evolution

For those of you visiting from other countries (and not the “international community”), and for the growing numbers of you on the left who still don’t get it, George Will explains it for you, in the Washington Post: Why America leans right (Free registration may be necessary).

Europe, post-religious and statist, is puzzled — and alarmed — by a nation where grace is said at half the family dinner tables. But religiosity, say Micklethwait and Wooldridge, “predisposes Americans to see the world in terms of individual virtue rather than in terms of the vast social forces that so preoccupy Europeans.” And: “The percentage of Americans who believe that success is determined by forces outside their control has fallen from 41 percent in 1988 to 32 percent today; by contrast, the percentage of Germans who believe it has risen from 59 percent in 1991 to 68 percent today.” In America, conservatives much more than liberals reject the presumption of individual vulnerability and incompetence that gives rise to liberal statism.

Or maybe this is why (emphasis mine):

“There’s a lot of people who would be sympathetic to his message, but the antiwar movement is very fractured right now,” said Robert Ricigliano, director of the peace studies program at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.

Some activists say they are backing Kerry, not because they prefer his platform to Nader’s, but because they are concerned he might otherwise lose to Bush, whom they consider the worst available option.

“I’m not even paying much attention to the Nader campaign right now because I am so obsessed with getting rid of the other guy,” said Eva Robar-Orlich, 37, a staff member for Wisconsin Peace Action, whose vintage clothing shop in Milwaukee doubles as a voter-registration site and salon for political discussion.

But what do I know?