Religion is one of the bigger factors in this group. Reliable evangelical voters. I suspect seeing the tendency toward hierarchical deference messaging aimed at the Religion industry might be only way to break this stranglehold. If the pastors get more progressive the flock will follow. They are that good at following.

Part of the problem is the logic and rhetoric of the right are easy on the ears of safe comfortable white middle Americans such as these. They don’t require anything much more that linear short term logic. Counter intuitive notions like Keynesian stimulus and demand curves are not as easy arguments to make.

I suspect that another part of what is going on in this area is modern Protestantism doesn’t do much to afflict the comfortable so they feel that God is on their side and we progressives are just heathens.

What I am seeing is a lack of effective messaging. I also am and live with a fairly evangelical middle class family and getting through the white protestant religious messaging (reinforced ever week) will be a challenge.

Since Medicaid already pays for more benefits (dental, etc.) and has less deductibles, co-pays, etc. than Medicare, seniors wonder why the government continues to enhance a free program (Medicaid) and cuts an earned benefit like Medicare.

Obama attributed comments on raising the retirement age to 69 or 70, hiking the Medicare age to 67, and even pushing up minimum Soc Sec age to 64, and other “grand bargain” BS, are considered unfair and threatening to seniors.

The elite have little problem subsidizing the poor, underpaid workers with government programs so they can show up for their slave wages jobs, but the same public officials care little about the old, who no longer work and contribute their sweat for peanuts to big business.

What interests me is that when I suggested back in 2008 that racism would be a major factor in the election of Obama quite a number of nice people told me off saying – ‘oh no you’re out of date, there’s very little racism now’. When I remarked later that, given the domestic and foreign mess G W Bush left behind, a white candidate would have won a real landslide, I still got denials. But this time round there’s far more awareness of the reality of racism and its effects on politics – reducing Obama’s win and increasing the Republican/Democrat divide. And there is wide acceptance that Rove/Murdoch racist innuendo in their campaigns (Fox news, Fox radio, Murdoch papers) did do a lot once again to limit the extent of Obama’s victory.

I suggest that this much wider acceptance of the continued reality of racism, conscious and sub-conscious) is a very healthy development for American democracy.
(In Europe racism is rife but is much complicated by our large number of Muslims – some black, but mostly Middle Easterners who exacerbate our exaggerated fears of Islam).

From,

A southern, elderly, white woman, democrat, and proud supporter of our President.