Male (un)Bonding
Over the past several months, Bush has enjoyed a generous lead among men in the polls, partly because men favor Bush's straightforward, conservative and down-to-earth ways. You hear things like "He's the kind of guy we all hung out with in high school" from men who support Bush. Men just seem to like Bush; other statements include "He seems like the kind of guy who, if things got tough, wouldn't be afraid to roll up his sleeves and pick up a shovel to help out." Well why, then, has Bush's lead over men been faltering as of late? While little more than a month ago Bush held a comfortable 20-point lead over Gore with men, that lead has now narrowed down to about 4 points. Of course, chances are Bush will regain this lead as time goes on and the election nears. Nevertheless, it is important that we analyze exactly why more men seem to favor our pal George "dubya."
It is a well-known statistic that far more men are conservative than women. This is not a gross generalization; it is merely a simple fact. In just about every election past since women have earned the right to vote, conservative candidates have held the support of a majority of men. (An obvious exception to this, of course, was Franklin Roosevelt, who won by a landslide in every one of his elections.) Men are more concerned with less government. They prefer to fend for themselves without having some unseen entity (the federal government) looking over their shoulders and robbing them blind. Men care very little for all those social programs designed to help those who cannot fend for themselves. Bush emphasizes certain points that appeal to men: increased defense, less government, and lower taxes. By the same token, however, women are attracted to Gore.
Women are generally liberal. The reasons for this are actually more evident in women than in men. Women actually support those social programs. They prefer more government, even if it means higher taxes. "That's nuts," you're saying. Well, it certainly does sound like rubbish to me, but it's true. The reason is that women prefer to have a safety net set for them. They like to think that if times get rough the federal government will be there for them. This is almost the inverse of the way men typically think.
Another interesting issue is that of character. Men seem to like Bush because he has a record of political honesty, i.e., very little corruption in his Texas administration. Of course, the same cannot be said of our esteemed Vice-President.
Show me the money!
According to a recent Pentagon report, the US Armed Forces faced a grim future at its current funding level. Due to the advent of new technology, new costs of upgrading existing equipment have increased. The Pentagon, therefore, is asking for a sizable yearly appropriation to be added to defense spending so that the Armed Forces may keep up with the technology. The cost of this would be stupendous; fifty billion dollars a year extra, to be exact. Of course, this sounds like utter insanity. Fifty billion dollars a year? Holy Massive Expenditure, Batman! Well, actually, all things considered, $50 billion isn't that much. Keep in mind that this figure takes inflation into account, and that under the current administration, the Armed Forces has been taking the long and winding highway to hell. In fact, if there were to be a world war right now, and the president had to mobilize the armed forces, two whole divisions would have to respond "not ready for duty, Sir." Two whole divisions! This is absurd. By appropriating the $50 billion a year, we would not only be restoring our military readiness, but we would also be equipping our boys with the best equipment around, putting America once more on the bleeding edge of military technology. This is certainly of greater importance than, say, spending it on worthless and corrupt "social programs" that are run by twisted bureaucracies.
It's Sublime!
Recently an amusing incident came up. An advertisement by the Republican National Committee was running a little while ago in which it criticized Gore and government. Supposedly, while Gore's image was on the screen, the word "rats" flashed on and off very quickly; too quickly for the conscious mind to perceive it. Shortly afterward, the flash would be followed by the word "bureaucrats." This is very interesting, because now people have been accusing the Republicans of using subliminal propaganda. For those of you who don't know what that is, subliminal messages are images or words that flash on a screen too quickly for the conscious mind to perceive them. However, the unconscious mind managed to see them. In this case, after seeing the commercial, you might think negatively of Gore because for some reason he reminds you of a rat. This form of propaganda is very real, and at the same time very much frowned upon, as it takes advantage of the human mind. The Republicans deny allegations that they did this on purpose. They insist that at no point were they trying to manipulate voters' minds. What do you think? Is subliminal propaganda ok? Does it depict an Orwellian government that controls citizens' minds? Email technews@wpi.edu with your opinion. Next week I will be writing more on subliminal propaganda to study how it has been used in this campaign.