speakingcorpse writes:

I am very afraid that this poll reveals something enduringly true about the American electorate. The majority of Americans, it seems, will vote Bush as long as the war is seen as a primary issue. It doesn't matter if they know that the problems in Iraq are Bush's fault. I really think most people know that Bush's policy has been a disaster. But more important, in the eyes of our fellow citizens, Bush's longstanding supporters and those who seem to have shifted to his side in the last week, is what they take to be Bush's "resolve" in the face of the challenge. "Resolve" means one thing: when wogs and darkies are fighting us, we should slaughter them, period. It seems Bush knows this, knows about our white supremacist inheritance, and so he is trying to escalate the fighting. If he cannot have clear victory, then an all-out bloodbath is the next best thing come election time. When America is at war, the poll suggests, the majority of Americans will not tolerate thought or moderation of any kind; it would get in the way of racist slaughter, which, if unpleasant and guilt-inducing, is nonetheless the thing America does best. This is the way that a majority of Americans seem to think, and so Kerry will lose the election if the war is still raging in October. Any talk of solving the problem, finding allies, etc., become irrelevant. When the blood is flowing, the only thing to do is wallow in it, and kill more. If the blood isn't flowing, then it might be OK to consider voting for Kerry. But if we're at war, anything less than mass death frenzy is unpatriotic.

Blicero adds:

Funny how this Zogby poll (conducted during virtually the same period) didn't make the front page of the Washington Post newspaper:

44 Bush
47 Kerry

"Do you think George W. Bush deserves to be reelected as president of the United States, or is it time for someone new?"

4/15-17/04

43 Deserves Reelection
51 Someone New

But I guess these results don't matter, since Zogby is an Arab. And even if he wasn't an Arab, and the results did matter, they still wouldn't matter, because it's become clear that contemporary Americans have made a deal with the devil, and are no longer able to control their annihilating urges for fascism, Apocalypse, and the dream of rising to Heaven atop a giant orgasmic mushroom cloud. Americans want to be punished, gratified, and killed. And they'll probably get what they want.