Pacific Views

A Look at Some Bush Backers

Bush backers come in many different flavors, with the most well-known being the fat cat plutocrats and the Christian rightists. But as David Neiwart has said before, the one of the more unnerving alliances is the one that connects the good ole boy with the fratboy President. On 60 Minutes tonight, Bob Woodward reported that Bush is not just incurious, but also anti-intellectual.

How deep a man is President George W. Bush? “He’s not an intellectual. He is not what I guess would be called a deep thinker,” says Woodward. “He chastised me at one point because I said people were concerned about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. And he said, ‘Well you travel in elite circles.’ I think he feels there is an intellectual world and he's indicated he's not a part of it … the fancy pants intellectual world. What he calls the elite.”

Bush's disesteem of the "elite" is one that he shares with his good 'ole boys. Although these backers get none of the lucre that flow to Bush and his corporate buddies, and for the most part, they aren't necessarily part of the Christian fundamentalists, they do get a fellow traveller who is just as angry at and has just as much contempt for intellectuals as they do. One such Texan has a website with the following mission statement:

Over the last 200 plus years our nation has been attacked by its enemies. Our military has stood strong against European colonialism, the dangerous Indian tribes, Mexican expansion, twice against German aggression, then the Communist, and now the terrorist. However our enemies have had considerable more success on the domestic front. Those who were born Americans but for some reason have turned on their homes. They fight against our way of life and the heart of what makes this a great nation. There at war with capitalism and economic freedom that witch has given us wealth. They undermined our ability to defend our selves. They slow productivity under the name of protecting the environment. Just as Texans were at the tip of the spear in fighting our enemies abroad. We to will lead the fight against our enemies within. This Texan Blogg and this Texan will be dedicated to exposing the traders who would stop this nation from being great.

When you ask yourself about why Bush continues to have such strong backing, it is probably good to remember how effective demagoguery is at creating an atmosphere of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". This is the atmosphere that the right wing demagogues have been selling since before the days of Reagan and have tuned to a fever pitch by the words of Gingrich and the focus group testing of Frank Luntz. And it behooves us to remember there is an irrational component that will drive this election, even if Bush's decision to invade Iraq comes back to haunt him.

Posted by Mary at April 19, 2004 07:00 AM | Wingnuts | Technorati links |