You think?
It seems not that long ago that if a politician were exposed for lying, their credibility was then in question. Remember we impeached a president for lying about a blowjob.
What I don't get about this is what I never got about televangelists: these people support people who are screwing them. What FOX and the GOP stand for is full-out plutocracy at this point, aka if you're not rich you don't count. And yet all these common folk turn to the GOP who will not hesitate to leave them behind should they fall on hard times.
Obviously they distract them with non-stop horror stories and strawmen, but as you've seen here even WHEN you show somebody that what they're being told is an outright lie, they STILL choose to believe.
Ergo, G5000's "Henrietta Effect." I think that's some pretty weird shit.
I voted for Obama but you think I don't know he's a liar? Or call him out when he does? The most basic mystery to me is: if these people are lying to you/deceiving you that means they don't care about you. In fact, worse.
You would also think the non-stop hysteria/scandal/rage pimping would cause people to tune out at some point because by now it's just deafening.
Yet, no...
Since it's almost beer time I'll roll out my SWAG theory (SWAG = scientific, wild-ass guess).
I think people in this country need an existential enemy and for decades that was the Soviet Union. I remember growing up at the end of it and fearing nuclear war. Once that vanished, there was nowhere to redirect that... fear? Then 9/11 happened. The problem with 9/11 though was that AQ isn't even a country or something most Americans can put their finger on except to target Muslims in general (well, the FOX viewers at least). That, combined with President Cheney's neat trick of using 9/11 as a wedge, reformed the new enemy as this illusory "Left" who are responsible for everything from... well responsible for everything that's wrong with the world basically.
On the heels of that we follow up by getting not only a "left" president and a black one with a funny sounding name that is kind of Muslim-y and there's your perfect storm--people just went nuts. I can relate to a lot of people who thought the coast was clear once the Cold War ended, until 9/11 came along and we realized these guys were even MORE dangerous, because they will nuke us.
Maybe it's that crushing disappointment that we thought the end of the Cold War meant a safe future for all that made people crazy. For a brief time there, when Bush first started, China was probably the threat-du-jour (remember the Navy plane that had to land there?).
That, and as I mentioned in another thread, the mountain of right wing media that exists now where people are pumped 24/7 with horror stories that always have the same villain: the left. They want to understand why America doesn't feel the same and these people are more than willing to tell them, even if it's completely bogus.
So that's my theory. I can't think of anything more logical.