Prior to an election in Canada, have you ever tried to have a conversation about the issues with a Left-leaning friend or family member and realized, in most cases, that they appeared to know next to nothing beyond the headlines? Frustration often results when you realize that their vote cancels out yours.
With less than 100 days before the U.S. presidential election, here’s a snapshot of some of the vote cancelers who will be voting for Barack Obama:
Alaysha Claiborne, 18 – “Young people are more liberal and more accepting. His personal story is very diverse, and my generation, we pride ourselves on our diversity.”
William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution – “It’s a fear of change and an unfamiliar change in a bad economy. Young people are interested in the future. They’re not afraid of change.”
Hannah Miller, 21 – “For me, it’s the women’s rights issue and issues like education which are most important to me. I really want to have a say in what the future is going to be.”
Hesham Abdelhamed, 23 – “The biggest thing for me — it’s not so political, it’s more of an interest in his leadership. Everybody loves him. The older generation may be more skeptical, more careful about their decisions.”
Irene Langley, 66, a lifelong Democrat – “The country is changing so fast, and I just think people may be afraid of change. The older people cling to their older ideas, and they won’t let them go.”
Update: Dennis Prager has a few thoughts for younger votes – well worth a read! h/t Gord Tulk
This is usually the segment of the voting population that usually absents itsewlf from the voting booths…long may that trend continue!
The huge amounts of pot, crack, and other rec pharma consumed in
the US should leave some obvious indications of its residual presence.
Have we found a good “tag” for it in the incoherent reasoning offered
by his addled fans for their support of Obamugabe?
.
Note that these people are not considering economic or political issues. They focus only on the emotional: the future (which is imaginary) and the personal appeal of the candidate as a ‘friend’.
They know nothing about Obama’s economic policies of taxation of investment sources, strangling regulations, use of taxpayer money to fund unions and so on. They know nothing of his energy policies which have reduced US energy supplies. They know nothing of his political will, which rejects the will of the people by his rejection of Congress and his governance by executive fiat.
They focus only on the abstract and the personal. Not the reality.
However, these comments are basic to a large ratio of any population. All you have to do is check out, for example, the Globe and Mail comments, which are filled with intense vitriol against Harper, calling him a fascist dictator, someone who has destroyed Canada and so on. No examples or data or reasoning. Just the same type of emotionalism.
Another terrible post, Robert. You can’t determine what people know and don’t know based on single-line statements cropped by a journalist.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. – Winston Churchill
hood – I think that the agenda wasn’t to determine what people know or don’t know but on their statements of why they support, or do not support, Obama.
Democracy is just mob rule where the have nots vote themselves the property of the haves. Thomas Jefferson.
He was right then and is even more on spot today.
“… Have we found a good “tag” for it in the incoherent reasoning offered by his addled fans for their support of Obamugabe?..”
Obama-bong .
MM
ET – And you can’t get a full explanation from a single sentence. I could say I like Stephen Harper because he’s decisive and well-organized. Then, someone like Robert could come around and say I obviously don’t know why I support him because I didn’t explain any of his policies or how they differ from the policies of the NDP or Liberals.
hood – again, the agenda isn’t to critique the viability of the statements in support of Obama, but to focus on the ‘type’ of statement. The ‘type’ is emotional rather than rational; it’s subjective rather than objective.
Your example of Harper is emotional rather than policy based. And that, I think, is the point of this thread – that a large proportion of a population base their vote, not on any analysis of actual policies, but on their immediate emotional response to the personal attributes of the candidate or to their imagined view of future lifestyle.
This is a column that the youths (and their sympathizers) should read:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/309602/letter-young-voters-dennis-prager
You mean like, the Democrats have any solutions to offer, or just more of the same?
ET – while I agree with you that many people are swayed by emotional reasoning, I don’t think that’s what Robert was trying to show. Based on his preamble, he was complaining about how ‘the left doesn’t know anything beyond the headlines.’ Plus emotional reasoning is common to both sides (lefties eating organic food, righties opposing same-sex marriage, people liking Jack Layton, people liking Sarah Palin)
“”Young people are interested in the future,” he says. “They’re not afraid of change.” ”
They sure won’t be if the Zero gets in again.Most young people don’t fear change in 3rd world countries,as they know there will be no change.
The younger generation are the ones stuck on Stupid. They repeat the same worn out talking Points developed by the J-List, MSM over the last 40 years…With Eyes wide open!
The big eared moron realized that jobs lost may not come back; he recently said “Companies are finding that they are more efficient with less Employees”. He has one dumb teleprompter that has ZERO Business smarts…..Did the Teleprompter take Obamas’ Harvard classes? What did he expect?
The Younger Generation must ask themselves if they have invested the brain power & learned the tools for developing Self employment…They will not find the Welfare programs of today, with Taxpayer Credit Cards, but instead find thenmselves in the line up for the Soup kitchen..
NO JOBS STUPID & you are voting for what?
Oh please the average conservative voter is also about as bright as a bag of hammers. Tired of all the “Look at the OTHER side’s idiots.” politics on the net.
I am afraid Mr. Shaw we are all gona be at the soup kitchen if this sob steals another election.
,
Stop worrying that morons have the right to vote, and start planning to get everyone opposing Obama to vote. There have always been and always will be these types in elections, just remember you only need one more vote than they have for Barry.
A good friend of mine who always votes Liberal, can’t have any kind of conversation on any issue. He simply is unaware of any facts surrounding them. He’ll parrot what he’s heard from other “liberal” friends, family and coworkers.
These comments are just “that much” removed from a random word generator. / mile wide and inches deep.
K Stricker ..you have mastered the art of self-irony.
The problem lies on psychological level. Association with certain political view is done in a fashion placarding personal identity with a label: “I don’t have to think thoroughly any social-political issue, I am a better person because I have this political (gang) colour up my ars” . Yes, it is also happening to those declaring conservative or even libertarian position, although at much lesser degree.
There is also the other side of the coin, not rare among SDA commenters. Fanatical believe in reason and logic. Anyone who’ve been married knows that they make for poor social tools.
Of course there are random airheads who support Obama. But I am sure it would not be difficult to find folks who hate Obama for similarly inane reasons.
All in all, a bad post.
With a large smile on my face, may I present a great friend of the trolls here on SDA … Peggy.
It reminds me of how morons in this country talked about Trudeau.
I’m not impressed by Prager’s column.
The desire to avoid being looted by Barack Obama or by socialists in general (a much broader group than “the Democratic Party”) is a selfish desire.
It’s only the moral code of altruism, which holds that people have no right to live for their own benefit, that enables the parasites to loot the productive. Until conservatives figure this out, they’re dead in the water.