“I want it now!” – Veruca Salt
Politics is a game that requires you to play your cards in a particular order. It requires patience. You can’t skip to the end and you can’t demand the impossible... that will only blow up on you. Indeed, when it is impossible to do something, it’s idiotic to demand that someone do it, and even more idiotic to attack them for not delivering it. Trying to rush things will only guarantee you never get what you want.
“I’m screaming because I have no inner monologue.” – Austin Powers
Just because you have a particular motivation or thought does not mean you need to express that motivation or thought. Politics is as much about what you don’t say as it is about what you do say. And screaming your most angry, irrational, idiotic thoughts may feel good, but it draws the same response from the public as when they see a child throwing a tantrum at WalMart. The goal of politics is to make your side seem calm, rational, and moderate, while making your opponent seem rash, crazy and extreme... not the other way around.
“Wait’ll they get a load of me.” – The Joker
The public doesn’t like monsters. You can’t terrify people into following you. And coming across as a cheap villain will only net you disdain... not admiration.
“The sky is falling!” – Chicken Little
Making false doomsday predictions will destroy your credibility. False doomsday predictions are things like national bankruptcy, a repeat of the Great Depression, the collapse of the government, the rise of Nazi Germany USA, the collapse of the military, etc. Not only does predicting these things make you a joke, but it discredits the few genuine concerns you might have. Indeed, when you get a reputation as someone who is always wrong, no one cares about the few things you might be right about.
“Wolf!” – Aesop
Ammo shortage! They’re banning ___! Bush/Obama plan to use the military to stay in power! Obama is a secret Muslim! Bush is a Bilderberger! Alinsky’s under my bed! The
“If I have haters, then I’m doing something right.” – Albert Haynesworth, NFL villain and washout. See also many more.
Sure, some people like Reagan were hated by the left because the left seeks to destroy its enemies. But just because the other side hates you does not mean you are doing the right things. Sometimes, they hate you because you’re despicable, see e.g. Richard Nixon, Debbie Wasserman Schulz, Hitler. Sometimes they target you because you’re a soft target, see e.g. Dan Quayle, Sarah Palin, Jimmy Carter, Qaddafi. And here's a hint: if the non-partisan public sides with the haters over you, then it’s more likely you’re Hitler or Palin than it is you’re Reagan.
“Either you're for us or you're against us.” – Robert Urich (as Grimes in Magnum Force). See also Lenin, Mussolini, Clinton, W. Bush.
The world is not black and white, and in our political system it is impossible to achieve anything without winning over the people in the middle. There is no single group in this country that can go it alone – not by race, not by religion, not by party, not by ideology. Taking the position that your side is a private club is the perfect way to guarantee that your side will actually be a private club.
Anyway, there is a bigger point here and it connects to the world of entertainment. Fairy Tales impart lessons in us all. These are fundamental elements of how to understand human nature. These things don't stop being true or relevant just because you enter politics. Screaming about a falling sky, crying wolf, and refusing to question the emperor's lack of clothing are things we all know are bad, yet somehow we ignore or forget those lessons when it comes to political strategy. That's bad.
Secondarily, consider that Hollywood has done a solid job of exposing the things our culture despises: the abusive coach, the father who denigrates all of his son's achievements, the businessman who goes out of his way to pollute or harm people, the abusive cop, the immoral lawyer, the moronic peacenik, the hypocrite. These are villains, they are not things to emulate. Yet, a sizable portion of the rhetoric in politics today, from both fringes, does exactly that: it embraces the words and conduct of these villains. Seriously, if you find yourself or your favorite politician embracing the personae of a film villain... stop. You're doing it wrong.
Of everything you named, I think the thing that annoys me the most is when conservatives fret that, sometime in the next fifteen minutes, the liberal president is going to declare himself Dictator for Life--to thunderous applause, no less.
ReplyDeleteNot only does that fly in the face of everything we know about Americans, it defies the faith that conservatives claim to have in the Constitution. If they really believed in the Constitution as they so often claim, conservatives would be aware of how limited the powers of the president are and the extent of the checks against even his broadest powers. To be sure, the greatest threat to the Constitution are its own built-in loopholes that Congress, not the president, has learned to exploit.
In that vein, I always find it amusing when I see someone spell "AmeriKKKa." I mean, seriously, who falls for that stuff?
tryanmax, That one annoys me too. It requires such a huge level of ignorance to believe that. But let me point out, the left does this too. Just as Obama was preparing to suspend the constitution in 2012 should he lose (which was why he banned guns in 2008 and ammo in 2010 and fired all the "good Christian military officers" who would oppose him in 2008-2011), Bush was preparing the same thing in 2008 by sending Cheney off to "the hidden bunker" and calling out the 82 Airborne to seize the country the moment he declared martial law.
ReplyDeleteThis is boogeymanish as it's lowest form... it is the low hanging fruit of fringe porn. But they do seem to love it.
I guess I give the left a pass because they don't claim any understanding of the Constitution in the first place.
ReplyDeleteTrue. Still, I give no one a pass, except that I'm happy to see the left make fools of themselves. I would rather that our side didn't.
ReplyDelete. . .the liberal president is going to declare himself Dictator for Life
ReplyDeletePaul Erlich is still considered a leftist saint, even though his popular predictions of eminent doom for humanity were wildly or even insanely wrong on all counts. He is now being emulated by Climate Scientists the world over.
When Thatcher was in power in Britain, the BBC - the arbiters of "good taste" in anglosphere TV entertainment, ran a series where the British military/conservatives executed a coup rather than allow a socialist government to take power. Also see "Seven Days in May". Both of these offerings were critically acclaimed and they may have been called paranoid by their opponents but they weren't excoriated by their own sides as being yahoos.
Based on the common use of exaggeration on the left to motivate a political base in race relations, climate science, poverty policy and gender relations I'd say it's a pretty effective political weapon. Particularly when you hold the vast majority of the information channels.
So why the heartburn with conservatives engaging in an exercise in energizing the base?
“Either you're for us or you're against us.” – Robert Urich (as Grimes in Magnum Force). See also Lenin, Mussolini, Clinton, W. Bush.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to Bush, not a good example. What Bush actually said in his speech on September 20, 2001 was was willfully taken out of context and misrepresented first by the American left and then by the foreign media.
Here is the context:
"Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes visible on TV and covert operations secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. Our nation has been put on notice, we're not immune from attack. We will take defensive measures against terrorism to protect Americans."
This is not a controversial statement. It is perfectly clear that Bush meant nations that have heretofore supported or harbored terrorists. He is not referring to Americans, nor is he talking about, say, Japan or Spain. Yet it is now universally pretended that he was threatening allies and the domestic opposition.
This is nothing but a big 1984-style lie. It is one reason why I´m not as sanguine about the left-wing dominance of the media. If they are determined to misunderstand something, the legend replaces the fact and you may not even know it is happening. In that case, paranoia and hysteria worked just fine.
Andrew.....Great line: "Fairy Tales impart lessons in us all. These are fundamental elements of how to understand human nature. These things don't stop being true or relevant just because you enter politics." And outside of politics too obviously.
ReplyDelete"The sky is falling!" -- Al Gore
"I want it now." -- Amnesty backers
"Wolf!" -- President Barack Hussein Obama
Kill the golden goose -- Keynesians
The Ant and the Grasshopper -- Conservatives and Liberals
Wolves, sheep and sheepdogs -- Fill in the blanks
Just a few that come easily to mind. It's amazing how these basic human truths are borne out again and again throughout history. Human nature has not changed much in thousands of years, thus, communism's desire to 'perfect' mankind will always fail.
A fun way of looking at an old political truth, by using negative quotes. There is a clear message to certain hard core conservatives, although this is hardly a new phenomenon. Let's face it, the question in politics has always been about dogmatic vs. pragmatic. If we go to the question on a more positive note, I am reminded (thanks to Sunday's film debate) about the John Adams mini-series where the great Ben Franklin reminded the Adams boys bout politics being "the art of the possible."
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, the point about "doomsday predictions" made me think about Fat Albert the Hut with his "Earth in the Balance" b.s. Still, that porker did get rich off of it, so we should also remember the quote "you can fool some of the people all of the time."
why the heartburn with conservatives engaging in an exercise in energizing the base?
ReplyDeleteI believe I explained that in my initial comment. I'm not particularly down with parallelism, especially from the side that claims to be above it.
Some of my ultra-conservative friends have issues with me because I don't go in for hyperbole on Obama. I don't personally think he's intellectually or mentally capable of pulling off a coup. Nor do I think that Hillary, Bush, Cheney etc are capable..well, Cheney maybe, he's a smart cookie. I really try to be careful about what I read and before commenting on it I want to know the background. Most stuff is innocuous, generally it's just political. I do believe this administration is hiding an awful lot from us regarding Benghazi, but it will come out eventually, like Robert Kennedy Jr's diary. You can't be a jerk forever and get away with it. Friends of mine see all sorts of dark clouds becasue obama will not let us import a bunch of Korean M-1 Garands,,I don't see anything sinister...he's just screwing with us because he can and he wants to make brownine points with his lefty friends...those rifles will eventually make it here..
ReplyDeleteI was an idiot back in 2008. But I was 18-19 at that time so I request a mulligan on the grounds of youthful stupidity.
ReplyDeleteThough the only times I've ever used "false flag" in a serious sentence may have been in reference to Red Storm Rising or Germany's attack on Poland, which they used to start the war (and everybody saw through). Other than those times, I'm makin' fun of Alex Jones.
This is also a problem in the Christian Church in America, as this guy points out: LINK
ReplyDeleteK, The heartburn is this -- when the left does it, it is idiotic and it discredits them with the public. Why should we repeat their mistake? Why not exploit their mistake and make them a permanent minority?
ReplyDeleteEl Gordo, Thanks for the context, I just saw the quote itself. In any event, the point really is just to show how common this kind of statement is and to point out that it is a bad idea when trying to woo the public.
ReplyDeletePatriot, Bingo! Great examples.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this isn't an issue that is unique to the left or the right, both do it... I would say, however, that until the last couple years the left did it MUCH more than the right actually. BUT I don't care about the left nor do I want to help them. I want to see our side prevail. So I'm happy to see the left continue this stupidity. I just want to see our side not follow their lead.
We are at a point right now where the public is primed to be won by the first side that acts like adults with genuine ideas. We need to seize that.
As an aside, I find it amazing that these lessons are so simple and so obvious and we ALL know them, but then everyone forgets them whenever they get the chance! Strange.
Thanks Jed. You know, I don't even think it's that much about principle v. pragmatism... I think it's more about rhetoric and conduct. You can do a lot of things the public doesn't want if you ask nicely enough and you do it slowly enough. It's just when you start screaming or overacting that the public's danger sensors turn on.
ReplyDeleteAl Gore,yeah. LOL! Al Gore did a great job of enriching himself from the people stupid enough to follow him. He may actually be the greatest living conman.
That said, look at what's happened with his movement though. They have been caught faking data. They've been acting like little Nazis and now suddenly we have global cooling... and they are scrambling to explain why they every one of their predictions is wrong. China and the Third World have flipped them the bird, the Europeans are starting to rethink, and we never fell for it. This won't end well for their Chicken Little society.
tryanmax, To me, the bigger issue is that I want the right to prevail, I want the left to fail. So I'm fine when the left acts out.
ReplyDeleteCritch, Some of my ultra-conservative friends have issues with me because I don't go in for hyperbole on Obama -- that's the other problem. This kind of behavior feeds into a "why aren't you angry like the rest of us... are you a traitor?" mentality. And that's highly destructive because it shifts the focus of the conflict from stopping the other side to infighting.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I don't think much of Obama. I don't think he's particularly bright. He's not talented. He's not energetic. He's kind of a dud actually. And causing something like a coup (or changing the US) takes a LOT more than he's got.
In the past 100 years, the only Presidents to really change the country were LBJ, Nixon, and Reagan. All the rest were just tinkerers.
Kit, Alex Jones uses it all the time. If he is to be believed, there has never been a genuine incident in the world... they are all conspiracies. LOL!
ReplyDeleteKit, That's not unique to churches. Think: feminists. They want to believe that not having enough toilets for women in a stadium or someone saying "his" as a generic is true oppression. Good grief. Move to Afghanistan and find out what real oppression is.
ReplyDeleteI think the victim mentality has a lot of appeal for some reason with millions of Americans.
Andrew,
ReplyDeleteI know. Social Conservatism and Feminism seem to have a lot in common these days.
Kit, As unhappy a thought as this may be, I think the victim mindset is becoming a very American mindset. You see it everywhere now.
ReplyDeleteAndrew: when the left does it, it is idiotic and it discredits them with the public.
ReplyDeleteI thought the #WaronWomen got quite a lot of traction with the public while being chock full of hyperbole and hyper-exaggeration.
tryanmax: I'm not particularly down with parallelism, especially from the side that claims to be above it.
Both sides claim to be above it. When called on it in the aftermath the usual response is "we were only joking", or "a few of our supporters got carried away".
It seems to me that we are either in a real existential fight for the actualization of American freedom or we're not. When one side hits the barricades or controls the political machine the "above it all" debating societies become irrelevant.
K, as I pointed out to Andrew, it's the conservative side that claim to be experts in the Constitution, so they ought to know by that claim that their own conspiracies don't add up.
ReplyDeleteThe liberal side doesn't make any such claims about the Constitution. Instead, they call it old and out-of-date. By that, I could forgive them for not knowing what is and isn't possible.
Of course, both sides are equally guilty of forgetting the nature of Americans, who would never stand for summary suspension of the rule of law. But such conspiracy theories are predicated on the assumption that the subscribers are of a tiny minority that "gets it" and everyone else are "sheeple." I'm not going to beat my head against that crazy wall.
P.S. Don't get me wrong, I find it annoying from both sides. But as to this particular example, I find the conservative version more unforgivable.
ReplyDeleteK, The "war on women" is a self-inflicted wound that began in the 1990s and has been getting worse year by year. It is the direct result of the type of rhetoric you are praising.
ReplyDeleteSo you have it backwards. What you are advocating caused the problem, maintains the problem and continues to make it work. And it's nonsense to claim that the Democrats exploiting that is proof that Democratic rhetoric works and that we should be emulating it.
Also, the idea that we are in an existential fight of any sort is just silly.
Tangentially related to this whole "lessons in logic" thread:
ReplyDeleteAfter the DC Navy Yard shooting yesterday, there's been a bunch of talk about how the killer used an "AR-15 shotgun," which of course has generated a lot of talk about how terrible assault weapons are and how they need to be banned, blah blah blah. Thing is, there is no such thing as an AR-15 shotgun. The guy had a regular shotgun on him, plus a couple of pistols. And that's it.
Hence, a couple of people have suggested that the House GOP should make a show of introducing legislation to ban the AR-15 shotgun, which would create a spectacle but at the same time be no skin off anyone's nose, since nobody owns such a weapon in the first place.
So I thought I'd toss that question out. Counterproductive, a good idea, or what?
T-Rav, I think that, done right, absurdity is a great way to make a point. Banning a nonexistant weapon could be clever so long as it was making an appropriate point, but I'm not sure what that point would be. It probably depends on how many anti-gun politicians you can get to blindly sign onto it. If it is passed by folks who know darn well it's meaningless, it would backfire. Anyone who knows better--including whoever introduces it--should probably abstain.
ReplyDeleteT-Rav, since we're using quotes today, I'm going to let this speak for me on the shooting/shotgun issue:
ReplyDelete"Good grief." -Charlie Brown
BTW, thanks for the explanation on Plato in yesterday's thread!
T-Rav, I think that's a bad idea for two reasons.
ReplyDeleteFirst, that requires the public to grasp a fairly strong level of subtlety and my concern would be that a lot of people would be freaking out about those RINOs trying to ban guns. Moreover, I think it would confuse the non-tuned in public as to what we stand for as they would see this as the Republicans banning guns... which would help Democrats in places like West Virginia.
Secondly, I think that's the kind of thing that can really be turned around on you. I could easily see the Democrats attacking us for "mocking" the victims by "trying to score a cheap political point off a couple of newscasters who misspoke." It is dangerous ground to tread and I'm not sure we have a leader who could threat that needle right now.
I think it's best to instead make this a talking point and get conservatives everywhere (especially the Sunday talk shows) making the point: how can you trust the left when they don't even understand basic facts about guns?
Rustbelt, Well chosen.
ReplyDeleteThis shooting is one of those horrible things that happens and there's nothing you can do about it... yet, the left is trying to politicize it before they've even cleaned up the blood. That should be pointed out, that Democrats love to exploit victims.
If a bunch of school kids getting killed didn't alter the gun debate, a bunch of adults getting killed won't. Ghouls who are already seeking to politicize this should be mercilessly mocked.
ReplyDeleteAnthony, I agree, this won't change the debate at all. In fact, I expect the debate will shift to why a military "installation" isn't more secure, even though this isn't much of an installation.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, the usual suspects are out there already following the usual patterns to try to exploit this. I heard the DC mayor actually blamed sequestration. Wow.
Andrew said, "That should be pointed out, that Democrats love to exploit victims."
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I couldn't agree more. I know it's a macabre example, but when I was still working at a TV station, (I believe this was the morning of the Aurora, CO shooting), I told one of my left-leaning co-workers that I was taking all bets as to how long it would take left-leaning journalists to point their fingers at the usual suspects. I think he said I was being cruel. Then, when Charlie and George on ABC obliged and got rightfully blasted for it, he had nothing to say.
The left knows how to exploit in ways 1970's exploitation filmmakers could only imagine.
Rustbelt, I've seen it my whole life. The left loves to blast the right for not caring and being heartless etc. etc. and they brag about how much they care about "real people." And then whenever something like this happens, you almost see the glee with which they rush to podiums to push their agenda.
ReplyDeleteRustbelt, my pleasure. :-)
ReplyDeleteAndrew, while I wouldn't mind them managing to use this to make the Dems look stupid, I have to agree. If they can't fight back with anything else, they'd use their tears; and probably most people wouldn't recognize the point being made.
It would probably be much better to take advantage of unconscious gaffes like these.
T-Rav, I LOVE that word... to beclown. :D
ReplyDeletetryanmax, I like it in the abstract, as a chance to show everyone how stupid the Dems are about gun control. But as Andrew notes above, that's probably not how it would play out in reality. Probably the only thing you could do with it is prove that liberals don't know anything about firearms; and I doubt that would faze the most determined of them, the ones who are out to restrict gun ownership in general. So, yeah.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, it is very useful, isn't it? ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt is. It's all around awesome. There just isn't another word that captures its spirit!
ReplyDelete... especially when describing our leftist friends.
Andrew -
ReplyDeleteAre you sure you didn't just copy the Big Hollywood contributor guidelines? :-)
“If I have haters, then I’m doing something right.”
This one drives me f---ing nuts. To be fair, there's that Churchill quote, "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
But it doesn't mean the person was right. With this logic, Obama must be a genius because so many people hate him. (Ditto Palin, Bush, etc.)
P.S. I keep threatening it but I think this article is going off to Reddit.
Scott, LOL! It seems that way sometimes, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI hear the haters quote EVERYWHERE now and it drives me nuts. In the past month, at least two rappers and two football players have said it, plus of course some Palin supporter says it every week.
As for Churchill, he meant something considerably more complex. He meant that more along the lines of saying that nothing important is easy and the bigger the good you are doing the more people will try to stop you.
Feel free to send this to Reddit... what is Reddit by the way?
So, this is late coming to me, and I apologize for that, but wouldn't the inverse of "wisdom" be "dumbdom"?
ReplyDelete*snicker*
Reddit is just a big online bulletin board. Politics, geek stuff, funny photos, cute cats... the usual. :-)
ReplyDeleteHere's an explanation.
Another pet peeve of mine (and I mentioned it in my Armageddon review of all places)... is that you don't always have to knock down the other guy to prop up your guy.
A dick like Kurt Schlichter doesn't have to knock vegans just to praise meat-eaters. (Bad - but valid - example.)
tryanmax, LOL! Works for me. :)
ReplyDeleteScott, Go ahead! Fire away. LOL!
ReplyDeleteI agree completely that you don't need to tear the other guy down to make your guy look good. In fact, if you find you have to do that, then your guy isn't very good.
Schlichter... year. He's just trying to shock people into reading his stuff.
Scott, did you hear about that movie involving Rome and time travel that started out as a thread on Reddit? Any word on how that's coming along?
ReplyDeleteT-Rav -
ReplyDeleteI read about it but it's been a while since I've heard any news.
According to one of the links in this subreddit, it's still in development.