Paying Attention

The ongoing search for understanding about how it's possible that there are still loyal Democrats out there that polls suggest may still turn out to re-elect Obama next year has gradually uncovered some insights.

First and foremost, they aren't really paying attention. The typical Democrat has never heard of Solyndra, Fast & Furious (they think it's a movie), the EPA crackdowns gone wild, Obama's unilateral authorization to wage war against Gaddafi (which I thought Democrats were adamantly against when the President's name was Bush). They don't care to hear about them either ("you probably heard that on Limbaugh")

What they actually believe is a laundry list of Democrat talking points that they accept completely and without question. Just a few of them:

If it hadn't been for the Stimulus, we'd be in a Depression.

The 1% have all the money because they somehow stole it from the 99%, and they don't pay their fair share in taxes and deserve to be punished.

We can solve the budget problem tomorrow if the GOP just stops blocking Obama from hiking the taxes on the rich. By the way, the economic problems wouldn't even exist if the GOP would just stop blocking Obama's policies.

Republicans want people to lose their retirement, healthcare, homes, and food to make themselves richer.

High energy prices aren't Obama's fault, but the fault of the greedy oil companies who are just overcharging because the Republicans enable that.

Republicans hate everybody who isn't like them and want to persecute them. The list of targets of Republican Tea Party haters includes blacks, hispanics, gays, unions, and single mothers.

There's a willful blindness among these folks to the degree that I'm convinced if Obama announced tomorrow that terrorism is over, the economy is booming, the debt is wiped out, and everybody can get Social Security and Medicare starting at age 50, they'd cheerfully believe him and denounce anyone who would dare suggest otherwise.

Willful ignorance by a plurality of the citizenry is the cause of our country's decline.