Angry in America
This election is rubbing some folks raw...but maybe that's not all bad for democracy
She and other political analysts say the bad blood stems, in part, from the infamous hanging-chad debacle of 2000, which fostered deep resentment among some Democrats who still believe the election was stolen. Although the 9/11 tragedy pulled the country together, Democrats' outrage returned as the Iraq body count grew and the search for banned weapons turned up nothing.
Meanwhile, the Republicans have had their own torches to carry. With the party largely transformed over the past two decades into a full-blown conservative movement, many have taken on an almost missionary zeal, led by conservative Christian members whose stands on moral issues--reinforced by President Bill Clinton's antics--have become keystones of the Republican platform. "There's a sense among many Republicans that their stands on the issues aren't just about better policy choices; they're matters of personal morality and principle," says Bill Chaloupka, a political scientist at Colorado State University. "So anyone who disagrees with you isn't just disagreeing, they're insulting your core values and threatening your way of life."
Pollsters note fundamental differences in those core values between voters in so-called red and blue states. Nearly twice as many red-state voters attend weekly religious services as do blue-state voters, and 50 percent more red staters say they want their president to worship a higher being, according to a Values Poll conducted by pollster John Zogby earlier this year. "The overwhelming majority of red-state voters define that higher being in morally absolutist terms, good versus evil," says Zogby. "But in blue states, the overwhelming majority define that higher being in terms of morality writ small, live and let live, God loves everyone."
Polarizing. Their contrasting viewpoints have only been sharpened by the rising tide of fear that has gripped the nation since 9/11: fear of terrorism, fear of war, fear of judicial appointments that could sway the courts on fractious moral issues like abortion and gay marriage. President Bush's strong stands on such topics have made him "a polarizing figure," notes Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, galvanizing the president's supporters while simultaneously enraging his opponents.
Take, for example, his policy of preemptive military action, which has nearly as much support today as it did before the Iraq war, according to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Center. The reason: While Democrats' support of the policy has fallen by 14 percentage points to less than half since May 2003, Republicans' approval has surged to nearly 90 percent. "The divide has grown deeper as people have become more entrenched in their positions on the war and on terrorism," says Kohut. "They don't want to hear anything but what they want to hear. And when they do, they get hostile."
That's certainly what happened after Pete Thompson convinced his pal Alex Prywes to attend a screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 last summer. The two friends from San Francisco had sparred over politics in the past, "but we'd never really taken it too seriously," Prywes says. That changed, however, as they emerged from the movie.
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