Some reflections on the long war

I just came across a note from early 2010, in which I described and lamented the Democratic Party's failure to confront, let alone effectively dispel, GOP propaganda. This was around the time I started work on the book that was initially entitled Pack of Lies and was later rechristened (by a skittish publisher) Beyond Reason. Seven years later, things have not improved, to say the least.  Now that we're living in a state of emergency, we're finally waking up to the propaganda war that has been going on for decades, which we've been losing all along.

Except for a few details (most notably a reference to Lincoln Chaffee!) this note feels as relevant today as when it was written - which in itself makes the case more effectively than any argument I can cobble together out of mere words and numbers.

23 Jan. 2010 

The Right Wing of the Republican party has been engaged in a committed propaganda war of attrition against the Democrats for the past 30 years.

A war of attrition: this is an existential conflict for conservatives - a fight to the death.  They will bar (and have barred) no holds and stop at nothing to win.  As I say, it is an existential conflict - for them, loss means the final extinction of their way of life and the very world that they inhabit.  They will therefore stop at nothing, since the alternative to victory is death.  Period. Of course they wont play fair!  Of course they won't compromise!  Both of things are not just tantamount to defeat - they ARE defeat.

For Republicans - or, I should say, Right Wing Republicans - politics/government is zero sum, absolutely.

Liberals and Democrats in general don't see it as a war - which is one of the reasons we're losing it.  Liberals actually believe that every voice should be heard, even those of the most extremist Conservatives, and are dedicated to that principal above all others.  Right Wing Republicans believe only in victory.

Think of Rove's permanent majority (Dead Giveway Exhibit A).  That is actually what they want.  That is actually what they think is best for the country.  For them, 100 Republican Senators (and no Lincoln Chaffees, by the way - only "True Conservatives" need apply) and 435 Republican Representatives is the ideal - they deeply and sincerely believe that would be the best outcome for America.

Do you think Democrats think this way?  Ultimately, no Democrat sincerely believes that it would be a better world if they had absolute control over all branches of government.  I certainly don't think this way.  We believe in representative government.  We believe that all sides should have a voice and be heard - even within our own party.  This is the essence of Liberalism.  As I've written elsewhere, the political debate in the US is not between Left and Right - it's between Open and Closed.

All their talk about the "Real America" (Dead Giveaway Exhibit B) - no Liberal EVER talks about the "Real America" - know why?  Because we live in the real America - that's where we live.  The phrase "Real America" makes no sense - it's like saying "this is my REAL car" or "Now I'm going to drink this REAL glass of milk".  They need to keep talking about the "REAL America" precisely because it is a chimera - cobbled together from a mixture of nostalgia for a fictional (or at least highly censored) past and fear of the actual present.

A fear that is provoked every time they turn on the television or leave their homes and go downtown.

A fear, in other words, of the Real America.

The "REAL America" is obviously not like the one we all actually inhabit, and it makes no place for most of us - it is not just a place where a minority rules, but where only this minority exists!

They do not just want this fictional Real America to exist - they NEED it to exist.  A terrible predicament!  They have an existential need for the world to be different from what it in fact is.  No wonder they're angry.

But, having said all that, we must recognize that there are other causes for their anger, and many of them are legitimate.  Real wages have not gone up in over 30 years.  Job security is low.  The economy is bad.  Unemployment is high.  Health care and health insurance costs are high.  The future does not promise to be better.  Meanwhile, they see that the people who caused the meltdown have got off scott free and are prospering more than ever after having been bailed out by taxpayer money - the money of working people.

WHY ARE REPUBLICANS SUCCESSFUL AT THE BALLOT BOX WHEN THEIR POLICIES ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY MOST AMERICANS?

The irony - the colossal irony - the surreal irony - is that it is the Democrats whose policies favor these angry, frustrated citizens.  The Democrats are - or should be - the natural allies of the working American.  The Democrats have proposed policies to help them and are in the process of enacting legislation to help them some more.  And yet there is no sense of this.

Because the Democrats can't communicate with working people and the Republicans can.  The Republicans are good at communication because they have to be - their policies are not naturally appealing to middle and low income Americans; Republican positions on most issues are rejected by the majority of Americans (real or otherwise).  Republican politics is entirely dependent on communication strategy.

Hence the skillful exploitation of symbolic cultural wedge issues - immigration, gay-rights - that do not affect the vast majority of Americans, especially in red states.  Is illegal immigration really such a problem in South Carolina?

THE REPUBLICANS HAVE WAGED AND PREVAILED (FOR LACK OF AN OPPONENT) IN A SUCCESSFUL PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST THE VERY IDEA OF GOVERNMENT

- The idea that there is no such thing as truth, just two sides of each issue, left and right

- The idea that the media is Left-Wing - "Liberal" - and cannot be trusted to report the truth

- The idea that the Left is not only wrong, but malicious and dedicated to the destruction of America

- The idea that the Democratic party is extremist

- The idea that America is a "Center-Right" nation - i.e. that the natural center is actually on the Right

These ideas have gone unchallenged on the American scene for the past 30 years - not because no one has voiced opposition, but because there has been no organized effort to challenge them and to point out their falsity.  The Democrats, in other words, have not refuted these coordinated, consistent and systematic claims with a coordinated, consistent and systematic response.  And the media has been browbeaten and intimidated into accepting the Right's premises, or at least accepting a need to defend themselves from accusations of bias by bending over backwards to be "even-handed" by giving equal weight to "both sides" of every issue (thereby implicitly accepting the Right's first canard), without judging or even reporting on the validity of either side's argumentation or data.