I wrote yesterday about how Howard Dean spoke about the way the extremists in this administration had managed to hijack and use real faith and values for their own political purposes. He spoke of it actually as a sort of coup.
I also expressed my fear that our Democrats are going to be very fearful of fighting back against some on the religious right....because they simply do not understand what they are facing.
To survive, our party and its candidates must be able to tell real faith and values and true religion from the false piety and misleading words they have been using on us.
Our Democrats don't seem to understand what they are up against.
Hijacking faith and values..."The theft of meaning...of truth and faith and the ability to believe....has been one of the worst things the Republicans have done to the American people. It is time for the Democrats to fight back. We've got to fight fire with fire. Not by cynically co-opting the language of religion for our own purposes, or by blurring the line between church and state, or by aping the self-righteousness of the right wing. But by challenging their charade of virtue with a real politics of meaning."
In his book You Have the Power, 2004, Dean pointed out how the Republicans have used the power of language to get so much power. He mentions Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz, and how they tapped into this power of words.
But the Republicans didn't only choose their words with care; they perfected the art of twisting them subtly (and not so subtly) to keep their meaning in line with their politics.
"Family values" became code for a right wing crusade against working women and gays and lesbians. Talk of "community" meant communities turned against one another. "Personal Responsiblity" provided cover for irresponsible government practices that stiffed the poor. "Faith" was put to the service of religious bigotry. All of this lofty rhetoric that seemed to play to our best impulses was used to cloak the Republicans' mean-spiritedness and appeal to Americans' worst natures.
He speaks of how an anti-democratic, openly anti-pluralistic, openly theocratic agenda allowed a coup of sorts to happen:
From the 2004 book, You Have the Power, more on this topic.
The Republicans maneuvering brilliantly under the guidance of their language czars, learned how to cloak their ideology---and ideology far more extreme than what most Americans would accept--in words that sounded mainstream."
..."After Gingrich became Speaker, Brock reports in the "Republican Noise Machine", Luntz tutored newly elected Republicans in Congress on how to sell their radical agenda to more socially progressive neocons through careful turns of phrase."
..."The biggest coup of all, bring a team of radical right wing idealogues to the White House under the cover of Compassionate Conservatism.
Democrats and moderate Republicans have woken up and found themselves in an America ruled by people pushing forward intolerant, discriminatory policies....anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-civil liberties, all in the name of God. The truth is we allowed this to happen by mostly remaining silent about the things that give meaning to people's lives."
To be able to fight effectively, you have to understand your foes.
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