Drink The Kool-Aid

I’m sure a lot of you have heard about the recent PIPA survey that examines the worldviews of Bush and Kerry supporters. It presents some interesting statistics. 56% of Bush supporters believe Iraq had WMD. 57% think the rest of the world wants Bush elected again. 80% think that Bush favors a treaty to ban landmines. A lot of left-leaning bloggers are using this report as proof that Bush supporters are stupid, uninformed, or both. That kind of attack strikes me as cheap and overly simplistic. It’s not that these people are stupid. I think what’s really going on is that Bush inspires an almost cultish following that forces his true believers to resolve their cognitive dissonance with a kind of hysterical blindness. Of course the world loves him. Of course he loves the environment. Of course, he was right when he connected Iraq to 9/11. For these people, any attempt to acknowledge his flaws and failures is tantamount to a loss of faith. And most people don’t part with their faith easily.
But that doesn’t we ignore the source of the problem. This ad should receive heavy airplay in the final days of the election. It’s devastating.