Why Repukes Win and We Continue to Lose.

[NoodleyAppendage]

All the "belly aching" about the Palin/Baby rumor is proof positive that many Democrats' "better natures" are not well suited for modern political warfare. Logic and reasoned arguments...appealing to people in a positive way...extending a hand to your enemies...all tenets of the old politics. An old politics that we, as Democrats, continue to cling to with little success. Some will point to 2006 as counter-evidence, but I think many would argue effectively that we won big in 2006 because Repukes were buggering boys and pages, which in turn suppressed the Repuke, fundy vote. They lost the will to win rather than our arguments winning them over.

The "old politics" that some here at DU continue to espouse hinges upon the assumption that many middle Americans have a reasonable level of intelligence to counter act their emotionality and "gut instincts." America has been consistently and concertedly dumbed down by Repukes for decades, full well knowing that an uninformed populace is an easily controlled populace. This is why Rovian appeals to the limbic/emotional brain are effective. Think little...feel a lot. Create a boogie man or issue (gays) to run against. Keep it simple and go for the throat. Us against them. Pure and simple. And...and, they win.

So, we need to fight and adapt given the resources and playing field we are dealt. Our current playing field is not condusive to reasoned arguments and honorable politics. We have to appeal to the same limbic/emotional aspects that the Repukes have capitalized upon. This means we have to get our hands dirty. We have to make people AFRAID OF REPUKES. We need to confuse and scare the shit out of people that Repukes are going to threaten their way of life...sounds horrible and compromising, but it is in actuality the truth.

RUMOR (PERCEPTION) IS TRUTH. So, knowing this, the Palin/Baby SCANDAL (not rumor) only helps us. This bullshit about blowback is just whining from wimpy, weak-hearted Dems of yesteryear.

Once we recapture power; right the Supreme Court; and install veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, then we can return to the high-minded liberalism. Until then, to continue on our current course of "fair ball" politics is pure insanity.

We will continue to get our butts kicked if we keep on bringing a rule book and white gloves to a knife fight.

J

[pampango]

1. Un-recommended.

I do believe that Americans have a "reasonable level of intelligence to counter act their emotionality and "gut instincts."" If they don't, democracy doesn't work and governing has to be done by "superiors" whether they be BushCo or "enlightened" DUers.

[BlooInBloo]

2. They don't. Americans are fucking idiots.

[FatDave]

25. Now now, not all Americans are fucking idiots.

Just a slim majority of them.

[11 Bravo]

46. I can think of about 42 million who have got to be dumber than Steve Doocy.

[pampango]

39. And I've seen many here accuse freepers of thinking that

"Americans are fucking idiots." It's nice to know that we have something in common with them.

[CaptJasHook]

44. I'm American and I'm not a fucking idiot, neither are most of the people I know

Then of course, I have the advantage of living in Portland. ;-)

[Blarch]

48. Yep.

We live in a nation of fools.

[Common Sense Party]

50. Great campaign slogan. "Vote Democratic, You F***ing Idiots"

We'll win in a landslide.

[NoodleyAppendage]

53. How about "Vote Democratic because Republicans Will Take Your Freedoms Away."

It doesn't have to be self-referential, as you full-well know. We target the message to be simple and direct to get to the lower educated audience. The long-winded reasoned arguments will NOT work with these folks. They think in sound bites, not sentences.

J

[Cali_Democrat]

41. Americans are dumber than a box of rocks

Why else would so many vote for dubya?

[Common Sense Party]

51. "Vote for Obama, You Mouthbreathing Morons!"

Insulting the intelligence of the American electorate--THAT'S a winning strategy.

[Connie_Corleone]

3. All Palin/baby threads are gonna get hidden by me.

Troopergate and McCain's judgment should be the focus.

[1corona4u]

6. Yep.

[whatchamacallit]

4. They win because they cheat

there has been a component of fraud in every repuke win since 2000

Edit: But I somewhat agree with your premise

[akangel2008]

14. Yup

Cheating is a way of life for them!

[LonelyLRLiberal]

27. The margin would not be close enough for them to cheat to win if voters voted intelligently. eom

[JVS]

5. I agree. These pantloads need to keep their high-mindedness out of our politics

[Common Sense Party]

52. Exactly. We'll stay in the gutter until we reach the mountaintop. n/t

[butterfly77]

7. Correct..

I am tired of hearing about this woman already and the people who are whining about how we can't say this or that. This is a fight for our country and I'll be damn if I will play this let's be nice game. Will she play nice?

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[butterfly77]

11. My point exactly!

a bunch of bull and we are going to throw it right back..

[liberalpress]

13. Hey I hear McCain once murdered a democrat

That makes it OK for us to murder a republican. Kewl. I'll go get my gun!

[butterfly77]

21. I see you are one of those whining ass dems...or not.

[liberalpress]

30. Now all can see how it is

Whenever you can't think of a response, accuse people of being a freeper.Oh yeah, this election is in the bag. I'll be glad when the adults get back to DU.

[Common Sense Party]

56. The adults left long ago. I don't think they're coming back. n/t

[FatDave]

26. But the morons believe it!!!

Get it?

[NoodleyAppendage]

34. Thanks for proving my point. Also, in 2000 McCain had an illegitimate black child. n/t

J

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[zeemike]

9. Thank you, thank you. thank you

You said it well.
And perhaps it is because I have been around a while and seen this all come about that I fully understand your point.

[quakerboy]

12. How does the scandal help us?

What in it hurts them?

I agree about taking it to them hard. I just don't think this is an issue that will win us any votes. And chances pissing off some voters that we want.

[Paladin]

15. Well Said, N.A.

The resurgence of the Democratic Party can be largely attributed to a new willingness to fight the Repubs down in the gutter where they dwell. Those of you who insist on the whole play by the rules/we're better than they are restraints are guaranteeing us yet another loss. You may be ready to accept that, but not me....

[Paladin]

16. Self-Deleted (Duplicate)

[mitchum]

17. K & R

[Ichingcarpenter]

18. When a story like this gets 4 and a half thousand individual diggs

which is has, then its got legs and real reporters will look into it.



http://digg.com/all/world_business

[sampsonblk]

19. That's garbage

Truth is, what they have constructed on their side is a bunch of bullshit. The GOP brand, such as it is, is a bunch of shit. But if we play along to try to attract swing voters & avoid offending people, then we deserve to lose.

Its not necessary to act disgusting like them. Thanks, but no thanks. What's necessary is for us to quit pretending their garbage is reasonable.

[SalviaBlue]

20. Um... they CHEAT?

[jgraz]

22. 7 out of the last 10 elections. That's how many we've lost.

Yet, somehow people think the same old shit will work this time. :banghead:

K&R.

[NoodleyAppendage]

33. I can't blame some. It's just not in their natures to do what is necessary. n/t

J

[swishyfeet]

23. K & R !

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. Democrats Truth party; Republicans Power party

The Democrats are the Truth party.
The Republicans are the Power party.

"We will continue to get our butts kicked if we keep on bringing a rule book and white gloves to a knife fight."

Sure, fight hard, but don't fight dirty. That is why Obama and Biden are staying above the fray and the froth. The truth will out. Even the mainstream media will get interested if there is a kernel of truth here, and it looks like there is.

The Republicans are known for trampling the truth to get and use power.
The Democrats sometimes get pushed around for the sake of the truth.

In the long run, the truth has the most power.

Speak Truth to Power.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

28. Sad, but true.

I talk to too many idiots who vote to argue with any of what you say.

[smoogatz]

29. You have to think about it in terms of what would freak out the fundies.

Any scandal involving teenage sex and illegitimate babies and lies about teenage sex and babies is guaranteed to confuse and confound the fundies. Actually, though, I find the switched-baby thing pretty unconvincing: the odds of a healthy teenager giving birth to a Down's baby are negligible. For a woman of Palin's age, they're something like 1 in 50. I love all the chatter and innuendo, and I think it's the perfect payback for the "Obama's a muslim" emails that have been circulating since he announced, but I'd be very surprised if the baby wasn't really Palin's.

[Life Long Dem]

31. I like "Three Men and a Baby" better than "Babygate"

:bounce:

[arKansasJHawk]

32. This indecision is killing me ...

I'm of two very different minds on this issue.

On one hand, part of me agrees completely with everything in the OP. I feel like, if we continue to take the high road and run honest, issues-based campaigns, we're going to get our asses handed to us again.

I mean, I read a post in one of the threads on the Palin-baby question that said, in essence, "We should be hammering them on the issues!" And immediately, my reaction was: "We're always right on the issues. We were right in 2000, and we were even more right in 2004, and what good did it do us? NONE."

I think we can all agree that, as far as DUers are concerned, the progressive agenda is the superior one. And yet Americans continue to elect backwards-thinking conservatives who do nothing but harm to the country we all love.

So what is the antidote to that? We don't have any tools in our progressive toolbox to make Americans smarter at election time. We don't have any way to make them stop watching "Football Night in America" and tune in to the debates and actually think rationally about issues.

The only antidote, it seems, is to fight fire with fire. Hit them hard, hit them dirty, do whatever it takes to wrest the gears of power out of the hands of the Armageddon-mad neo-con crowd before they finally succeed in killing us all.

And then I read this in the OP:

Once we recapture power; right the Supreme Court; and install veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate, then we can return to the high-minded liberalism. Until then, to continue on our current course of "fair ball" politics is pure insanity.

And it strikes me as exactly the kind of reactionary, terrible logic that lead the Bush administration to adopt the tactics of the most repressive regimes in history to battle "the terrorists."

"We'll get all our freedoms back once the 'terrorists' have been defeated," they tell us. "We have to do whatever it takes to win this fight against 'terrorism' or America will be destroyed."

And the question in both cases is whether it's really possible to destroy what we believe in, in order to preserve what we believe in. That paradox is at the heart of the issue, and I have no idea what the solution is.

[NoodleyAppendage]

35. The paradox is concerning I'll admit, but what's the alternative?

I believe that this is a situation of the "lesser of two evils." I have faith in my fellow liberals and Democrats that we would have an easier time in relinquishing any over-reaching that was necessary to put us in the power position. Fight dirty to gain power, then slowly educate the masses and return the system to balance. The current course with the Repukes is pushing us into the shithole, so what's the alternative?

J

[Life Long Dem]

36. You said nothing about MSM

making these attacks an issue against us.

In the mean time, this group that is attacking Palin on personal issues are the same ones who said "NO" to most of the attacks wanting to be used on McSame.

Remember that? You had an attack on McSame and they were the first to tell you not to use that attack. And we'd go back and forth over the POW thing and playing the card. Well this group was also playing this POW card.

I shouldn't have to say more. Except wake the fuck up people. They are dragging this campaign into the gutter! And your being dragged right into it with them.

[NoodleyAppendage]

38. Fly high above the clouds with your high-minded idealism. n/t

J

[rndmprsn]

37. K+R for some people the truth hurts...

[snagglepuss]

40. Your right on the mark. Even if kid is hers, her judgement about

flying back to Alaska is extremely poor and dems should milk this this.

[NoodleyAppendage]

42. I'm glad some can see the need to adjust. n/t

J

[RadicalTexan]

43. They win because the percentage of people who vote for them are either stupid or greedy.

Or both.

I blame religion and our individualist, materialistic culture.

[NoodleyAppendage]

45. Right. Correct. So, we need to tool our approach to target these people.

We need not appeal to reason with these people, but to get under their skin in a primal way. These people are the ones that are likely to be led by fear, disgust, and intimidation. We need a two-pronged approach; one to address the reasoned argument for those who can comprehend it and another to target the easily led limbic-types.

J

[Doctor_J]

47. Yup. Many "Dems" are extremely brainwashed - "Big Media is fair",

"Big Media just wants ratings", "All the mudslinging will backfire on the Repukes", "Truth will out", and other such nonsense spewed by Big Media. The fact that George W. Bush has served two terms in the White House has not managed to sink in on these dolts. WAKE UP!!!

[NoodleyAppendage]

49. The brainwashing has been so long that some fail to see the change.

It's hightime we turn to the days of Dems being political machines to be FEARED. "Don't cross us or we will fuck you up," is where we need to be to control the message and return our country back from the brink of fascist theocracy.

J

[Doctor_J]

55. Yes, the GOP propaganda machine has outdone the Nazi's by orders of magnitude

Pravda was a joke among the Soviet proletariat - no one believed it. But Rove has put Goebbels to shame. I can't wait until someone rescues us.

[GoesTo11]

54. Rumor is truth only in / with the echo chamber

Rumors about Democrats are echoed by Limbaugh, Hannity et al, repeated on Fox, CNN, Republican pundits, and finally editorialized in NYT by Kristol, WaPo by several people, mocked by Dowd, and discussed all over mainstreet.

Rumors about Republicans are debunked, and the purveyors of the rumor are chastised, first by Limbaugh, Hannity and Fox, Republican pundits on CNN, MSNBC, and editorialized in ...

The real Republican advantage is in their control of this entire media structure, not just in the viciousness of their personal makeup.

Given that this is the way it is, not even considering the obvious ethical issues, Dems best tactic is to stick to truth. They would lose more by playing the Republican game and losing.

[ecstatic]

57. Not to mention our huge disadvantage in the MSM

We have to work 20 times harder. Most times, truth never even makes it to the crawler on the bottom of the news screen.