Witness the witlessness of media commentary of the US election results. While trying to explain away why Kerry didn't win (When he should have, of course! - Why are people so stupid to vote for Bush?), the answer is apparently, always, "Evangelical Christians":
On SBS News, Assoc Prof Elaine Thompson asserted, "There are increasing numbers of young people voting Democrat, and in turn, conservative evangelicals voting Republican".
What? There are no young, conservative evangelical christians? Do the young always vote Democrat? For that matter, do evangelical christians always vote Republican? Only if they're white, it seems.
An ABC radio reporteer in Boston, "Mobile phone voters supporting Kerry are countered by evangelical christians voting Bush."
Yup. No evangelical christian uses a mobile phone. They use semaphore, heliographs amd smoke signals.
Same on ABC's AM program this morning, "evangelical christians",
In Ohio, in the south of the state, it was the Evangelical Christians that effectively locked up that state for President Bush. Republicans really, they got the on-the-ground machine working and they excelled and outstripped the Democrats, and that was one of the big surprises of the election.
TONY EASTLEY: And a lot of that was put down to the religious right?
JOHN SHOVELAN: The Evangelical Christian Movement, yeah. ... in the heartland, along the Mississippi River corridor, Iraq was the fourth issue.
It was moral values out there that was the number one issue, and that's where the significance, of course, of the Evangelical Christian vote was felt.
and in The Courier-Mail, "evangelical christians" again (quoting Karl Rove's ability to mobilise)
It's almost as if the media are astonished that this group even have the right to vote. How dare they impose their voting preferences on us?
There's more than just the return of a right-wing incumbant with an increased majority in common between Australian and US elections - our governments also share the support of the christian right.
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