Or a further examination of the alternate realities of Republicans worthy of an episode of Star Trek and the consequences of deciding that it is more important to defeat your opponent than to be victorious.
I'd like to open this column by saying, simply:
You're welcome.
I've spent the last hour, in preparation for writing this piece, reading through The American Spectator, National Review Online, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner, and The Weekly Standard. These are reliable barometers of conservative opinion, and their contents are not apt to be easily discarded as just the shrill manifestations of the fringe extreme of the right the way, say, Breitbart or FreeRepublic might be.
I just want to make one thing perfectly clear. I do this because I love you.
"Enlightened" by these right-leaning media source, here’s what I found out, among various other things (like how the President loves Muslim terrorists):
The interesting thing about these articles and these sites is that this is the face of conservatism that you're likely not seeing if you read reliably liberal sites talking about what conservatives are saying. These are, bluntly, not the sites I tend to link to when I'm trying to mock conservatives or conservatism here in my column.
These are smart, well-educated, and articulate conservatives. I wouldn't want to have to debate one in a public forum, regardless of how secure I am in my beliefs and values, or even my facts. Because, if nothing else, these people are devastatingly talented rhetoricians. But rhetoric is, primarily, about swaying your audience, not telling the truth.
So when Arthur C. Brooks, writing for National Review Online, talks about the Stimulus failing, he makes a pretty compelling case. He does so, first, by focusing on the well-documented drop in sales of new cars after the end of the Cash for Clunkers program. He ties this into a spirited defense of free-market principles as voiced by the current crop of Republicans, citing a wide-ranging study that links economic freedom — as defined by tax rates and government regulation — with economic prosperity.
All in all, its a pretty compelling argument. There's one major problem with it: he narrows his focus to one program largely judged to be a failure without taking on the rest of the program, a third of which was focused on tax relief. He also doesn't bother to engage the fact that most economists believe the Stimulus worked. These facts, of course, are inconvenient to his argument, so in the hope of swaying readers, he ignores them.
I, oddly enough, faced a similar choice tonight while writing this column. I wanted to include the line I'd seen repeated a few times around the rightwing noise machines, that Romney's 47% comments were actually a winning argument. But when I searched the publications I listed in my first full paragraph, damned if I couldn't find one.
I was shocked to discover that — near uniformly — the more “respectable” conservative publications had roundly denounced Romney's comments as both misleading of the economic realities that go into the tax code and who pays and who doesn't, and both tactically foolish and not indicative of conservative policy as they argue for it.
So I deleted the line and thought it was worth mentioning that I started with a perception that research turned out to be false, so I changed my perception, rather than ignore evidence to the contrary. The links I provided above are a small sampling, but what I saw fairly consistently in them was writers ignoring contrary evidence to a position they clearly wanted to argue for, rather than engaging it.
Why is this important?
Because these are the sharper tools in the conservative shed; these are the adult tables at the conservative Thanksgiving dinners, these are whatever your metaphor of choice is for the smart, intelligent, articulate end of conservative media. And they get kinda crazy sometimes and aren't shy about ignoring evidence that contradicts their comforting narratives. These people are, after all, in the business of attracting readers, not being bold truthtellers.
And this is the high watermark of the conversation. From there you get down to conservatives who lie — constantly — complaining that the media is lying to get Obama elected, that voter fraud is running rampant despite all evidence to the contrary, to attacking facts as objective things that can be checked or verified. And then, thankfully for the lolz, there's always Fox News.
And a lot has already been written about this subject by writers more experienced and qualified to do so than myself. I'd suggest James Fallows at The Atlantic as a great starting point on the topic of conservatives totally losing their shit – legislatively, in the media, and intellectually – during the drive to go all-in against Obama. As someone who's beat is the strategy and tactics of a modern election cycle, this concerns me for one primary reason (as an engaged citizen in a floundering democracy, I've got a fuckton of other reasons I'm concerned)…
Because it leads to bad tactics. I've been saying since this election started in January with the beginning of primary season, Republicans have made a strategic choice — it is more important to them to defeat Barack Obama than it is to win the White House. These two goals sound like they're more or less the same thing, but there's a great strategic difference between the two.
I said in my last column that this is a base election. Both candidates are charting a tactical course that is more about making their opposition so incredibly unacceptable to voters, because they — at bottom — have nothing worth actually running on themselves. They can't convince you to vote for them, but they can convince you to vote against their opposition.
Since the beginning, Mitt Romney's campaign has set out to tell you how bad this President has been, thus convincing voters to vote for him as the only alternative. He's yet to offer detailed policies, but he has plenty of attack lines and corresponding attack ads. Alex Pareene — among others — offers an interesting theory of why, just maybe, this strategy has a lot to do with the perceived media bias against Romney, and he gets to swear so I always link to him rather than more staid commentators:
“But it’s true that the president is currently getting a lot less bad press for his campaigning than Romney. It’s because he’s better at campaigning than Romney. (Here’s Obama’s One Weird Tip for Getting a Pass: The president is, personally, nearly always respectful and fair to his opponent, even when his campaign is in slash-and-burn mode.)
The answer for Mitt Romney isn’t 'be more substantive' or 'make it about real issues' or 'be more detailed' or any of that shit. Romney’s totally correct to be as vague as possible about the specifics of his proposals. The answer is a lot simpler: Just bullshit the press better!
Here’s how Mitt Romney can earn himself much kinder media coverage: Talk like Jon Huntsman. If he wants the press to let up, all he needs to do (and he should have been doing this since the day he wrapped up the nomination) is sound 'moderate' in public and leave the nutty stuff to vaguely affiliated allies and targeted niche media.”
Or, to put it another way: bad news, conservative friends your candidate is losing because he is a bad candidate running a dismally bad campaign. Polls aren't weighted against him, they're using a variety of methodology and generally finding that the President is winning. The media isn't out to get him, Romney just keeps makingstupidmistakes. His campaign is so deeply in trouble that convention speakers used their time at the dais to pitch for themselves rather than for a Romney presidency.
Because their aim has never been for Mitt Romney to win the presidency. It's been to deny another term to Barack Obama. This is why we've seen we've seen endless pieces about the so-called vetting of the President that routinely uncover nothing. This is why each potential scandal is suggested to have Watergate-proportions behind them, yet reveal nothing of the sort. This is why — in Pareene's formulation — Mitt Romney fails to bullshit the press, because his greatest applause lines, that his audience is dying to hear, are about how the President is a filthy liar, or un-American, or a secret socialist. They're not about how great President Romney is going to be for anyone who doesn't define “great” as the guy who repeals 100% of Obamacare on day one.
And in that alternate reality, where all those horrible things are true, the good news, for Mitt Romney at least, is that he's winning.
[Above: Courtesy of UnSkewed – Where they boil the liberal bias out of every poll]
Next week is the first Presidential debate, so I'll be back after that with less dense reading and much more swearing.
I wish I could read a column with as much candor as yours pertaining to Canadian politics. Having said that, I really enjoy reading your take on what is going on south of the border. One question, do Americans really dislike Obama so much that they are actually willing to vote in another Republican dolt?
veganvindicator said:
One question, do Americans really dislike Obama so much that they are actually willing to vote in another Republican dolt?
Well, the current read of the electorate guarantees any Republican presidential candidate somewhere between 40 - 45% of the vote, with the same being roughly true for any Democratic candidate. The numbers have been consistent for a while, as famous as Jimmy Carter is for getting only 49 votes in the electoral college, he captured 41% of the popular vote in 1980 to Reagan's 51%.
There's a lot of history bound up in voters' self-identification and party preference, and I think--just guessing--that in parliamentary systems, there's a lot less voter identification with parties than there is a two-party state like the US.
Ya know, they checked those polls again, and it turns out Mitt Romney is less popular that George W. Bush. Seriously, the guy who about half or more of the country thinks should be brought up on international war crimes is more popular than the Republican Candidate for President.
Are you hearing this, Conservatives? Your choice is a dud. Nobody wants him to be President. Based on his actions, HE doesn't want himself as President.
I would not agree that the Washington Times (AKA the Moonie Times) is now or ever has been a serious newspaper. It's been a hysterical fringe laughingstock of a newspaper ever since the Moonie religious cult leaders started it in 1982 and staffed it with a significant number of church members.
veganvindicator said:
I wish I could read a column with as much candor as yours pertaining to Canadian politics. Having said that, I really enjoy reading your take on what is going on south of the border. One question, do Americans really dislike Obama so much that they are actually willing to vote in another Republican dolt?
You have to understand that most of the people that dislike Obama now and will vote for Romney disliked Obama for exactly the same reasons four years ago, and voted for McCain. This is not really about Obama's performance, for most people. These people were never willing to give him a chance. I would wager that most people who were genuinely behind Obama in 2008 that are no longer happy with him in 2012 either: a) have been paying no attention to anything but soundbites and chain e-mails, or b) are unhappy with him for one reason or another, but will either vote for him or not at all. In my estimation, Obama's failings are in two primary areas: failing to get things done because of Republican obstructionism, or continuing things that the Republicans began. Neither is likely to be remedied by electing another Republican.
veganvindicator said:
One question, do Americans really dislike Obama so much that they are actually willing to vote in another Republican dolt?
Well, the current read of the electorate guarantees any Republican presidential candidate somewhere between 40 - 45% of the vote, with the same being roughly true for any Democratic candidate. The numbers have been consistent for a while, as famous as Jimmy Carter is for getting only 49 votes in the electoral college, he captured 41% of the popular vote in 1980 to Reagan's 51%.
There's a lot of history bound up in voters' self-identification and party preference, and I think--just guessing--that in parliamentary systems, there's a lot less voter identification with parties than there is a two-party state like the US.
Actually, there was a thread in CE when the Brits had their elections a year or two ago, and in that someone had posted some very compelling arguments to the opposite effect. Essentially, until the recent puritanical purge within the Republican party, US voters were more likely to vote for an individual candidate over party affiliation, because our individual senators and congress people have not traditionally been required to follow every plank of a party platform. In the British system, MPs are required to toe (or is it tow?) the party line, or can be booted from party-held positions (such as Minister of Silly Walks).
So, in the British system, more variation is found from party to party, but less inside each party. In our system, we have traditionally had a great deal of variation within our two parties, even if variation is sometimes indiscernible between parties. Thus American voters have been more likely to be loyal to an individual candidate, whereas British voters have tended to be more loyal to a party.
It's why the Republican move towards ideological-purity and unison-voting has been so damaging to our system. Our system isn't designed for pure-party voting. It's very similar to the tactics used by the Nazis to continually force votes of no confidence in the Weimer Republic, and thereby gain more and more seats.
Stiles said:
I would not agree that the Washington Times (AKA the Moonie Times) is now or ever has been a serious newspaper. It's been a hysterical fringe laughingstock of a newspaper ever since the Moonie religious cult leaders started it in 1982 and staffed it with a significant number of church members.
Sure, there's also probably a really great argument to exclude The America Spectator which, since the Clinton presidency, has been known mostly as home to the insane and possibly senile ravings of publisher R. Emmet Tyrell and contributor Ben (worked for Nixon before becoming a game show host!) Stein.
If you wanted to get really critical, I probably could've whittled that list down to The Weekly Standard for the neocon perspective and National Review Online for the traditional conservative perspective from the bastard sons of Bill Buckley.
But I wanted to cast a slightly wider net. /Real answer.
Snide answer: C'mon, man, you go wade through conservative publications for an hour or two in a (largely vain attempt) to find the sane ones, before you go all critique-y on my list.
RudieCantFail said:
Actually, there was a thread in CE when the Brits had their elections a year or two ago, and in that someone had posted some very compelling arguments to the opposite effect. Essentially, until the recent puritanical purge within the Republican party, US voters were more likely to vote for an individual candidate over party affiliation, because our individual senators and congress people have not traditionally been required to follow every plank of a party platform. In the British system, MPs are required to toe (or is it tow?) the party line, or can be booted from party-held positions (such as Minister of Silly Walks).
So, in the British system, more variation is found from party to party, but less inside each party. In our system, we have traditionally had a great deal of variation within our two parties, even if variation is sometimes indiscernible between parties. Thus American voters have been more likely to be loyal to an individual candidate, whereas British voters have tended to be more loyal to a party.
It's why the Republican move towards ideological-purity and unison-voting has been so damaging to our system. Our system isn't designed for pure-party voting. It's very similar to the tactics used by the Nazis to continually force votes of no confidence in the Weimer Republic, and thereby gain more and more seats.
Good catch, I vaguely remember that thread. I wish I had easy access to--and the time to really dive into--studies about how voter identification works. Right now virtually all the right wing 'heads are trashing the polls due to the weaknesses that they perceive (largely incorrectly, according to experts like Nate Silver) in the likely voter models. Its a longstanding trend that more survey respondents (already a relatively odd group, lemme tell you) are likely to self-identify as Democrat than Republican in pre-election interviews and surveys, but exit polls show higher self-identification among Republicans than Democrats. Compare and contrast this (or do whatever with it) to Gallup's traditional survey results that show respondents self-identifying as "conservative" over "liberal" at a rate of something like two-to-one.
So yeah, we know from modern election results that at least 40% of the electorate generally goes for either candidate, and in a tight race--Bush/Gore or Bush/Kerry, for example--that number gets itself up to as high as 45 - 47%. So, the battle is over the 6 - 10% in the middle, who generally break along "leaning" lines, that show that of that 10 - 20% of the electorate that's considered "independent" really most of the independents are D or R votes, they just don't like the brand ID, and like the idea of being straight-shooting indies who aren't hoodwinked by a party. We've seen a bit of this in response to some of my previous columns-- commentators who insist they're independents and then mindlessly parrot rightwing talking points (or on CE, where we've seen more than a few of that pattern on the left).
To bring it full-circle back to the original question: Mitt Romney could hold a press conference in which he shits on the American flag while eating a live baby and still count on probably 33% of the electorate, or be exactly what he is--a painfully incompetent politician running a shit-eating campaign--and still count on at least 40%, if not 45%.
Voter identification is a really bizarre thing, and as the right drags the whole country, er, rightward, we're just going to see people being more polarized.
Yeah, I'd be one of those registered independents who 99% of the time votes Democrat. I suppose I should just go ahead and register Democrat so I could vote in the primaries, but I really don't feel the party or most of its members represent me or my values, they're just closer than the competition.
Growing up in a very corrupt small town in Jersey, I learned that corruption isn't limited to one party, but something that festers wherever one party has a stranglehold on the political machinery. Thus, I was a registered independent until I moved to California and registered as a Democrat to vote for Obama in the primary in early '08.
One of the key benefits of being registered as an independent in many places is you're less likely to be bombarded with fundraising communications from whatever party pulled your address off a registration list.
There's an actually a really interesting trend this cycle-- independent registrations are outpacing Democrat or Republican registrations and in some case, both combined, but that's--sadly--a topic for a much later column, possibly even after the election (after I take a month off to wash all the blood out of my eyes from reading all the political news required to be a good Junkie).
ChrisSick
Philadelphia, PA
March 2008
SEP 27, 2012 07:03 AM