Is America f**ked?

During this topsy-turvy presidential campaign my emotions have ranged from hope to depression, idealism to cynicism, happiness and joy to fear and loathing. And sometimes I went through all those emotions in just one evening in front of the TV watching the horrible media coverage. But the recurring cynical thought that rises up every so often is that Americans ... are dumb, apathetic sheep. Since you are reading a blog or blogs, the odds are that I am not referring to you! But the polls (if they are even close to being correct) show a population of low information voters who often vote against their own (and perhaps their country's) best interests.

Insulted? Then explain these numbers from Marty Kaplan at HuffingtonPost.com:

Going into the Democratic National Convention, depending on which poll you read, somewhere between 10 percent and 15 percent of American voters thought that Obama is a Muslim. A Newsweek poll found that 26 percent thought he was raised as a Muslim (untrue), and 39 percent thought he grew up going to an Islamic school in Indonesia (also untrue).

Or maybe it isn't ignorance? Kaplan says it could be misdirection:

On the other hand, "But-he's-a-Muslim!" does raise the issue of whether people lie to pollsters when they're embarrassed to say what they really think. This argument -- called "the Bradley effect," after the Election Day disappearance of the lead that Los Angeles' African-American mayor, Tom Bradley, had held until then in the gubernatorial campaign -- says that the percentages that black candidates get in polls should be discounted by the reluctance of no small number of white voters to admit that race is a factor in their choice.

Kaplan, however, isn't surprised by any of this:

I'm not shocked by Americans' ability to think untrue things. After all, under the relentless tutelage of the Bush administration and its media enablers, nearly 70 percent of the country thought that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in planning the Sept. 11 attack. In fact, if you told me that double-digit percentages of voters believe that Jewish workers were warned to stay home on Sept. 11, or that the American landing on the moon was faked, or that every one of the words of the Bible is literally and absolutely true, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

And this is where Kaplan articulates what I've been thinking so much better than I ever could:

It might make me think about the downsides of universal suffrage, the challenges facing public education, the limitations of "fact-checking" as a corrective to Swiftboating, the coarsening of public discourse, the devolution of news into entertainment, the risks to democracy of Rovian demagoguery -- stuff like that -- but it wouldn't make me question the methodology of the polls.

So, while I watch and get inspired by some of the highlights of the Democratic convention in Denver, there are other poll numbers that make me question the intelligence and sanity of a large part of the U.S. population. This is some perspective from "across the pond":

It seems incredible, but as the Democrats gather in Denver to anoint Barack Obama, America could be on course to re-elect a Republican as their President. Not just any Republican either, but a belligerent 71-year-old who can't remember how many houses he owns, would happily nuke Iran and whose answer to global warming is to drill for oil in environmentally sensitive areas off the coast of America which don't even have much oil. But according to the polls, John McCain is drawing level with Barack Obama, and even pulling ahead.

Really, America is a strange, strange country. After a disastrous and illegal war, in which 4000 American soldiers have died, in the middle of an economic crisis largely caused by the investment houses that finance the Republican party, you would have thought it almost inconceivable that the Republicans could be re-elected. Could any political brand be more toxic? Has any party in history deserved to be thrown out at an election more than the Republicans in 2008?

George W Bush has been recognised even by many neo-conservatives as the worst US President in modern history. Ten million people risk losing their homes over the next two years as a result of the credit crunch. Real wages have been declining in America for the past five years. The country is awash with credit card debt.

America's image in the world, so vibrant after 9/11, has been seriously tarnished by a series of epic foreign policy mistakes under the Republicans, the worst of which is, of course, Iraq. Yet enough American voters believe that John McCain might have the answers for him to become a serious contender. Which is scary. McCain is not an unknown quantity - he is a highly excitable politician with a notoriously short
temper, who would bring his impetuous and confrontational style into American foreign policy. With the world entering a global economic slump, and old enmities raging in Europe, John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory.

I LOVE THAT!!!

"John McCain as President would be like a flamethrower in a fireworks factory."

I feel a little bit better now ...
.