Let’s face it, folks. Ann Coulter is not going away, no matter what we do. The networks, for some inexplicable reason, love her. I don’t see it, but I guess they do. Expect to see and hear more of her, whether you want to or not.
So. If I’m proven wrong about this, I will grin from ear to ear as you say you told me so. But on the very likely chance that I’m right, let’s get some mileage out of it.
There’s a guy over at thehorsesmouth.com, a blog I’d never visited before today, who signs himself “howard.” Howard has come up with a brilliant plan, and I say we give him all the credit for it. He is my hero for the next 30 minutes or so.
Howard made a devastatingly simple statement that made me slap my forehead in amazement that not only didn’t I think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone else mention it either, and yet it’s so obvious once he said it.
The right loves to label us Michael Moore Democrats. Fine. From now on every Republican who says a hateful thing about a Democrat, every Republican who thinks killing Arabs and Muslims is a good idea, every Republican who wants to make outrageout statements to get attention . . . even if it’s peripheral, even if it’s tenuous . . .
from this day forward, every single Republican who fits that description is an Ann Coulter Republican.
Call John Murtha a coward? Yes, that’s the kind of talk we expect from an Ann Coulter Republican.
Bomb Iran? That’s the kind of crazy idea only an Ann Coulter Republian would come up with.
If you think this is underhanded, if you think we shouldn’t do this, remember that the Republicans started the politics of personal destruction. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
If Coulter isn’t going to go away, let’s at least make sure that those who aren’t quite as loud and obnoxious about preaching their special brand of hate know: We’re on to them, and we are going to tie her around their necks like a millstone and hope it drags them down.
And when the Republicans repudiate her, when they stop buying her books and inviting her onto television and radio and into their magazines, we’ll stop.
Maybe.
But we’d be more likely to stop if they would just kick whatever malformed component of their personality that makes them think it’s OK to be cruel, hateful, and call for the harm or even murder of those they disagree with to the curb and let the street sweepers deliver it to where it belongs, along with every single copy of Coulter’s books that befouls the remainder tables of the world.
I like it.
I’m also starting to refer to them, online only (since the mundanes don’t get it) as the Godwin’s Law Party, because it appears to me harder and harder to have any substantive discussion of their policies, ideology, or personal behavior without getting into rather invidious comparisons…
Works for me.
This is excellent. It actually fits with something I just wrote too. This is an outstanding tactic to illuminate real truth.
Exactly the right strategy to use the shame we all feel when we encounter someone like her. I have been using the phrase “your Ann Coulter moment” to disparage that type of behaviour. It is eerily effective.
Her aggressive displays are so much like the displays that primates make when they meet another social group in the forest. She is like the screechy monkey that pounds her chest and screeches, then pulls back and lets someone else do the dirty work, the fighting.
Ann Coulter is quite typical and Representative of the Republican Party when it is all said and done.
I am seriously rethinking the stance I took in another diery yesterday, about not falling prey to the right wing strategy of waving “red flag puppets” in front of the American people in order to divert attention to what they’re really up to and tying up our energy opposing any of their red flag puppets that they can easily replace with another. Brenda made me think about how just far Coulter is really taking it with feeling so free to wish death on the actual people who she disagrees with. She reminded how the unstable among us can so easily regard hearing that crap on TV as permission to act it out. She’s right. Having worked state hospital level psych wards for so many years, I can easily see the potential of this occuring.
I can’t believe we are at the point where out and out hate speech gets replayed over and over on prime time TV and print publications.
For sure I will be using the phrase “Ann Coulter Republicans” from here on, to describe far right Repugs. Excellent idea. I will also be sending off letters to a lot of major media and thier advertizers, as was suggested by Steven, I believe.
This gal is one person I wouldn’t mind taking down, putting in four point restraints, and shooting full of Haldol.
I had a thought this morning that I’d like to toss out, and replying to your comment seems like the perfect place to do it, since you talk about her being so free with death.
I would like to get on a national stage with Coulter. Me, her, and a baseball bat. A nice shiny aluminum one.
No, I would not swing it. I would offer it to her. I would tell her, “You say the best way to talk to liberals is with a baseball bat? Fine.” Then I’d bring the bat out from behind the desk and clang it on the floor for emphasis. “Here it is.” I would offer her the handle. “You wanna take a swing at me? Fine. I’m your liberal piñata. Have at it.”
She, of course, will do no such thing because like the rest of her tribe, she is a bully and a coward. She is not stupid enough to do something in front of an audience that will get her arrested for assault, though. Especially not to an old overweight guy who doesn’t look like he could defend himself.
It’s a pipe dream, but it’s a pleasant one.
Knowing Ann, she’d probably instead egg on the skinheads and brownshirts in her audience to “be men” and do the job for her. Real class.
Well, the plan is not without its risks, but I would of course brief studio security on the plan beforehand. Which would likely mean I couldn’t do it unless I was on some show like Jerry Springer, which is, um, highly unlikely. Besides, to have maximum effect it would have to be on something like the Tonight Show.
That would certainly be sensible: turf is everything. In this case, you clearly see that your challenge would need to be on relatively neutral turf (e.g., Tonite Show, Colbert Report, etc.) rather than say one of her own speaking gigs.
You are my god. I’d hit her with it. I know it’s wrong. Jesus, Gandhi, Tolstoy, M.L. King, Jr. are right. I’d still hit her with it.
But, you may ask, would I enjoy it, relish it, giggle over it, do the PeeWee Herman Big Shoe dance after I was done. Of course not.
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Damn, I would, especially the Big Shoe Dance.
That fact, howver, doesn’t diminish the brilliance of your idea.
I’d come visit you and bring you flowers, but I doubt if they’d let you have them behind that big thick sheet of glass and all.
Just have to get those stubborn assed democratic pundits to start using some of these great ideas.
I read these excellent ideas all the time and then the people who should use them (pundits who get on tv, actual politicians) never do end up using them.
It’s frustrating.
In my Sunday morning blog tour, I came across something interesting at DK–this LINK: diary that introduced me to “social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister’s 1997 study, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty.” In the process of looking up more about him, I found this comment in an Amazon review:
Baumeister proposes the startling theory that violence proceeds not from low self-esteem, but from high self-esteem. Specifically, people who have high self-esteem that lacks a firm basis in genuine accomplishment are especially prone to commit aggressive, destructive acts.
Very interesting light in which to view Ann Coulter Republicans, me thinks.
Yes it is. It fits with thoughts I’ve had for some years now, about the apparent lack of empathy and compassion that seems so prevalent in many violence prone people. Could this be part of the outcome of people raised in a “me first” kind of social paradigm? Could this be resulting in a sort of milder form of sociopathy than we are used to diagnosing in people with no apparent conscience structure?
Roy Baumeister’s work on self-esteem has been groundbreaking. People with high & unstable self-esteem (in some of the experimental research I’ve read, the term narcissism is used) tend to be more easily angered by ego threats and do react more aggressively to ego threats than do those whose sense of self-esteem is stable.
I ended up reading a good deal of this literature while I was working on my dissertation. I might be able to dredge up something of a reading list later when I’m at the office if anyone’s interested.
I just ordered the “Evil” book from my library.
That’ll be a pretty good place to start. I know that he and Brad Bushman have also co-authored some empirical studies and the occasional review article since the book came out. It’s an interesting area of study.
If the book whets your apetite, here’s an abbreviated reference list (note: it’s slightly out of date, but should give a good start):
Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., & Campbell, K. (2000). Self-esteem, narcissism, and aggression: Does violence result from low self-esteem or from threatened egotism? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 26-29.
Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103, 5-33.
Brown, K. L. (1991). Narcissism and self-esteem as contributing to anger/aggression in men and women. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
Bushman, B. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219-229.
Kernis, M. H., Grannemann, B. D., & Barclay, L. C. (1989). Stability of self-esteem as predictors of anger arousal and hostility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 1013-1022.
Rhodewalt, F., & Morf, C. C. (1998). On self-aggrandizement and anger: A temporal analysis of narcissism and affective reactions to success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 672-685.
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Again, this is just a partial reading list for any who might be interested on the topic of self-esteem and aggressive behavior (I’m certain to have left out Emmons’ contributions, as well as other work by Kernis, Rhodewalt, Baumeister, & others).
when it comes to Ann, I would most likely feed the “wrong” wolf ; )
just could’nt help myself on that one….
When it comes to Ann, there IS no “wrong wolf.” One way you get stronger, the other way we’re rid of the (censored).
Win/Win.
I personally like the label “Cheap Labor Conservatives” or if you prefer “Cheap Labor Republicans”.
Using her is requires moderates to know what your talking about in the first place.