Andrew McCarthy, NRO:
Saul Alinsky, Obama’s community-organizing inspiration, wrote at length about words in Rules for Radicals, about their power to inspire and to enervate. “In communication as in thought, we must ever strive toward simplicity†when it is our purpose to inspire. Such a purpose calls for “a determination not to detour around reality.†An opposite purpose, Alinsky writes, calls for an opposite approach. Avoid the “force, vigor, and simplicity†of the right word, and “we soon become averse to thinking in vigorous, simple, honest terms.†Instead, “We strive to invent sterilized synonyms.†Such “new words,†Alinsky taught, “mean something different, so that they tranquilize us, begin to shepherd our mental processes off the main, conflict-ridden, grimy, and realistic power-paved highway of life.â€
Tranquilized, we will sleep. As we found the last time we tried this, our enemies won’t.
[My emphasis]
A corollary to Alinsky’s tactical advice — which in this case is to deploy both neologism and euphemism when one wishes to disperse passion and deconcretize the pointed — is to demand of your opponents (or “enemies,” depending on your point of view) engagement within a rhetorical framework in which a failure to water down rhetoric to the point of largely ineffective dispassion is met with ginned up outrage and a malicious and intentional misrepresentation of meaning and (often) intent.
— Which is why we must continue to make our rhetorical choices based on our own rules of engagement, not to satisfy those that have been artificially imposed on us by interlocutors who recognize that, by forcing us to reflexively self-edit out of a desire to be invited into the debate in the first place, they have gone a long way toward ensuring that we’ve already lost it in the second.
(h/t Colin M)
****
More here (h/t Dan)
Mark Levin said the other day that we need to define our principals and defend them. He’s right.
In regards to the Pattericos and others out there who argue we lose the middle by holding fast, they are wrong. Holding fast does not necessarily mean being disagreeable. But it does mean not compromising your positions and kicking the teeth in (allegorically Pat, not as an actual threat of violence) when Howard Dean says Republicans want kids to go to bed hungry at night.
I’ve never understood Alinsky’s appeal. When I encounter something along these lines, I instinctually retract. It’s not even Owellian, it’s Orwell for seventh-graders. Which, I guess explains some of its appeal after all.
Let me clarify, it does not mean compromsing our principals. It does mean kicking the teeth in (allegorically of course, not as a threat of actual physical violence) when our principals, motives, and intent are mischaractorized or lied about.
RR Ryan–it is the big lie approach. Keep making a big lie again and again and it can eventually stick. Alinski, like Ward Churchill, is a plagerist. It was not Alinski who came up with it. Here are some quotes from the past:
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.
All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
As soon as by one’s own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one’s own right is laid.
By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
Great liars are also great magicians.
Hate is more lasting than dislike.
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.
I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few.
Sooner will a camel pass through a needle’s eye than a great man be “discovered” by an election.
Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.
The art of leadership… consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.
Words build bridges into unexplored regions.
Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction. [I would note the addition of the word “poor” before education and “classical” before liberalism is actually a better description].
Do you recognize those quotes?
I’m with you Ryan, it’s Doublespeak, plain and simple.
And when one term is not ambiguous enough, change it. Like climate change.
And yes Joe… he was a vegetarian. Like his boss.
Hitler, or course. It didn’t turn out well, though.
I’m sorry. I just can’t get outraged about this. I’m busy filling out form 41-b-4227 regarding a man-made disaster relating to the foreign intervention act. My outrage allotment has not been issued by Mr. Emanuel. I’ll contact you once it has and determine if I can allocate any outrage toward this measure.
I think we need to add a new rule for how to tell when your dirty socialist media is thoroughly corrupted to where it’s actively assisting a fascist government… These rules don’t seem to quite capture the significance of when the media adapts language prescribed by the Party. Who do you think will be first to adapt the dirty socialist Newspeak, NPR or AP?
I apologize, the word outrage is no longer operative. Mr. Emanuel’s memorandum indicates that we are now to use the term “conditional exercise” as an effective replacement. My conditional exercise allotment has still not been issued. I’ll contact you once it has and determine if I can allocate any conditional exercise toward this measure
I Bushdidit. Mr. Emanuel’s new memorandum indicates that the term “apology” is no longer operative. The operative term is “Bushdidit.” I Bushdidit for any inconvenience these changes may have occurred. My conditional exercise allotment has still not been issued. Bushdidits for the delay.
Bushdidits. “Occurred” should have been “incurred”. Precision is essential.
What tickled me about this is, Alinsky’s quote, “As we found the last time we tried this, our enemies won’t [sleep.],” indicts the Postmodern poetic technique.
He is proclaiming with brazen chutzpah that one of the Progressives’ primary rhetorical tactics (that of avoiding the “force, vigor, and simplicity†of McCarthey’s “right word”, or, what most call “obscurantism”) is ultimately anesthetic to its users. This leaves them hopelessly vulnerable to their comparatively alert, motile enemies.
I never thought I’d say this, but, maybe more faculty in our nation’s ‘esteemed’ universities like Harvard, Columbia and Duke should read Alinsky.
I don’t think our pragmatic conservative friends understand inspiration. Or perhaps they just have no honor.
And once again, we see the refutation of the LGF followers. One of the responses to my [deleted] comment yesterday was “Politics is not a street fight. Your premise is invalid”.
I beg to differ. Politics IS a street fight. The Democrats and Alinskyites have made it so. We (conservatives, Republicans, libertarians, whatever “we” are) have attempted to remain adult about this. Remain “western”. That is changing.
Slowly, the anti-statists are coming to the realization that we need to step down to the level of our enemies (yes, enemies – they stopped being loyal opposition long ago).
If it is a street fight that Dean and his ilk seek, that is what they shall get. And we will win for one reason.
We’ve got something to fight for.
Oops! Redundancy alert: “brazen chutzpah!”
My sixth grade English teacher’s toes are tingling.
Oh. and OUTLAW!
“Which is why we must continue to make our rhetorical choices based on our own rules of engagement, not to satisfy those that have been artificially imposed on us by interlocutors who recognize that, by forcing us to reflexively self-edit out of a desire to be invited into the debate in the first place, they have gone a long way toward ensuring that we’ve already lost it in the second.”
Doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve read.
Cordially…
I’ve never understood Alinsky’s appeal.
It’s a means for the have-nots to become haves in regard to power and then later, goods. For some, the will to power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, the headiest drug, and the only goal worth pursuing.
If you don’t have the desire to acquire power as an end, not as a means, this kind of thing will never appeal to you, but unfortunately, you (we) have to be the ones who stop those who cannot and will not resist the temptation to exert control over others.
Oh, and here is a post with links to my Fisking Alinsky series.
If any link doesn’t work, it’s because it was swallowed in that one crash.
If you do the history thing (something incomprehensible to Obama), you find that “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published in 1949, while “Rules for Radicals” didn’t make it to press until 1971.
Orwell was inspired to write by Stalin’s excesses — mass slaughter of both friend and foe, so to speak — which turned off even his most star-crossed supporters (with some notable exceptions, as always).
But still, it seemed, and still seems — if only, if only, someone got the last part right — the governance about which Marx (being much more concerned with the revolution) never really gave a clue — communism/socialism would work — for sure! (And please forget the millions of dead people, thank you.)
Enter Alinlsky — just rules, no morality play on possible results (such as Orwell dared to present), so — hey, just right — for aspiring power-hungry elitists masquerading as compassionate community organizers, lawyers, economists, labor leaders, etc.
As an addition to these thoughts, I’d like to present some rules for ethical people. They aren’t so new, actually. See, while we reject the relativistic nonsense and attempt to control language and manipulate perception by the left we need to present a superior alternative on the right. It isn’t enough to say “NQFY” or shout OUTLAW, we have to have a proper response and lead.
And that’s where we look at the past, as a good conservative ought to. In the place of modern rudeness or Alinskyite narrative-communication, I suggest we offer politeness, reason, and a basic winsome alternative that we’ve long lost in our modern society. Read the rhetoric of the old writers, see how rich and full their language was. Learn from that, learn to approach your opponent in a way that disarms and makes them look mean and small rather than clever and emotionally compelling.
The only solution to sophistry is reason, applied properly and charitably. That doesn’t mean you fall prey to their traps, it means you ignore their traps and lead by your words and behavior, in your attitude and the language you use.
I think Christopher just told me to STFU.
I would never want that, nor do I mean any mockery or belittlement of Jeff’s OUTLAW theme. I merely wanted to present a more complete alternative to the Alinskyite version of communication. That we need to be above them, better than them, and present ourselves as polite, dignified, adult, reasonable, and true where they appeal to emotion, childishness, fear, and manipulation.
The latter works well in the short term, when things are going well. The former is remembered in hard times and in the long term. When the children have been tried, people turn to adults.
happy, you are killing me today. So glad you are here…
A little sideline advice–
When formulating “our own rules,” don’t make the mistake of trying to “engage” the parts of Alinksky (& Co.) that are observations. Those that aren’t occluded from him (& Co.) by ideology are right.
If you find yourself stepping in one of those, or see one being wielded tactically, calling out the tactic can deflect it — sometimes merely by embarrassing whoever tried to pull it on you (if they can be embarrassed, which they mostly can’t, or they’d be different).
For example, if the first bunch of Republicans responding to “Rush Limbaugh says he wants the President to fail. Do you agree with him?” had come back with something like, “Ah, Rule 12! That’s my favorite. Tell Rahm and the boys I approve,” that specific application of the Rule might have been abandoned, or the planned storyline could’ve been swamped in “What the fuck are those paranoid Republicans talking about?” editorializing — a plus for conservatives, though not the “pragmatic” ones.
Have you noticed, though, that Republican spokesmen are always wrong-footed by news? Like they’re out of the loop to a degree that even we random fucks out here in the sticks aren’t? It’s so universal among them, it has to be a survival trait. And that’s a very, very bad sign for the potential fruitfulness of any “engagement” that requires them.
Fred (who instinctually gets this stuff) and Jindal (who instinctually doesn’t) didn’t handle the Rush thing (half-)right until two days ago. The storyline has been set for fucking weeks. That really, really doesn’t work, at all.
It really isn’t.
It’s a how-to for already-haves to get much more with the have-nots’ unwitting cooperation — a manual for “false consciousness”-making.
If you’re just some guy, you can’t do any of it.
Chris, your suggestion assumes that both parties are rational actors, and that our message would be conveyed equally by the press. Let alone that anything we say would not be twisted, altered, redefined, or marginalized.
Should the right riot? Of course not. But if takes a shock to shake up the opponent (or their target audience) to show that we will no longer attempt to ignore them, let their temper tantrum run its course, and finally console, than that is what we have to do. And doing so by standing up for our beliefs and calling them out for impropriety may sometimes be done with fewer polysyllabic terms.
Any approach we take will be twisted, altered, redefined, and marginalized by the press. Ronald Reagan was constantly misquoted, maligned, and twisted by the press. It didn’t matter, because he reached out through that with wit, charity, and a warm, winsome manner and the people heard him anyway.
We cannot tailor our approach based on how the left or the press will treat us. That’s irrelevant, we know they’ll treat us poorly, they are our enemies. There is no magic system to bypass that hateful, lying filter, we merely have to do what is right and stick to the truth, reason, and wisdom, and continue to stand tall and lead as we are able.
Fred Thompson does well at this, we need more of that sort. Cut through the crap, state what needs to be said, ignore the attempts to destroy or twist your language. If someone calls you a racist, demonstrate you are not by your life and words. If someone calls you a neandethal, shame them by clearly living as a civilized gentleman who demonstrates reason and wisdom. If someone calls you a hater, demonstrate their lie by your life and your words.
Psycho —
Have you noticed, though, that Republican spokesmen are always wrong-footed by news? Like they’re out of the loop to a degree that even we random fucks out here in the sticks aren’t? It’s so universal among them, it has to be a survival trait. And that’s a very, very bad sign for the potential fruitfulness of any “engagement†that requires them.
Uh, yes!
I was just funnin’, Mr. Taylor. oh. Thank you Lyndsey. I had a thought to type. Let me think. I had a response but it was oblique to where it’s hard to remember.
oh. What I’ve been seeing is that for the most part, the trolls I’ve been seeing have switched from gloating about victory to being more angry in a y’all shut up you stupid losers way. Not all of them. I think it was just today or yesterday that the Semanticleo one came by, and that one was still gloaty. Probably just behind the curve.
But I think it’s more important for the dirty socialist media and their dipshit president to not be devoid of anger than it is for us to be the calm and reasoned opposition. Angry socialists are really a lot unappealing I think to normal people what have a certain fondness for America specifically and freedoms and prosperity more generally.
That was his strength. And it followed on years of Carteresque ennui.
As I’ve said a hundred times now, there are a number of rhetorical choices that may prove productive. Try not to limit yourself to thinking only the “winsome” kind is — or can be — effective. Ask Mencken. Or Thomas Paine.
I agree. I also believe that Fred is doing exactly what we are both saying. Just looking at it from two different perspectives.
And as Jeff just noted, sometimes you also have to show that you will not continue to take the abuse.
But I think it’s more important for the dirty socialist media and their dipshit president to not be devoid of anger than it is for us to be the calm and reasoned opposition.
Because it doesn’t work. And as to Pyscho’s post, for going flippant, I apologize — but it would seem the delay in response — by Fred, by Jindal — was governed ty having to wait on some poll data, saying “well, it’s OK now to step into the battle.”
That’s not going to do it; not when the opposition has the 24-hour news cyle captured — you either roll the dice and step up, or step out.
Sure, as a wiser man than I said once: there’s a time for everything. But I think the schoolyard fight back kick em in the knee approach comes far too naturally and easily – especially on the internet (for me, at least, all too often) and the more reasoned and mature approach takes willpower, training, and conscious effort.
…and a willingness to regard 1984 as a how-to book rather than a cautionary tale.
Sure, as a wiser man than I said once: there’s a time for everything. But I think the schoolyard fight back kick em in the knee approach comes far too naturally and easily – especially on the internet (for me, at least, all too often) and the more reasoned and mature approach takes willpower, training, and conscious effort.
Doesn’t that “reasoned and mature approach” depend upon the audience, and the degree of crisis perceived by said audience?
There’s a possibility that the left is depending on us taking the higher ground in some sense…knowing all along that neutrally stated stances and a willingness to be “inoffensive” (depending on your audience) is what got us here. McCain’s “let’s all get along and meet in the middle” watered down what little was left of a GOP message. How will the GOP right itself and find its way back to its roots?? It doesn’t need to be remade. It needs to remember what it once was.
The current state of things seems so dire to me I have days I can’t think of what to tell my kids about the future. I keep telling them that somehow we will make it through this. I hope I’m not lying to them.
deconcretize?
Yes, we should be calm and reasoned — civil — in our discourse.
But we cannot continue to allow that to be our only strategy. Being calm and civil and accommodating while the other side is shrieking lies to the Heavens is a loser. We have to be ready to shriek back when the occasion warrants — and willing and able to determine when such occasions arise. “That’s a lie, and you’re a liar” needs to be said, loudly and often.
Do pay attention to the difference psycho describes, though.
Regards,
Ric
Moving off of reality worked so well for the Soviet Union.
It seems to me that wealth permits the denial of reality, so it doesn’t surprise me that most of this comes from academia. But what happens when the host can’t stand the number of parasites any longer? My understanding is the lessons are taught anew.
Interesting times.
RR Ryan:
I think Orwell’s ‘1984’ could have a companion written for it, based on O’Brien and what happens to him as a high-ranking party member caught up in the paranoia of INGSOC. People below him trying to remove him, people at his level maneuvaring about him, people above him using him, fearing him, and looking for that little slip-up that will doom him. Life isn’t a bowl of cherries when you work closely to those who work closely for Big Brother.
Start with his reports aout Winston Smith and go from there. He had to report, and the thing about all good tyrannies is that they are fanatical about keeping reports, memory hole or no. Something help you if you do not fill out your reports correctly. Something help you.
NQFY
I thought it was FYNQ, because the other way around, you’re dissing the next questioner.
The only solution to sophistry is reason, applied properly and charitably.
Which, unfortunately, is effective only when people prefer hard truth to pretty lies. In a society like ours, where indulging one’s whims is mandated, and it’s OK to lie if your cause is good, even the best-presented case for the truth will be ignored.
Any approach we take will be twisted, altered, redefined, and marginalized by the press.
Not completely. They quoted Jindal’s accurate identification of “Do you want the president to fail?” as a gotcha question.
Sometimes they’ll quote us exactly because what we say exactly either does not register as “dangerous” to them, or they’ll be adequately “outraged” by the full comment in its context.
And those who have eyes to see might resonate with it.
Or not.
Also, the press isn’t the only means of communication. Word of mouth works, AM radio, the innnertubes, books, and all kinds of other stuff.
Yes, we should be calm and reasoned — civil — in our discourse.
Only when the audience is willing to react well to civil discourse.
There are other times when you MUST shout, you MUST holler, you MUST yell “LIES!” at the top of your lungs. There are times when being “unpleasant” is the only honorable option.
Do watch the John Adams series by HBO. There’s a scene wherein many of the congress want to extend an olive branch to the Crown when the Crown starts trying to clamp down on the misbehaving colonists. Because of the viewer’s perspective (knowing how the story ends), it sounds exactly as limp-wristed and mealy-mouthed as it was.
Our Founders weren’t afraid to offend tyrants and wannabe tyrants. We shouldn’t be, either.
Mikey-Good point and this is slightly off topic, but there are companion pieces already. The NYT and the New Yorker come immediately to mind. Keep in mind that my family subscribed to both from the time they started publishing(no exaggeration),so I grew up on this stuff before it became Paul Krugman and Sy Hersch all the time. You’re right though, a proper companion piece would be a very nice idea. Just don’t give me another sequel to Gone With the Wind. Horrid, and debasing.
“Which is why we must continue to make our rhetorical choices based on our own rules of engagement”
Along that line, the GOP recently released a budget. Covered by fark here:
http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4291765&cpp=1
No more so than any other approach. Even when you’re shouting and responding aggressively to attacks, the maturity and reason should not be abandoned. You can be a good man who fights without stooping to the level of one’s opponent.
Alinsky specifically counts on it. His flaw is the assumption that this means his tactics necessarily must win.
Obviously this must be combined with a long-term approach of changing education, teaching our kids, learning ourselves and changing our worldview to reject the one shaped by the left. We didn’t get here overnight, we won’t fix it overnight. This is a decades, even generations-long commitment to fix the damage done, even as we immediately counter and strive to correct the present.
But then I’ve always been of the opinion that its better to do the right thing and lose than do the wrong thing and “win.”
Offending the opposition is irrelevant if we have done our best to not be deliberately offensive to a reasonable person. The enemies we face, particularly leftist tyrants, are going to take offense at anything that is not completely servile to their intentions – even things they ordinarily would agree with, if they come from a non-leftist. That’s their problem, not ours – if we’ve done what was right and have made the effort to be reasonable and wise.
Offense isn’t the concern, truth, virtue, and wisdom are. Cling to those, and offense will almost always come from the enemy. I don’t care if I offend a rapist by noting their heinous crime, nor should I care.
The R budget actually comes out in a week or so I think. I bet it doesn’t have enough green jobs in it. Damn it to hell I bet it doesn’t.
C Taylor would be right, maybe, but I’m thinking right at the wrong time. And Fred is great. I like his calm and clarity.
But conservatism has a huge handicap. It doesn’t really work in an emotionally charged society. Surprisingly, in a world where information is at one’s fingertips, our society wears blinders. I question whether the pendulum would ever swing rightward with any meaningful strength. We have a plethora of drugs for altering behavior, normal gender development is suppressed, an educational system (and taxation system) encourages parents to play little or no part in their child’s upbringing, and generations are born into a welfare state resulting in lives built around immediate needs/wants void of a sense of future goals or plans.
I don’t think conservatism fits in this world. Why would it. If one has their computer, MP3, reality TV, one has just enough freedom to design their own little world. A socialized system of government might be quite satisfactory. Most people in their 20s and 30s seem not to have any useful critical thinking skills or knowledge of history or civics. So, how would those things be relevant to them?
The left rightly recognizes this is a very optimal time to step up and push harder. It doesn’t take genious to figure out how vulnerable we all are. Stupid people, as evident today, are doing quite a fantastic job of turning our lives upside down daily. What better environment for The One to thrive in.
I wish C. Taylor was right, but I haven’t gotten any feeling that reason plays a part in the changes this country is heading for.
Paraphrasing Ron Silver’s character Bruno Gianelli from the West Wing:
“We all need some therapy because somebody came along and said Conservative means reactionary, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-education, anti-choice. And we’re going to let Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Business send your jobs overseas and walk all over you. And instead of saying ‘Well, excuse me, you baby killing, soft on crime, soft on Terror, soft on defense, hippy-dippy acid trip back to the ’60’s. We cowered in the corner, worse, we agreed first, and said, ‘Please… don’t… hurt… me’. . . . Let’s have two parties. . . Can we try that, please?”
Which is why we must continue to make our rhetorical choices based on our own rules of engagement, not to satisfy those that have been artificially imposed on us by interlocutors who recognize that, by forcing us to reflexively self-edit out of a desire to be invited into the debate in the first place, they have gone a long way toward ensuring that we’ve already lost it in the second.
If your opponent is “coming around” and I didn’t read his post, it’s most certainly due to recognizing that casting the net he cast for Rush against Senator Thompson is a fishing expedition he cannot possibly find his way back from. Fred is honorable, smart and humble. Linking these qualities to what he said, so forthrightly and so fearlessly, is what we should all aspire to.
Patterico was able to capitalize on Rush’s unfavorables to advance his argument. He can’t possibly do that with Fred, or Bobby Jindal for that matter. He just can’t. And he’s smart enough to know that.
In my judgement -I like it better with the e- both Classic Liberalism and Conservatism, as I understand it, are necessarily wary and distrustful of power. And it’s for that reason that we must not be taken in by purveyors of dead-end slogans like “a conservatism that can win.” The number of people that this is likely to inspire can fit in any small town Knights of Columbus Hall, and that probably includes their one-eyed dogs.
And I’m not that willing to compartmentalize reason and emotion so readily, because sometimes proper reasoning leads to hot emotions, and it should.
I think Rhetoric is most effective when it’s based on truth. That takes understanding that people don’t usually like being told when they’re wrong, but when the truth is spoken from the heart, with conviction, anger may surface first but denial is hard to maintain among the “reasonable.”
Also, the opposing side’s “reasonable Americans” cannot possibly be that reasonable if you must always speak to them in dulcet tones using cherry picked words.
Wounded sensibilities and offended tastes are immature and not something that should govern political speech. Politics is war without bloodshed, and I think it’s disadvantageous to believe otherwise.
There’s a scene in a recent book by Joseph Ellis, My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams that’s instructive, I think.
You, the poster at FARK and the commenters all think that that was a budget….
No wonder we’re in trouble.
I’m not going to continue to argue this, Christopher. Just revisit Ecclesiastes. Or the Byrds.
I can argue forcefully and with reason at the same time. Some people are turned off by my tone. Others find it compelling. What we shouldn’t do is pigeonhole ourselves by speaking of the “way” we should be talking.
I refuse to defend myself against baseless charges. Instead I’ll ask for evidence or a retraction. And I won’t do it any longer in a way that sounds pleading.
If a particular winsome style works best for you, by all means keep at it. Me, I work better using a different style.
Well, I have to hand it to you guys; you are nothing if not persistent and introspective. So the left is automatically disingenuous and is now some kind of sneaky opponent to be rhetorically “managed.” Interesting. But extending that observation, I wonder why Thompson didn’t gain greater purchase, because I thought he was a very viable conservative candidate.
The media ignored Thompson cause they were wanted Meghan’s cowardly daddy to get the nomination. Just in case.
*were wanted* is not what I meant. Hey did you see they make Pop Tarts what have fiber now?
“Viable conservative candidate” ….. that’s was Thompson’s problem. The Republican party doesn’t seem to like viable conservative candidates. MSM and apparently the American public doesn’t go for them either, if you’ve noticed. We like American Idol types don’t cha know.
Thompson didn’t gain greater purchase for two reasons: one, he didn’t spend his every waking minute scheming to become President, so it was easy to portray him as “lazy”, “unmotivated”, etc. and the MSM, knowing he would have made a good President, was only too happy to dishonestly do so, and two, Republicans were stupid enough to have open primaries, so it was easy to stuff them with Democrats who tried to put up candidates that they could tear down later.
managed by whom? the msm?
Open Primaries are a handy thing to blame, kind of like the Electoral College.
A basic lack of understanding of our primary elections/caucus system is really the problem. In the later primaries, low information voters treat it like a horse race and begin voting for who they think is likely to win instead of who they genuinely want to win. Tell me that it wouldn’t be a genuinely good thing to go into a convnetion with two, or even more, candidates on a nearly equal footing, vis delegates?
Two possible solutions: education. That’s hard of course. An easier answer would be to compress the elections schedule. If all the voting took place in a 3 to 6 week period (better yet–all on the same day), it would minimize the effect of polls and the media on the eventual outcome.
It wasn’t the Democratics that chose McCain. It was the MSM.
That doesn’t make sense. Why can’t you bypass this shifty, partisan media and appeal to the underlying base? Why are conservatives so hopelessly plugged into a partisan media that they know operates counter to their interests?
No one wins with their base alone. Now, acknowledging that, what means of communication do you use to reach those others with your message?
Code Words!! Duh. Try underprivileged. Try marginalized. Try forgotten. Try underserved. I am not betraying my side, merely shining a light on it, which supposedly we support.
As I’ve said a hundred times now, there are a number of rhetorical choices that may prove productive. Try not to limit yourself to thinking only the “winsome†kind is — or can be — effective. Ask Mencken. Or Thomas Paine.
Think stand up commedians. There are many different styles. Merely mimicing someone else’s style is probably not going to work for you. The issue is making the audience laugh, making the connection. Don Rickels could publically humiliate Frank Sinatra, and Sinatra would take it, and laugh. You have to be yourself. Dennis Miller when he is on a especially good rant is amazing, but the word winsome generally does not come to mind when I think of that.
Politics is no different than acting, comedy, or for that matter sales. You are selling an idea.
Try overserved.
It wasn’t the Democratics that chose McCain. It was the MSM.
Really? The choices were Mitt Romeny, Huckabee, and McCain. In hindsight Romney would have been the best on the economy, but he still would have lost to Barack. Huckabee would have lost too.
I loved Fred Thompson. I still have a Thompson bumbersticker. But running for President requires an intense commitment and fire and Thomspon did not have that. His philosophy was if they want me I will serve. Sadly that is the a psychological profile that is probably preferable for a President, but our system, as it is currently structured, does not reward that. It is too bad.
65: Disagree. That has yet to be proven.
Consider exhibits #64 and #66.
It’s all our imagination, cynn.
I considered them; what’s my takeaway?
Double “To Go” Cups: $3.95
Nothing is in your imagination. The left is as always have been gunning for you. The difference now is your dithering; it’s a weak spot is all.
I should say the left “are.” As in more than one faction.
Code Words!!
Gin Gimlet.
…
Chop-chop, Arnie.
“dithering”?
Us? Here and now?
Or the “right” as a whole?
Jeff is right about one thing: you all need to stop being so sloshy about your beliefs and sensibilities. I know I’m not. Bring it on.
Gin Gimlet
Sloshy, not stirred.
#54
I don’t know cynn. But apparently 52% of the voting population voted for someone simply because he was black.That shows a decided lack of something, don’t you think?
You can’t live by rules and guidelines. If it was that simple, we’d all get through life by consulting some Dr. Spock-type How-To book for every decision and crossroad. There’s a lot of people that try to live that way, but they never quite get where they’re going wrong.
My husband’s ex is one. She sees that my husband and I are having far more success in dealing with my stepson, and she keeps calling to tell me about the latest drama. She tells me what he said, what she said, what she wanted to do/say in reaction, but controlled herself because that was what she used to do and we’ve told her that doing/saying that won’t work. She’s trying to pump us for information, to discover what ancient and hidden text we consult to always have the right response, so she can solve the problem that is her son.
I keep trying to tell her. There’s no magic book. We respond to him and what he needs. We don’t see him as a problem to be solved; we see him as our beloved son, who we are trying to prepare to be a successful man.
It’s called core values. Once you decide what those are, your responses seem almost obvious. People who share values, however, (Chris T.) won’t all respond in the same way. They’ll differ according to their individual strengths and weaknesses, as Jeff has explained more than once, and their unique circumstances.
If we, meaning those of a conservative bent, have any advantage over our leftist opposition, it’s that we aren’t all following the same rulebook. The ability to adapt is a powerful tool. Their rulebook was tailor made for this landscape, so they’ve gained the upper hand. We have to stop trying to find the magically correct response to the current conditions.
We have to change the landscape. Change the battlefield and their book of strategy stops working.
How? How do we change the landscape? This is the question we should be spending time on – not the one they’ve chosen, that keeps us chasing our tails.
But running for President requires an intense commitment and fire and Thomspon did not have that.
I must respectfully call bullshit on that. Only making two or three speeches a day in Iowa instead of three or four signifies nothing of the sort, it only gave the media an excuse to ignore him. If he had been making more appearances than Obama they would have spun him as being superficial compared to Obama taking the time to listen. The media fucked Fred right well and proper.
I’m not going to continue to argue this, Christopher. Just revisit Ecclesiastes. Or the Byrds.
Yeah, I mentioned that. You must have missed it. But at no point is there a time for sin or a time for stupidity, even in those sources, so we need to temper our response accordingly. As Rebecca points out, we can’t pick one special method or list of ways to respond, but we must understand how we respond in terms of principles and philosophy behind what we do and why. And the bottom line is this: you can’t borrow part of evil to fight evil.
Who advocated that we do? That is, who are you preaching to here?
I continue to say that we can’t use the tactics of the left. We must instead point them out for the tactics that they are, then go about the business of making our case forcefully.
“Sin” of “evil” seems a bit subjective here. Perhaps, as George Carlin might ask, you have a list of things we can’t say, or ways we can’t say them?
Until conservative ideology can have some influence in our educational system, we got nothing. You can’t get people to care about things they haven’t been exposed to in their knowledge base. Baby boomer liberalism has used and abused our children for their political purposes and now we have generations of young adults with a whole lot of wasted potential.
sloshy!
Oh, great. Thanks, cynn and hf — now I have to jump in my car and run to the nearest 7-Eleven for a strawberry sloshy.