Republicans now sounding more like someone who identified with the “working class,” and Democrats sounding like the elitists they had once accused the Republicans of being. The hippies had come of age. They had changed their appearance and manerisms and invaded the “party of the working class,” for where else would good Communists go? So now I’m a solid Republican, and my father is probably turning over in his grave. I know I’ve completely alienated the rest of my family…even the brother who taught me about the dangers of “hippie rhetoric.” He is so rooted in what the Democratic party USED TO BE that he doesn’t see what’s happened, and I can’t make him see it. Of course, he also doesn’t own a computer, so his only source of current events is the media. When I try to tell him about what bloggers are saying, and other online news sources, he does not think they’re professional journalists (agreed, a lot of bloggers aren’t) and views them as no better than the tabloids.

I didn’t like any of the major Republican candidates this last election, but my vote was solidly for McCain simply because I utterly despised Obama. Why couldn’t people see the way he could talk for hours and say absolutely nothing? The way he could deliver speeches that had his sycophants cheering but never even came close to answering the question he was asked? “None are so blind as those who will not see.” Truer words were never spoken.

I’m sorry to say the Republican party lately hasn’t been much better, and I’ve started looking to history for the answer. I found it, and a very disturbing answer it was. I can sum it up in three words: McCARTHY WAS RIGHT! (He just got a little carried away.)

You know, perhaps it’s almost Freudian that it took months before I stopped mistaking “Obama” for “Osama.”

Also, Chinny- “it is the liberal base (with the media in tow) that has the better organizational program to “get the word out” to the masses and spread their message of fear and loathing”
Quick question: How exactly is the ‘liberal base’ getting the word out? And what is the ‘fear and loathing’ that they are spreading?
Could you please point out some specific examples of both ‘fear and loathing’, and ways that the liberal base (whatever that means) is “getting the word out”.
Las I checked, the right-wing base was doing a pretty good job at spreading fear and loathing:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907150016

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907160034

http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907160034

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200907100039

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200907100039

and the list goes on and on and on and on and on….

And, last time I checked, Fox news killed the so-called “liberal” MSNBC in the polls.
And just how many listener do Rush, Hannity, Savage, Beck, Medved etc have?
I think there is a pretty decent funnel of misinformation set up that works pretty effectively to get the right-wing talking points out.
In fact, the one thing the right does MUCH better than the left is “get the message out”.
the problem is, people are getting wise; they’re not quite as dumb as Rush and Co would like them to be.
Granted, there will always be poor saps duped into some tea-bagging B.S. that they don’t even understand, but in general, most folks are wising up.

The entire POINT of Reagan’s recorded speech was to strike fear in the listener.
It seems to have worked on you.

I did want to point out one important flaw in this article, which is that the poll you show is very misleading. If you will notice above, the question asked is: “How would you describe your political views — [very conservative, conservative, (or) moderate, liberal, (or) very liberal]? It’s important to note where the (or) is placed, because that is in fact what the graphic is based on. Before the first (or) are the two options “very conservative” and “conservative,” which are represented by the dark green “% conservative” line. The (or) is then followed by “moderate” and “liberal,” which correlates to the light green “% moderate” line. The second (or) is followed only by “very liberal,” which correlates to the final line “% liberal.”

It should be quite clear as to why this is problematic. The chart line representing liberals only reflects the answer given “very liberal,” while the line reflecting “moderate” reflects both those who answered “liberal” and those who answered “moderate.” Hence it is in fact possible for there to have actually been fewer people labeling themselves than liberals as conservatives, since we cannot know how many called themselves “liberal” and how many “moderate.” What we do know is that roughly 20% called themselves “very liberal,” which is in fact a significant number. At the end of the day, however, the chart tells us almost nothing.

I am always skeptical of polling data because it is virtually always produced in a misleading way such as this, and the information is then reproduced by those unaware of its spurious methods. It’s important to always read the question and scrutinize it as a lawyer might – it’s not a question of “is there something misleading here,” it’s generally only a question of finding it.

Thanks and keep up the good fight.

As far as a reaction to it goes, this article makes the point of how Lewis missed the mark quite well.

I vote for the other quote, err…

If Fascism ever comes to America,
it will call itself the American Party,
and denounce the actions of its opponents
as “Anti-American”.

Sound familiar ?