Watch this video if you want to understand Palin supporters

23 November 2009 View Comments

A supporter of Palin in Ohio knows little about the former candidate's policies, and doesn't seem to care to know.

Last week, I blogged about the hilarious reaction of children to Palin’s book, Going Rogue, at a New York City bookstore. The team at New Left Media take us for a look at the real Palin supporters lining up to meet her in Ohio. It seems that the children John Oliver interviewed know just as much about Palin’s policies as her die hard supporters. It is stunning to witness how little they know about the policies of the women they desperately want to be president.

Their self-professed Palin ignorance, won’t deter any of them from supporting her against an evil Obama who isn’t an American, is promoting partial birth abortions and wrote two books about his own “Marxism” and “Leninism.” This is all according to, “FOX News” of course. Watch the whole 8 minutes. Of course, their biggest gripe with Obama: He supports the “others.” as much or more than he supports real Americans. As one fine Christian woman says, “Americans should be first, the other people should be last.” Amen, sister. Amen.

YouTube – SARAH PALIN BOOK SIGNING – Interviews with Supporters.

Watching this, I’m reminded of the key emotion in branding and marketing: Love. Most people think trust is the key to a brand or product, but seasoned marketers are after love precisely because it is, “Beyond reason.” Whether familial, romantic, friendly, or even for a product, love supersedes a person’s reasoned analysis. Have you ever ate something you knew was bad for you. An ill-fated choice of cheese fries and a chocolate shake (made more than once) at 3am comes to mind for me. How about a relationship you knew you should end, but kept falling back into? “Love beyond reason” is the key to great brands…Man, do I love how this Mac looks and feels as I type right now.

Beyond love Palin supporters, like many conservatives, are “True Believers.” You most often find “true believers” within relgion (hmmm, seeing a connection maybe?), where followers blindly take part in faith and traditions that have no reasonable proof or value. I couldn’t wait to eat the flesh and drink the blood of a “god-man” who died nearly 2,000 years before I was born — a man who I “Loved beyond reason.” Of the many traits of “True Believers,” a key is that information that challenges their belief must be discarded. As with love, true belief is beyond logic, even greater than logic…it’s true!

These two characteristics are not bad per se, but they can be applied in dangerous ways. In this case, I don’t think it is as important that we pass judgement on the Palin armies as it is that we truly understand them. Any attempts to simply sway them with logic will fall on deaf ears. Progressives must understand that in our “Branded for Life” society, we are in a constant war of brands, as much as idea. I for one don’t celebrate this fact, but I respect it.

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Grab this Widget

Rodney McDonnell

The RIGHT is just plain WRONG!!

Rodney McDonnell

The RIGHT is just plain WRONG.

jasonwhat

Okay, this is where this ends until we have a beer, or I feel like doing an entire post cataloguing distortions by Right Wing Media. There is simply no doubt that this occurs more frequently and to a far greater degree on the Right. Spend 5 mins. on Media Matters for a small sampling.
http://mediamatters.org/

Beyond that, the Right has an "advocacy journalism" culture that is unparalleled in the MSM that is generally ascribed to the Left. When the facts don't fit the right-wing point of view, "The facts are biased" as Colbert would mockingly say. In the UK, Murdoch's paper the Sun has openly declared for the Conservative party and admitted their goal of taking down Labour. This is in no way news, it is pure propaganda. No honest review of the current media landscape could conclude that this trait exists equally on left and right.

amilh

1. where is the evidence 3. where is the evidence

let's say for argument that people on the left do look at more news sources, are they looking at more news sources that just conform to their own options? if so what is the benefit other than more reinforcement?

the greater problem is that if you are a liberal or conservative you should be able to have a reasonable expectation that the mainstream outlet that you choose will actually show the news in a relatively unbiased manner, and not slant everything in one direction. most people don't have the time or bandwidth to source multiple news outlets for unbiased truth behind the spin. it might be, (although i haven't seen proof) that right wing news outlets have more of this slant but is it the fault of an average conservative who watches 1-2 news outlets that his channels are serving him falsified information, or is it the responsibility of the news outlets to provide a balanced view.

NoAdhominem2

Doubtless there is plenty of ignorance to go around! http://tinyurl.com/6ymb3x

amilh

totally missing the point. the point is that if your news outlet is flawed you are going to have a flawed view of the world.

jasonwhat

And my point is that progressives 1. Are more likely to be logical followers of a political idea, not blindly homogeneous to a feeling. 2. Have news sources that are not perfect, but not nearly as flawed as the Right. 3. Utilize multiple news sources per point #1.

Yes, there isn't complete conformity and adherence to reason on both sides, but the Left is far more likely to believe and know things that are objectively true when it comes to the political sphere. The Right doesn't care to, they are happy with empty vessels like Palin and buzzwords like, "Freedom" and "Real."

amilh

that article says "there is no clear connection between news formats and what audiences know." the differences are also probably within the margin of error and i'm not sure what Multivariate tests they did to determine when people watch more than one news outlet.

the problem is just as much the news source. we can't assume people are going to search multiple news outlets to fact check information and people generally watch news that confirms their beliefs anyway. so if i'm a conservative and i rely on Fox News, as a reasonable person I should assume that the "news" is factual. the same goes for liberals who only watch MSNBC.

If Keith Olberman suddenly started to pound on the fact that rabbits cause cancer, the uninformed liberals who only watch MSNBC would start throwing their rabbits out into a field.

jasonwhat

Alright, now you are grasping at straws. There just isn't a left-wing media with the homogeneous reach of the Rights machine. People who watch MSNBC, watch Colbert and The Daily Show. They read papers and news sites, which the Right call "biased," but are reasonably fact-based. In fact, your very Olberman example shows the flaw in your point - Olberman isn't saying things that are simply factually inaccurate. FOX news and their allies constantly are caught not simply monkeying the data, but falsifying footage, stated as fact points that are objectively not true and even contradicting themselves.

There are examples on the left, but it is disingenuous to suggest that this is equal on both sides as the MSM constantly tries to push.

amilh

Those results are only about the War. Since the Right was giving the same line as the Bush WhiteHouse, of course people who watch it would be misinformed about WMDs. But lack of knowledge on one topic isn't any measure for total understanding of current events.

The study even says, "While the PIPA study concluded that most Americans (over 60%) held at least one of these mistaken impressions"

jasonwhat

Well, I think you are letting them off too easy. Thinking that the majority of hijackers were from Iraq is ridiculous, and scary.

I should've included this link in the last comment, but I thought you'd realize the error of your ways more easily :)
http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowl...

What I love in this report is that Daily Show and Colbert viewers are the smartest.

I do realize that all of this has a lot to do with a person's "trusted sources." If you trust Bush, FOX and Glen Beck you are more likely to think climate change is a hoax and any scientist who says otherwise, especially via a UN report, is full of crap. But on the later point, they are objectively wrong and unwilling to listen to any reason...unless it comes from Palin or Glen Beck of course.

amilh

When the Right interviewed Obama supporters during the election the responses were equally uninformed. This is more a commentary on the awareness of American rather than a demonstration of the ignorance of the conservative movement.

I don't actually think it's surprising that the majority of people make decisions based on gut reactions. In this case Sarah Palin makes it easier by not actually having a platform other than folksy wisdom.

jasonwhat

I'm not convinced Amil. Studies continually show that the more people watch FOX or listen to the likes of O'Reilly and Glen Beck, the less informed they are:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7...

That said, the conclusion of the post is that we live in a personality and branding driven culture on both sides of the aisle, but the left side happens to be more generally informed and fact-based in their conclusions.
http://people-press.org/report/319/public-knowl...