a berlin blog
|
a berlin blog |
|
|
Saturday, November 06, 2004 Culture WarDavid Brooks punctures the whole idea of a "moral/ethical" turnout for Bush:Much of the misinterpretation of this election derives from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying "moral values." But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn't vote on moral values? He argues the election showed a drift to the right in wartime, which is both obvious and more sane than Bill Bennett's "culture war." He also gets in a kick at certain people who can never imagine they're wrong: If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are? That's actually well-aimed. Of course it ignores the fierce and gleeful intolerance of Bush voters who feel a bit wimpy for living in Blue America, and it falls into a broad, fuzzy pattern that Matt Welch identifies in this hilarious post about coastal elites in big-time media coming down on other (Democratic) coastal elites. Brooks skips around the worst of that nonsense. But a lot of writers don't, which is why you should also read Welch's other post about "the Angry Enfranchised Majority, who will hunt down Communists everywhere they don't actually exist, proclaim crude and sweeping generalizations at odds with their own personal experience, and make marvelous asses out of themselves in the process." posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:11 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment
| |
|
|
 Too Much of Nothing, a novel  Politics and Prose  about our editor 
The Underground Grammarian  current Berlin blog page  |
