Why Smears Win Elections (and why decency loses them)

[troublemaker]

How has a minority party managed to take over every branch of government? How did the same thing happen in Germany? BECAUSE PEOPLE LOVE HATEFUL LIES.

A certain flap here generated a lot of "we can't let ourselves sink to their level." Are we really so virtuous that we wilt at the idea of even JOKING about a smear? Perhaps we really are that virtuous, because there is no doubt that we are losers unless there's some branch of government I don't know of. (We have now even lost the media, which was our ace in the hole for decades.)

I love losers. I'm a loser and so are all my friends. I don't hang out with people ruthless enough to be winners. But this campaign isn't about who I hang out with. The best thing I know about John Kerry is that he is a merciless prick. That's what gives me some faint hope of not dying in a concentration camp. (I've seen stories saying that Kerry over-ruled his entire staff to fight the Swift Liars. I don't know if that's true, but if it is I say GOOD.)

Mad props to Digby (http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/) for being the absolute BEST political voice in these United States and for highlighting this horrific but true and timely piece:

This is America, not Denmark. In this country, tens of millions of people choose to watch FoxNews not simply because Americans are credulous idiots or at the behest of some right-wing corporate cabal, but because average Americans respect viciousness. They are attracted to viciousness for a lot of reasons. In part, it reminds them of their bosses, whom they secretly adore. Americans hate themselves for the way they behave in public, always smiling and nodding their heads with accompanying really's and uh-huhs to show that they're listening to the other person, never having the guts to say what they really feel. So they vicariously scream and bully others into submission through right-wing surrogate-brutes. Spending time watching Sean Hannity is enough for your average American white male to feel less cowardly than he really is.

The left won't accept this awful truth about the American soul, a beast that they believe they can fix "if only the people knew the Truth."

http://www.nypress.com/print.cfm?content_id=10369

[maxsolomon]

1. i remember studying an essay by mao

saying basically, that if human nature was intrinsically evil, communism would fail.

guess what?

[TaleWgnDg]

2. as John Kerry said today . . .

"you canNOT lead America by MISleading America!" (John Kerry, August 24, 2004, on GWBush's campaign tactics)

[ochazuke]

9. I saw that.

The clip of JK's speech shown on the Newshour this evening I found quite moving. To see Sen. Kerry stand up for himself with courage and conviction, and to deplore the state of politics in America today while at the same time hinting of his vision for the future.

For me, the swift boat controversy has led me to examine in detail Kerry's actions in Vietnam. That's something I didn't do during the campaign or convention. Doing so now has deepened my admiration for Kerry.

I was an Edwards supporter during the primaries (thinking only a southerner could win in states like WV, TN, VA, MO, AR, NC), but now I see that John Kerry is uniquely qualified to lead America at this time.

[RandomKoolzip]

3. Jeez, that sucks.

I'd hate to go through life admiring my asshole boss for being an asshole.

I guess I can't speak for the rest of my country, but I respect people with good hearts more than I respect schmucks who fuck over smaller schmucks.

Back in the more liberal climate of the sixties and seventies, reading something like that might have been refreshing. Coming today, after Reagan, Bushes 1 and 2, the attacks on Clinton, etc. it's just saddening. I'm tired of viciousness, myself.

[troublemaker]

4. I'm tired of it too. And I fear that our weariness is our undoing.

Florida went to Gore because Black people turned out BIG. I suspect that because black voters are (on average) closer to being destroyed by the government they were less prone to world-weary ennui. The "election about nothing" mattered to them.

I am hoping that this time it matters to everyone.

[Waverley_Hills_Hiker]

5. I love it...and yeah, im a loser too...

winners are the pricks....

[Democat]

6. Will Democrats ever learn this most obvious lesson?

How many times a day do we have to read that we don't want to sink to their level of some variation of that theme?

Meanwhile, the Republicans control every branch of government and our "niceness" leads to death and worse lives for millions of people around the world.

[ArkDem]

7. That explains why that Pap guy gets so much work.

[enough]

8. This guy describes Republican politics EXACTLY as I have seen it

for many years here on the local level in a super-republican stronghold in SE PA.


snip>

Spiteful white males don't want to be pleased—they want other people to be displeased.

snip>


That sums it ALL up. This is true of the upper-middle class Republicans who run things around here. And it is also true of the working class republicans who unfailingly vote for them, and wouldn't be caught dead voting for anyone else, even though they are despised by their rulers.

I would say this analysis is the best I have read on the subject.

[NMDemDist2]

10. so if we warm sexy Dem women would just take the big silly men

and show them a good time, they'd turn into good kind Democrats? :shrug:




I CAN TELL YOU WHY. They do so out of spite. Put your ear to the ground in this country, and you'll hear the toxic spite churning. It's partly the result of commercial propaganda and sexual desperation—a desperation far more common than is admitted. If you didn't know anything about how America's propaganda worked, you'd think that every citizen here experienced four-dimensional multiple orgasms with beautiful, creative, equally satisfied partners, morning, noon and night.



The wretched truth is that America is an erogenous no man's land. Most white males here (at least the straight ones) have either dismal sex lives or no sex lives at all. As bad as this hurts, the pain is compounded every time you expose yourself to the cultural lies that await you at every turn—that is, every waking hour and during deep REM sleep, when the subliminal messages kick in. This wretchedness leads to a desire for vengeance, to externalize the inner famine—it leads directly to the Republican camp.

[troublemaker]

12. No! Just stop putting out for Nazis.

The existence of the gender gap means that a lot of Dem women are making the beast with two backs with Repub men. They need to stop.

[Bongo Prophet]

11. Viciousness with Integrity

Agreed, Digby is a good soldier for truth.
The writer of the article, (linked to BY digby) has some good points to be heeded, and it should be read. We must be not naive about human nature, granted. But also not be overly simplistic about it.

In the fight against a vicious enemy that sees us, not as loyal opposition but rather as a strain of thought that needs to be eliminated, we must not waver in the need to sometimes get down and dirty with them. However, we must do this with an honesty and integrity that keeps us from becoming that which we fight.

It is tricky, and to our tactical disadvantage. BUT we have other strengths that we can bring to the fight. We are smarter, more honest with ourselves and about our goals, and more adaptive. The tools of free information must be used to our advantage, in order to shine a light on their misdeeds and lies more quickly than ever before, for example.

To the point of the article that stresses the dark side of human nature being exploited, although true, is of course not the while picture. Rather than a dualistic fight of light and dark being fought out in the world, we know that the dualism is within each of us, and rather than deny and exteriorize the "Shadow" we must each discipline ourselves to resist the darker impulses and yet use our knowledge of this nature to strengthen our resolve against it. Judo of the soul, played out in the body politic.