General Discussion

Bucky

(55,334 posts) Sun Aug 11, 2024, 08:18 AM Aug 2024

How Republicans rule by smear and fear

(Tiny request. I spent over an hour writing & tweaking this thought piece. If you read and appreciate its perspective, please give it a little kick so that it stays accessible on the first GD page for a while)

Hat tip to True Diough's post about Mark Cuban's X-tweet on why Harris and Walz are catching on.

https://democraticunderground.com/100219313944

Cuban says people are switching to them because they're new and fresh and normal, not ideologues, that voters are tired of the "hate from both parties."

*L'sigh*

Is that the problem with Joe Biden? Are Pelosi and Schumer and Jeffries really hate spewers? I've seen Democrats denouncing haters & bigotry, seen them calling out the dishonest mud slinging from the other side... but how is not rolling over for a bully equivalent to bullying?

Anyway, Cuban saying Harris "went from worst to first" is because unlike everyone else she and Tim Walz are just normal folks. The contrast to Trump, Vance, and the Worm King is clear, but how exactly are they different from other Democrats?

Harris went from "worst to first" because she seemed normal and hopeful when the alternatives to her were geriatric Biden (and opposition to Biden was mostly ageism) or crazy angry Trump or irrelevant kooky RFKjr.

Coach went from "worst to first" because the ageism against his gray and wrinkled face got destroyed, once the public saw he was on his game and kind of a chill dude. But he wasn't unique in that. Remember that the top alternatives to him weren't nutso like the GOP is. One was a good looking, sane, moderate governor; the other was a crusty looking, sane, moderate ex astronaut. But they were all competent, service-oriented.... and normal.

It's not just random luck that the two Democrats just so happened to be the sane ones this time around. Republicans have been nut cases all along. Their quirk-filled ideological screwiness this ~~year~~ decade has gotten out of hand, but Trump and Vance are really a natural result from the bread-and-circus distractions Republicans have always depended on to sell to voters the policies that harm the poor and middle class.

"Be afraid of immigrants. Be afraid of welfare recipients. Hate teachers that teach dangerous facts to your kids. Cut taxes on zillionaires or they won't give us jobs." Fear fear fear! "Clean energy will end your way of life and kill off all the birds."

A big part of this schtick is the routine and baseless smearing of each and every Democrat who gets into power. Clinton is a Machiavellian pothead. Hillary is a manipulative dragon lady. John Kerry is a war coward who faked his combat accomplishments. Barack is a Machiavellian pothead foreigner (these are all rerunnable themes).

I remember in 1984 seeing a National Inquirer headline declaring that Lee Hart had a secret plan to take over the country thru the end of the century.

You're probably thinking "Who the hell is Lee Hart?" She was the wife of a wonky US senator who caught a brief spell of popularity while running for president. So why smear her? Back then, I had no idea the Inquirer wasn't just a joke magazine, but a tool of the right wing elite to bamboozle the busy working class -- bread and circuses. Apparently Lee Hart's evil master plan was to get her husband elected president in '84 and then run for president herself in '92. Such a diabolical plotting dragon lady! Her evil plan was... to win elections!!

It was baseless, of course, merely a dress rehearsal for the smear they'd hone on Hillary Clinton 8 years later. They had the misogynist script all ready to run, whatever boomer happened to be the first boomer First Lady. It's a rerunnable theme. This is why a brilliant super accomplished lawyer like Michelle Obama stayed in the garden and only talked about healthy food and exercise for 8 years. Even then, they tried the ol' dragon lady narrative on her too (till they switched to the more reliable old racist insults).

Republicans govern by distraction and bloodsport. In a democracy it's the only way to get a majority to vote against their own interests -- although lately they've quit scrupling so much on the "majority" bit. But who can blame them? It's not their fault that the scapegoat minorities have become a larger share of the voting public.

So in the future they'll talk more about men going into girls' bathrooms and murderous immigrants, cowardly veterans and the inherent communism of library books, bloodsport and distraction. That's all they know and it's all they can do. They rerun the old attacks because they mostly lack the imagination to devise new smear tactics. Smearing Kamala as dumb, as Trump & his initiators try, isn't working because no one is familiar with that script... and makes no sense. Now they've got to somehow change the narrative, sell her as a scheming dragon lady.

Harris and Walz are surging in popularity now not cause their normalness is a new thing, as Mark Cuban implies, but because they were too unknown before to be worth framing up with the usual smears.

But here's the thing: Democrats have always been normal. Bill and Hillary were yuppies, sure, but he was a small town kid from a broken home who worked his ass off to become successful so he could help people like himself. And she was a suburban kid who worked her ass off to be successful and got to see how government could help people who were suffering too. They were Mainstream Protestants who believed in what Christianity teaches: help the less fortunate. That's pretty normal.

Kerry was loaded, sure, and ambitious, as all politicians are, but he lived an honorable life of public service, from the military to the law. That's how normal people act. Obama grew up with an academic mom and small town grandparents, but his cultural rearing was quintessentially American. He was gifted, but he was a normal guy and his policies were entirely about helping regular people live better lives.

This ethic they all share threatens the wealthy and the powerful who are jealous of their own privilege. And so they smear to govern. Anyone trying to level the playing field a little must be tarnished as freaks or deviants.

The reason Kamala and Coach aren't tarnished is because they're new, that is, they aren't tarnished yet. Give it four years; our Republican compatriots will get there. They just need to find a smarter salesman.