It’s interesting to me that we don’t see corollaries on the left of a lot of the stuff that we see on the right. I’m talking about from elected officials, not some-dudes on the internet. Why, for example, don’t we see relatively obscure backbenchers in the House calling for investigations of Romney staffers based on six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon ties to Islamic jihadists? Why aren’t we seeing extreme liberals from…I don’t know…Vermont, questioning whether Mormonism is a cult and denying that Romney is a Christian? Why are there no elected Dems pointing out that Romney’s ancestors fled from two countries under duress, and that they practiced polygamy? Why has no one concocted a conspiracy theory that Romney was really born on the RMS Queen Elizabeth in international waters and, thus, is not a natural born citizen who is eligible for the office of the presidency? And why have no congressmen or senators expressed some concern that Romney hasn’t disproven that theory? Why hasn’t some official Obama surrogate questioned whether Romney knows how to be an American?
Most of these things are absurd or grossly exaggerated, but some of them are true or at least open for debate. I don’t think it’s an unwillingness to play hardball that explains why the Democrats won’t mirror these Republican tactics. I think people on the left genuinely think it’s wrong to attack someone’s religious beliefs or espouse ridiculous conspiracy theories or arouse fears on completely baseless nonsense or to treat the truth as something that is worthless. I think they also don’t like to look stupid in front of their peers.
For some reason, there is nothing in the typical Republican officeholder’s brain that tells them there’s an unacceptable downside to obliterating the truth in the pursuit of power. I think it is because lying is a critical and indispensable ingredient in their political success.
You’re being far too generous. The “typical Republican officeholders” have been Darwinianly reduced to fucking moronic religious extremists.
Pre-94 guys like McConnell and Boehner and whoever are just snakes, true. But post-Gingrich, these people couldn’t find the truth with a map, GPS, and a flashlight, let alone be clever enough to cynically lie about it instead.
They’re true blue stupid.
FWIW, I disagree. Michael Tomasky had an interesting reflection on Pres. Obama’s “Firms” ad over at The Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/07/19/michael-tomasky-on-romney-the-un-american-in-the-pr
esidential-race.html
Tomasky notes that since at least the 1920s, Republicans have been the party of “Americans”, while Democrats have been the party of “others”.
In the ’20s it was “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion”—all those lazy Papist foreigners invading our cities, taking our jobs and not learning our ways. (Less politely, the KKK stood for opposition to “Koons, Kikes and Katholics” as it tried to build a WASP alliance against everyone else.)
The specific targets have changed over the decades, but since then Republicans have always claimed—implicitly and explicitly—to be the more “American” party.
Tomasky confesses his original ambivalence about the ad and its use of Romney singing “America the Beautiful, but eventually changes his mind because:
“…the ad succeeds marvelously at making Romney’s career not just about rapacious pursuit of profit, but about patriotism. I don’t ever recall a Democratic campaign implying that a Republican’s behavior was unpatriotic. So consider my hat tipped, in a big way. It’s as if Obama changed the directional flow of a mighty river.
Now Romney is going to scramble to reset things to normal. But we’re supposed to own the label “America”! We decide what’s patriotic! That’s just how it’s always been, that’s why! I’m sure Romney is absolutely staggered at the idea that his life’s work is being calumniated as, of all things, unpatriotic, and by–as I said earlier, of all people–Barack Obama. I luxuriate in the thought that right-wingers across the country are tearing their hair out over this as if in a nice hot bath. But that’s what is happening, and it’s resonating because it’s true. “
The sad part is, all those attacks would work wonderfully. But we are well behind the Reps in getting over the ability to feel shame.
Because Mitt’s not black.
Any other questions you want to pretend to not know the answer to?
that’s a huge part of it, but you can also point to what they did and tried to do to Clinton. It’s not all because of race. Part of it is just lack of peer pressure. I mean, Bachmann finally crossed a line for some folks on the right, but how many lines did she cross to get there?
And don’t think for a moment that if Hillary had won, she wouldn’t be dealing with unprecedented levels of insane hatred too. It’s an academic question, but I’ve wondered off and on over the years if she might have actually stirred up more outrage.
Because there are no “relatively obscure backbenchers in the House” Democrats that are nutso and dumb enough to do it. And when there is headed for that territory, such as Traficant, they have already crossed over into GOP-land.
Who knew that John G. Schmitz wasn’t a vile nutcase and were merely ahead of his time?
The Republican target demographic is relatively insular, so the best way to get them to turn out and vote Republican is to barrage them with messages of the opposition as being Teh Other. For Obama it’s that the sherrif’s a (n-word), and he’s from Africa, he’s “mooslum” and belongs to a wacked-out church and associates with shady Chicago wiseguys. For Clinton it was the whole philandering Bubba thing (and enough truth for it to stick).
There’s no such parallel for the Left – the target demographic for Democrats prefers reason and pragmatism to shrill pronouncements, and it’s pretty hard to demagogue practicality. You can go all in on your opponents weaknesses and failures, but if you go too far then you yourself will become unreasonable in their eyes (e.g. nobody believes Romney would actually propose the economic plan that he’s actually proposing).
It’s not fair, at all, but it is where we stand.
Booman, how is your back the AM???
stiff and painful, but better than yesterday morning. I still needed help to get out of bed.
.
Is there any comfortable position? Like standing, walking, hot shower or just booz to kill the pain. Take care and hoping on a quick recovery. Is it part of god’s plan, do you need prayers? I’m always afraid by prayers,the rain comes down insessantly. Used the wrong chapter in the bible.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I’ve been making that case almost since the first day I wondered into the “internets”.
It’s clear that they do it because they know they can’t win the “great debate” (between the “rugged individualists” and those with a social conscience they lack, because they largely lack any conscience at all) without it. This is why dishonesty has become a feature as opposed to a bug in their rank ranks, and the truth is the greatest existential threat to their ideology in its current form.
What is often completely missing and always completely lacking in the discussions of this, is the role their lies, defamations, etc, have in the creation and perpetuation of the lack of any bridge building across the wide gulf known as the political divide. It is not only imo, the primary source and proximate cause of the poisoning of our political discourse, it also is highly successful in plucking the morality-based disgust strings in their minions that in turn, explains the sheer magnitude of stupidity that creates and accomodates the rampant denial, cognitive dissonance, etc so prevalent in them today. Their rage and disgust never diminishes and always escalates (as does their use of lies, etc that cause it) because it doesn’t matter how thoroughly their lies, etc are debunked, they always retain some vestige of truth in the minds of their minions, in a garbage in/garbage stays kinda way. There has been such a compilation of what should be gullibility-induced, shameful departures from reality accumulated (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=poll%20iraq%20wmds&source=web&cd=4&ved=0C
GAQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress.org%2Fsecurity%2F2012%2F06%2F21%2F504201%2Fpoll-republica
ns-iraq-wmd%2F&ei=OHoJUIrGLpD-rAGrs-nXCg&usg=AFQjCNF3vTFmtWtWM_3Us_fKDV5JfuRrnw)
It’s the accumulative effect of decades of this from examples big and small, that has led to the ever-escalating condition they find themselves in and our politics is poisoned by, because the only alternative is to accept and acknowledge their innumerable failings, which of course would not only threaten and negatively impact the world view and self-identity of the rightwingnut minions, but also their masters and the political power they wield that manipulate the hearts and minds of people in this way.
The credulity of their minions needs to be shattered by a collision with some immovable object. It has long been my hope that AGW will serve in that role, which is the only bright side to the taste of hell on earth we are currently suffering in this country.
You’re entirely correct — the solution lies not in becoming just like them, but that certainly doesn’t bar a bit more aggreesiveness than the dems have deployed or employed. I’d like to see Bachmann held up as the poster girl for how far down the rabbit hole many of them have gone, and as an example of how ineffective shaming has become in our current political environment as a behavior modification tool for the aforementioned reasons.
In the final analysis imo, it’s the hiding from their shame and the self-disgust that should accompany it, that best explains the unassailability/lack of eradication of their denials and the lies that prop them up, and therefore, the intractability of the problem. The rightwingnut masterminds have used the ego preservation inclinations of their minions to preserve and support the preservation of their greed. This is why their disgust, etc is directed outwards in the form of projections, and deflections are in such common and widespread use — like the Mutt’s efforts in response to the Bain attacks.
That’s why they vote against their self-interests with such high frequency — because they can’t/won’t accept they’ve been on the wrong side of history about so much and for so long, not to mention “The Word” they’ve only paid lip service to.
Who would JC starve or torture?