Paradox

In most of the world, the underdogs and those allied with the underdogs support the left, and those with economic power support the right. This makes sense as the left wants to distribute the wealth and provide for those in need, while the right tends to support those who already benefit from the system.

It is then quite incomprehensible for most Europeans, and for many here in the US, why low-income and most middle-class people would even consider supporting the republican policies.

Policies
The republican economic and social policies are consistently tailored to benefit those already benefiting from the system.

• Tax cuts for the wealthy few percent.
• Continuous wars where soldiers are overwhelmingly recruited from low-income segments of the population. And where they are killed or maimed physically and/or psychologically for life in operations that benefit the corporations more than anyone else.
  
• Cuts and/or privatization of essential social services such as health care, social security, education and public transportation. Of course, privatized higher education allows for an incentive for young low-income people to choose the military (a way out).
  
• Anti-union, and little or no protection for workers (can be fired any time for any reason).

Long Term Strategies
This shift is quite an achievement for the republican strategists. It speaks to their deep understanding of the needs of these people, and their skill in developing strategies that bring them on their side.

They have been able to get the very segments of the population who have the least to gain and the most to loose by their policies to actively support them. It does also mean that they are on shaky ground in terms of their broad base.

Their key strategy involves appearing to meet the psychological needs of the underdogs in US society....

• Focusing on "moral" issues, which makes people feel "right" and allied with the "good", to the exclusion of economic and social issues which has a far greater impact on people's lives.
• Presenting their front figures as macho and strong. Another psychological need among the underdogs.
• Presenting their front figures as "of the people" and understanding regular folks. This provides a sense of recognition and belonging. (And they do understand regular folks - to the point where they can skillfully manipulate their views and behavior.)
• Presenting their opponents as weak and elitist.

Another strategy is to consistently keep people misinformed, as the recent PIPA poll demonstrates.

Pressing Issues: What About Polling?

Kerry backers often charge that Bush supporters are not "reality-based" when it comes to the Iraq war. A new survey suggests that this may actually be true. How much are the media to blame? [...]

The poll for the non-partisan Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) reveals that a vast majority of President Bush's backers continue to believe, contrary to evidence, that Saddam Hussein had strong links to al-Qaeda and possessed WMDs or a major program for making them. [...]

Equally interesting, the new survey finds that if the Bush supporters knew (or accepted) the truth, some of them might feel quite differently about the war. Asked whether we should have gone to war if Iraq was not making WMD or providing strong support to al-Qaeda, 58% of Bush supporters said no. [...]

* On WMDs: Even after the final report of chief weapons inspector Charles Duelfer saying that Iraq did not have a significant WMD program, 72% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq had actual WMD or a major program for developing them.

And 57% also believe, incorrectly, that Duelfer concluded Iraq had a major WMD program. Kerry supporters hold opposite beliefs on all these points.

* On the al-Qaeda link: 75% of Bush supporters continue to believe that Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda, and 63% believe that clear evidence of this support has actually been found.

Plus, 55% believe, again incorrectly, that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. One in five believe Iraq was directly involved with the 9/11 attacks. Large majorities of Kerry supporters have exactly opposite perceptions.

"One of the reasons that Bush supporters have these beliefs," Steven Kull, director of PIPA, asserts in a report, "is that they perceive the Bush administration confirming them. Interestingly, this is one point on which Bush and Kerry supporters agree." Indeed, 82% of Bush supporters perceive the administration as saying that Iraq had WMD or a major WMD program. Likewise, 75% say that the Bush administration claims Iraq was providing substantial support to al-Qaeda.

"To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S. to war based on mistaken assumptions," he explains, "likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance, and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about prewar Iraq."

If true, this is pretty much a full-court suppress.
Just 31% of Bush supporters recognize that the majority of people in the world oppose the United States having gone to war with Iraq. Fifty-one percent incorrectly assume Bush favors U.S. participation in the Kyoto treaty. Fifty-three percent believe he supports the International Criminal Court, despite his attack on that body in the recent debates.

"The roots of the Bush supporters' resistance to information," according to Kull, "very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11 and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake.

"This appears to have created a powerful bond between Bush and his supporters, and an idealized image of the President that makes it difficult for his supporters to imagine that he could have made incorrect judgments before the war, that world public opinion could be critical of his policies or that the President could hold foreign policy positions that are at odds with his supporters."

[Full article in Editor & Publisher]