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The standard is that people who don't pay a lot of attention to politics usually say they approve of whatever the president's doing. Say that accounts for about a quarter of the 40% approval rating. Another 10% don't but feel obligated to say that they do because they're Republicans or Christians or have some such identity with the president. And, of course 20-25% of the U.S. electorate is batcrap crazy on any question that doesn't immediately effect them, their family or their neighbors and friends. Remember that, back in the 1950s, pollsters found that if you asked Americans whether or not we should just nuke the Russians and get it over with, the result tended to be in the high teens. I wouldn't be surprised if that many people believed the U.S. won the Vietnam War. Still, I'm fairly convinced that the blanket dismissal of anything as a "conspiracy theory" is part of the effort of the bourgeoisie to retain a monopoly over the privilege of making and validating them. The issue is really whether there's evidence for these things or not. There are many indications that Oswald probably didn't act alone against JFK and none for the idea that lizard people control our societies. The question is how people recognize and weigh evidence. For decades, education has been fighting an uphill battle against much more powerful cultural forces working to minimize those skills. Consider the fact that the CIA and the U.S. government has already stated that they promoted the UFO paranoia as a means of disguising experimental aircraft and of confusing the Soviets about overflights. The remarkable thing about Kelly Ann Conway's description of her job as offering "alternative facts" is only that she came right out and said it. But, the invasive 24/7 saturation of commercial media in recent years has really scrambled our brains. And I confess freely that one of my guilty pleasures of late has been watching "Hunting Hitler." This features of a cluster of globetrotting ex-intelligence and special forces guys chasing their tails trying to demonstrate that Hitler escaped the bunker, moved to Argentina and built a secret Fourth Reich that had the A-bomb and was going to hit the U.S. (Not only do they not mention once the role of the U.S. government in helping those Nazis escape from justice, but their entire definition of proof is what makes the entire program an unconscious comedy.) And there's a dozen of these series--not programs but series--on crap like uncovering collaboration between the government and UFOs, finding Bigfoot in the suburbs of Anytown USA, etc., etc., etc. So when Trump talked about Obama's birth certificate, the media looked at the ratings and gave him all the air time he wanted. What Bill Moyers called "the Public Mind" in America has been repeatedly scrambled and deep fried . . . with bacon. This is how Trump gets such high approval. Certainly, he's not the first to invent phony crime statistics or terrorists threats or nonexistent past massacres, but he's a television marketer, a real Billy Mays of Bullshit. Not all Americans believe him. Not even most. But enough. And enough others are willing to pretend that they do. When the approval rating dips below 40% we will be entering territory lethal to his presidency, but the media is going to do its level best to save his presidency as long as possible. He is, after all, great for ratings. Like bigfoot, ET or the lizard people. ML _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
