Well, I think that's true. How was Bush a "conservative"? The can of worms you refer to is in distinguishing between what these terms, "liberal" and "conservative," really mean, and how they're misappropriated by various peoples/parties. I'd maintain in most important ways, Bush was a liberal. What exactly did he "conserve"? Not money. Not traditional America. Of course, he used the language of "conservation" when it was convenient, and yes, many people were fooled. And I can't argue that many people were fooled because of their own expectations.After the former Prez became a lame duck all the rats left the sinking ship and claim that Concer ideas wasn't the problem but he was.
Nevertheless, I maintain that the majority of people have common sense, and can sense when something is wrong, even when they can't explain in convincing, coherent, or rational ways what they're feeling. That doesn't mean that the feeling is illegitimate, however.
I think it's probably too much to ask of people that they can explain their sense or morality or normalcy in intricate philosophical terms. A "people" has an ingrained sense of who and what they are that is inculcated from birth in countless different ways -- a "mythology," if you will. In a well functioning society, this ingrained knowledge is passed on generationally to form an ongoing sense of continuity that gives meaning to people's lives without having to reinvent the wheel and specifically explicate that knowledge. That's how civilizations progress. Some become theoreticians. Some don't. But with a shared sense of purpose, all are valuable.
And that's precisely what's broken down.
So I have a basically different reaction to what you describe as "brainwashing" from the media. Rather, it seems to be right-wing talk radio (and Fox News, I guess) are cynically playing off of people's sense of fragmenting continuity. In other words, they provide the illusion that someone is speaking for them, looking out for their interests. I don't think that talk radio is creating anything that isn't already there. People's basic instinctual sense that something is deeply amiss is surely correct. And that is a kind of "BS meter" that sees through the propaganda coming at them from the government.
So, the basic distinction: I think the common American people have a deeply intuitive intelligence that is sometimes incoherent in rational terms, but that doesn't mean they're wrong in this case. Rather, they sense that there is indeed a serious threat to that very continuity -- of country, culture, and identity -- they've been raised on and wish to preserve...or "conserve." And that's why they're so angry. They don't understand it, they can't explain it...but they know that it's real.