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DIVERGENT_WORLDLINE

                                             March   31, 2005
                                             November 6, 2009

Around the time of the 2004 presidential
election, PIPA did a study looking at the
different world view of Kerry and Bush
supporters.

   The results of the poll
   became a core part of my                     Just from this one source?
   picture of the political                     Largely... though I do see
   scene...                                     things that confirm this
                                                from other sources every now
      "The Separate Realities of                and then.
      Bush and Kerry Supporters"
      October 21, 2004

          [ref]

You sometimes hear it stated that the
United States is an inherently conservative
country, that US public opinion has taken
a turn toward the right, and so on.

   The turth is a little stranger than that:
   many people are voting conservative without
   being particularly conservative themselves.

       They literally don't understand
       what the people they're voting         My favorite example is that
       for stand for.                         Bush supporters believed he
                                              was in favor of the Kyoto
           You might argue that this          accord on global warming.
           in itself is a terrible
           problem.  What is going on             I gather that the reasoning
           with the news media in                 is something like "this
           this country?  Does this               global warming issue is
           show a severe problem with             important, and Bush is a
           the educational system?                good guy, so he must want to
           Why would someone bother               do something about it."
           to vote if they won't even
           read a newspaper?

           Myself I take this as a very hopeful
           sign: yes, the country is in a hell
           of state, but it doesn't require any
           great ideological transformation to
           change things.

                We don't need any radical conversions
                in the way people think about things,
                and that's good, because those don't
                come easy.



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