Tag: messaging
The Rodeo Clown
This is why you have to point out O’Donnell’s foolishness early and often:
Are you telling me separation of church and state’s in the First Amendment? It’s not. Christine O’Donnell was absolutely correct – the First Amendment says absolutely nothing about the separation of church and state.“
–Rush Limbaugh
And he’s right…if your requirement for Constitutional legality is based on applying some sort of misguided Biblical Inerrancy to the Constitution and its legal meanings, then you’re going to be disappointed re: church and state. This is, not coincidentally, also why the very same Tea Klanners see a major difference between:
separation between church and state
–and–
separation of church and state
These are seen as completely different statements. And one of those two is coming at you straight from Hitler. And you want the facts to matter?
That the establishment clause of the first amendment implicitly creates a separation between church and state is unimportant to the Tea Klan. They are reading this as the literal string of words and most definitely not for any deeper meaning. We don’t want to cast our lot in with a bunch of pointy-headed lawyers, now do we? The words separation, of, church, and state do not appear. Period. Furthermore, "In God We Trust” is on the currency; the Tea Klan worships Lord Jesus, so that word “God” must mean Christian God and not, say, Tiamat, God of Chaos. That it was put there relatively recently is utterly unimportant: the facts do not matter. It is there; we are a movement made up of Christians, therefore the US must be an inherently christian nation, (because some of the founders were, in fact, Christians) and thus we should be, on that basis, ruled by christian laws, morals, and ideals.
Look, the Tea Klan has about 10 preferred narratives. You’re not going to beat any of them based on the facts or some sober assessment of the deeper meanings of the Constitution and its amendments. The facts simply do not matter.
The only way you beat these memes is by linking them inextricably in the minds of the broader populace with outright lunacy. As soon as anyone starts talking about nullifying the 17th amendment, you need a large fraction of the population to link that with nuts like O’Donnell and instantly, reflexively turn off. Oh, 17th amendment again, that is a rube’s issue, this person must be a nut just like that know-nothing O’Donnell. Wait, didn’t I hear Sharon Angle talking about that same crap? That makes me uncomfortable, no matter how strong she is on the menace of Social Security. Hey, why is the GOP nominee for President yapping on about the 17th amendment just like that crazy woman did? Thus ends the Tea Klan.
In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”
What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?(via southpol)
OR:
This is why they fail.
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.
Sam Adams, clearly winning the “founding father most ahead of his time” award…
Edited in case you don’t click through:
The quotation is not only inaccurate, but it misrepresents Adams’s political situation. He usually led the majority in Boston’s town meeting and in the Massachusetts legislature. He rarely needed to win the majority over to his principles; rather, his challenge was convincing people to follow his plans for action. Therefore, he called over and over for unity, resolve, and mutual sacrifice from the majority, not “an irate, tireless minority" keen to set fires.
What Anti-Foreclosure Deadbeats?
Today’s edition of What Atrios Said:
If Citi doesn’t own the mortgage then the woman doesn’t owe them any money. If Citi doesn’t own the mortgage then it isn’t the case that “perhaps” they shouldn’t foreclose on her, it’s the case that they have no legal right to foreclosure. Citi can’t just take possesion of a house, or decide someone owes them money, just because they say so.
And, yes, maybe one day Fannie will get around to a foreclosure process, but Citi cannot just assert control of the mortgage and the property on their say so.
[…] the [conventional wisdom] just seems to be “well, she deserves to lose her house so it doesn’t really matter who takes it from her.”
That this whole thing is so utterly small-c conservative just makes it all the more deadly to the GOP and their Tea Klan enablers. I mean it’s fundamental property rights, and a partial reason for the founding of the nation in the first place. It’s a political hydrogen bomb to use against the anti-modification crowd, which, not coincidentally is made up of the GOP establishment (but would be an issue that quite conveniently rends them from the arms of their anti-bank Tea Klanners) and the Blue Dogs that Rahm, back in his DCCC years, so lovingly forced down our throats without ever bothering to ensure they’d, you know, vote with leadership on key initiatives.
This is why you will never hear a Democratic candidate utter so much as a peep about it. It’s just too goddamned explosive. Wouldn’t want to get all shrill in a way that would make a few Blue Dogs uncomfortable, now would we? Once the GOP wins every available seat in the House and Senate, I’m sure they’ll be ready to work with the President on serious policy initiatives. And we certainly don’t want to irritate them prior to that coming to pass. Right?
Exhibit 4,285 in the Simple Charts and Graphs That Will Never Be Used for Messaging Purposes collection, courtesy of The Incidental Economist. US dead last in life expectancy at 65 among developed nations. Most expensive care by a large margin, though! At least we’re spending a lot more than anyone else in the developed world to get the worst outcomes. USA! USA! USA!
Truly a campaign based on ideas. Never fear, though: We have the facts on our side…
Effects of Replacing Most Federal Taxes with a National Sales Tax in 2005 (via)
But think of all the jobs it will make.
File under: yet another simple table The Democrat will never, ever use to make a larger point about GOP policies and those who would benefit from them.
The Existential Nature of Foreclosure Fraud
It is a legal impossibility for someone without a mortgage to be foreclosed upon. It is a legal impossibility for the wrong house to be foreclosed upon, It is a legal impossibility for the wrong bank to sue for foreclosure.
And yet, all of those things have occurred. The only way these errors could have occurred is if several people involved in the process committed criminal fraud. This is not a case of “Well, something slipped through the cracks.” In order for the process to fail, many people along the chain must commit fraud.
That it is being done for expediency and to save a few dollars on the process is why the full criminal prosecution must occur.
Excellent rundown on the current meltdown in foreclosures. That these excesses (and the ones that preceded them) should be prosecuted is obvious. That they won’t be is both obvious and the reason our Republic is crumbling by the day. The oligarchs and their political cronies have established themselves as above the law. Until that system utterly collapses or a political will to clean it up arises, nothing will change.
And, psst: Democrats. You’re looking for a unifying and message that gets people to the polls in big numbers? You could do a lot worse than this one. Of course, delivering it means you actually have to, you know, back it up with some legislative action. So I guess that’s out. Back to the witchcraft angle.
Rove has spent his professional life engaged in political sleaze, so he’s accused Obama of adding “arsenic to the nation’s political well.” Rove ran a White House that embraced a “permanent campaign,” so he’s accused the Obama team of embracing a “permanent campaign.” Rove embraced the politics of fear, so he’s accused Obama of embracing the politics of fear. Rove relied on “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted ” political events, so he’s accused Obama of relying on “pre-packaged, organized, controlled, scripted” political events. Rove looked at every policy issue “from a political perspective,” so he’s accused Obama of looking at every policy issue “from a political perspective.” Rove snubbed news outlets that he considered partisan, so he’s accused Obama of snubbing snubbed news outlets that he considered partisan. Rove had a habit of burying bad news by releasing it late on Friday afternoons, so he’s accused Obama of burying bad news by releasing it late on Friday afternoons. Rove questioned the motives of those with whom he disagreed, so he’s accused Obama of questioning the motives of those with whom he disagrees.
Steve Benen opines the being that is Karl Rove.
And it’s all true, but I’d say it’s also sadly beside the point. The real take-home on Rove isn’t so much that he’s a hypocrite or the political equivalent of sleaze incarnate, it’s that his shtick is treated so uncritically by the mainstream media. Yes, when you hear (and see) him “turned to” as some kind of a disinterested outsider (his chyron blurb usually says “Political Analyst”) on the subject of massive, anonymous campaign financing and how that’s affecting races across the country, and then have those ever-uncritical outlets then fail to mention that Rove, himself, is responsible for one of the largest and most powerful of these organizations, said organization dwarfing the contributions of the very US Chamber that he’s being asked about, well, that is journalistic malpractice. And it’s unsurprisingly coming from one of the “liberal” outlets.
And but so: The goal of Democratic messaging should be that there is no outlet Rove can be on, no microphone he can even approach, no studio he can inhabit without being regaled, and I mean regaled with questions he doesn’t want to answer or even have asked of him in public. That he can, does, and is a paid employee of the #1 cable news outlet shows you just how far The Democrat has to go in terms of messaging before any progress can even begin to be planned, much less realized.
And this is why they fail.
And it’s all true, but I’d say it’s also sadly beside the point. The real take-home on Rove isn’t so much that he’s a hypocrite or the political equivalent of sleaze incarnate, it’s that his shtick is treated so uncritically by the mainstream media. Yes, when you hear (and see) him “turned to” as some kind of a disinterested outsider (his chyron blurb usually says “Political Analyst”) on the subject of massive, anonymous campaign financing and how that’s affecting races across the country, and then have those ever-uncritical outlets then fail to mention that Rove, himself, is responsible for one of the largest and most powerful of these organizations, said organization dwarfing the contributions of the very US Chamber that he’s being asked about, well, that is journalistic malpractice. And it’s unsurprisingly coming from one of the “liberal” outlets.
And but so: The goal of Democratic messaging should be that there is no outlet Rove can be on, no microphone he can even approach, no studio he can inhabit without being regaled, and I mean regaled with questions he doesn’t want to answer or even have asked of him in public. That he can, does, and is a paid employee of the #1 cable news outlet shows you just how far The Democrat has to go in terms of messaging before any progress can even begin to be planned, much less realized.
And this is why they fail.
Lemkin 