Creating a "Silent Majority" is the effect of bizzarre WH bashing of the "Professional Left"

[Land Shark]

First, the actual immediate context for Gibbs' notorious comments, showing that Gibbs is focusing on liberal activist groups with fund-raising operations and not grassroots "progressives":

In his comments in "The Hill", Gibbs defined the "professional left" as "not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama. Progressives, Gibbs said, are the liberals outside of Washington “in America,” and they are grateful for what Obama has accomplished {...}."

Second, the true REALITY of the "professional" "Left" specifically "inside Washington" is fairly summed up here by David Sirota:

I'm always amused by popular references to the allegedly all-powerful American "left." The term suggests that progressives today possess the same kind of robust, ideologically driven political apparatus as the right — a machine putting principles before party affiliation.n This notion is hilarious because it is so absurd.

Yes, there are certainly well-funded groups in Washington that call themselves "progressive," that get media billing as "the left," and that purport to advocate liberal causes regardless of party. But unlike the right's network, which has sometimes ideologically opposed Republicans on court nominations and legislation, many "progressive" institutions are not principled at all — sadly, lots of them are just propagandists for Democrats, regardless of what Democrats do.

Everyone in professional "left" politics knows this reality "deep down in places they don't talk about at parties," as Jack Nicholson might say — and they don't discuss it for fear of jeopardizing their employers' nonprofit tax status or undermining their employers' dishonest fundraising appeals to liberal donors' ideals. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2010/05/21/obama_myth_of_the_left

Third, even CNN, which Sirota quotes with approval, looks at the whole situation of the "professional left" inside DC and concludes:

Surveying the hypocrisy, CNN's Roland Martin wrote that "the left's" organizations "need to decide what matters: their principles or their politics ... their convictions or chicken dinners in the White House."
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REALITY: In my opinion, here on DU, the "Professional Left's" organizations in DC are way behind the opinions of the grassroots, and more focused on staying ingratiated in Washington DC so as to, they say, keep doors open (and the like). Bigger liberal groups also are often accused of co-opting grassroots issues and sucking up all the funding and co-opting the issues after the grassroots activists have built an issue.

Because Gibbs is actually attacking the part of the "Left" that sucks up and pulls punches most instinctively, his comments are bizarre.

Gibbs' attempt to claim that the grassroots outside the Professional left in DC are somehow more behind the president politically than the established liberal groups in DC is simply out of touch with reality, and even Orwellian.

THE REAL IMPACT:

Here's my analysis that makes Gibbs' comments not so bizarre, yet still outrageous:

First, I think it's fair to say that Gibbs comments are intended for national consumption and he's deliberately ignoring the reality of the liberal organizations that Sirota points to above, as have many others in the past. The average person isn't aware of this inside story about liberal groups with major DC operations, so they won't experience the disconnect with reality like most on DU do.

Instead, here's the effect on the average person in the nation: Though disguised as a "rant" (that in fact Gibbs is utterly capable of withholding, and indeed supposed to withhold) anyone with any serious likelihood of being quoted in the media either is, or can be considered to be by an average media consumer, a "Washington insider" or a member of the "professional left." THIS IS WHAT GIBBS IS DISTANCING FROM -- CRITICS ThAT GET ANY MEDIA TIME.

Gibbs is, in direct effect, asserting a "silent majority" argument: Anyone who appears in any media and talks like they know their stuff "must" be "professional left" or will be deemed 'professional left' while the ones we don't hear from are presumed to be behind Obama.

[Scurrilous]

1. Nice analysis.

:thumbsup:

[Land Shark]

2. Thank you. Hope to hear other responses as well. Am I missing something? n/t

[metapunditedgy]

3. This is how the right works. Apply a ridiculous adjective to some political opponent.

It's so overt and over-the-top, it's ridiculous. But it catches some attention and then stays buried in our minds, always nagging at us....

So if I understand what you're saying, you may be on to something. I wouldn't have expected Gibbs to take a play out of Rush Limbaugh's rhetorical playbook.

[Land Shark]

4. I'm saying that Gibbs' play, if successful, undermines every liberal or progressive IN MEDIA.

While still positing that those not in the media have a different viewpoint and support President Obama on each issue -- cause they elected him, etc.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. On the money. Could also say "eggheads" or "liberal elites" etc.

You got this one so right.

He even used that horrible "Real America" frame. Ughhh!!!!

[Land Shark]

6. yes, "liberal elites" would work as well. - sigh - n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Huh? Is that what this is at DU? Silence?

[Land Shark]

8. Consent is measured amongst those who speak out

Though if they are doing so via Citizens United advocacy-type ad repetition, each ad counts only as ONE.

on edit: But NO, Du is not silence but from the national-perspective of some hypothetical "average" person, DU is invisible unless they make it a point to affirmatively come here to visit. That's why I focus on media that "pushes out" its message over the airwaves and in newspapers.

[2 Much Tribulation]

9. Is this the new WH "ANTI-LIBERAL MEDIA" strategy???? n/t

[Land Shark]

10. That's the absurdity part of it. n/t