Now, my folks are deeply conservative, and don't like the health-care reforms, and do a lot of their voting on candidates with anti-abortion platforms.
They talk about Obama more positively than they did Clinton. And they don't like the rudeness and extremism of the right-wingers who disrupt town meetings because the dialog isn't going their way. "What? It's only a good discussion if you're winning and everyone agrees with you?"
Yet some things bother me - like the over-reliance on FOX news, and the near hero-worship of Reagan. My folks also think too much media attention is being paid to those who are crying wolf about Obama's "shady past," which feeds into their feelings of persecution.
I recently read a biography of Reagan, and it pointed out that he was pretty fringe in his own party, but very charismatic, and drew people along on his pet policies that the mainstream Republicans couldn't stand. "The people" loved him, but his own party did not so much. I find it interesting that these far-right conservatives think the current R party is straying from the core Republican values, when really it was Reagan who was the outlier.
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Date: 2009-10-20 08:46 pm (UTC)They talk about Obama more positively than they did Clinton. And they don't like the rudeness and extremism of the right-wingers who disrupt town meetings because the dialog isn't going their way. "What? It's only a good discussion if you're winning and everyone agrees with you?"
Yet some things bother me - like the over-reliance on FOX news, and the near hero-worship of Reagan. My folks also think too much media attention is being paid to those who are crying wolf about Obama's "shady past," which feeds into their feelings of persecution.
I recently read a biography of Reagan, and it pointed out that he was pretty fringe in his own party, but very charismatic, and drew people along on his pet policies that the mainstream Republicans couldn't stand. "The people" loved him, but his own party did not so much. I find it interesting that these far-right conservatives think the current R party is straying from the core Republican values, when really it was Reagan who was the outlier.