This is a concerning piece of research; it appears that USAmerican Republicans have all kinds of out-ot-touch-with-reality views:that Iraq was supporting Al Qaida, that most people outsied the USA think that Bush and the USA were on the right lines and that most of us favour Bush's realection [recent figures say otherwise], that WMD did exist in Iraq, and -get this- "Majorities incorrectly assume that Bush supports multilateral approaches to various international issues--the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the treaty banning land mines (72%)--and for addressing the problem of global warming: 51% incorrectly assume he favors US participation in the Kyoto treaty. After he denounced the International Criminal Court in the debates, the perception that he favored it dropped from 66%, but still 53% continue to believe that he favors it. An overwhelming 74% incorrectly assumes that he favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements. In all these cases, majorities of Bush supporters favor the positions they impute to Bush."
It's an interesting case of style over substance and hearing what they want to hear. This is postmodern politics [?] The interesting reflection beyond all of this is that modern communications are clearly shackled to some extent: the failure to communicate what appear to be quite fundamental policy stances to supporters seems almost unbelievable. The report that these figures come from suggests that the bonding with Bush after the fall of the twin towers [I refrain from illogical USAmerican dating to characterise the event] is the chief driver of these misperceptions. If I get it right, I think that logic of it is something like; Bush did good after the twin towers thing, he's a good man and a good president. These policies are good, therefore, being a good president, Bush must favour them.
IT's an easy thing to get into; on one or two occasions I have encouraged people to see their local clergy over some issue or other, recommending them from my own experience and pretty much extrapolating on the basis of my experience of them only to discover that their actual approach to things is somewhat differnt in practice from the assumption I made on the bais of finding them to be reasonable. I made the assumption that their being reasonable meant that they would be reasonable in the same way as I would.
There's something in this of human sociability. Our 'instinct' to bond and to imitate and to presume imitation and to begin to harmonise is vital for group cohesiveness, but it can lead us astray. at its extreme we get a folie a deux where the bonding creates its own reality which may get further and further from the reality most of the rest of us experience. I believe that this relates to our being made in the image of God: a God who is community. I think that it is of the nature of love to take the part of the beloved and to believe the best of them [1Cor13.4-7]. The down side is that this perichoretic relating can be subverted so that rather than carrying good things between the community members, bad things are exchanged; poisons slow or quick.
I personally think that this is what the main mechanism for the tranmission of original sin is. We are born with the need and ability to make relationships and we take our default and foundational learning through the agency of this ability [there's plenty of research supports this]. Unfortunately in our world as it now is this is a poisoned well which, while it nourishes us, also introduces the toxins to us. We cannot avoid it since we cannot grow up without being formed by other human beings who are themselves the tranmitters of the toxin of OS ... It is both necessary [because we cannot but be formed by others] and contingent [because, in a sense, it could be otherwise] at once.
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