I’m really tired of listening to Republicans talk. It’s boring and monotonous. I think they were more creative in former times, though I’m having trouble remembering. What I recall is so vague that I can’t count on the memories because I didn’t keep up so well in the past, but what I recall is that the ad hominem attacks came from riff-raff, not the mainstream. So Klansmen and White Supremists called people "cummunists," but Senators and Congressmen didn’t. I grew up in a place where billboards said "Impeach Earl Warren," but they didn’t call him names like that in Washington. I think there was some shared understanding that ad hominem arguments represented a logical fallacy.
An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made [or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim]. Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making [or presenting].
But nowadays it has become the everyday standard Republican reaction to everything. It only really works if there’s a category of people that are uniformly reviled. In that situation, ad hominem attacks only have to establish or imply membership to do their damage. They remain logical fallacies, but it doesn’t matter.. McCarthy perfected the method with his "red baiting" in the 1950’s. In the South in my youth, associating someone with Civil Rights was enough to discredit them globally. The current Republican strategy is to make being a Democrat enough to discredit a person. In this scenario, these words are synonyms [different words meaning the same thing]:
democrat, liberal, progressive, socialist, communist, far left, fascist, spender, taxer, abortionist, environmentalist, atheist, evolutionist, climate change believer
If they can establish that you are any one of these things, you are all of these things, and you are the enemy. It requires constant reinforcement – provided by Talk Radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, the Right Wing blogs, and Republican politicians commentary. Another requirement to keep it going is that everything that the people in these categories do or say has to be wrong – everything. So, all Republicans must vote against everything. And the Media and politicos must attack everything.
But some enemies are special. This is a segment of today’s RNC’s email forwarded to me by a friend. It’s so easy to get into retorting these things – special targets like Nancy Pelosi [woman], Barack Obama [black]. I post this to point out only one thing. It doesn’t say anything about the content of the healthcare bill itself. It’s just about firing [burning up] Nancy Pelosi. She’s shown with fists clenched. She’s a "Madam" [runs brothels]. She’s depicted in a flaming inferno [Hell, Satan?]. It has these words about her: rammed, takeover, the Pelosi Health Care Takeover, iron-fisted.
The outpouring of support from Republican grassroots leaders like you has been extraordinary. In a little over 36 hours after Nancy Pelosi and Congressional Democrats rammed their government takeover of health care down the American people’s throats, the Republican National Committee has almost tripled our original goal of raising $402,010 to Fire Nancy Pelosi.
I’m grateful for your help, but we’re not done yet. At 11:15 this morning, President Obama signed into law the Pelosi Health Care Takeover. This abomination means low-quality health care, higher taxes, and a declining standard of living for all Americans. In response to President Obama signing this monstrous bill, the RNC is extending the Fire Pelosi Money Bomb for an extra 24 hours — that’s 24 more hours to ensure our Party has the resources needed to defeat 40 Democrat Representatives and bring Nancy Pelosi’s iron-fisted reign to an end.
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And the attack on the healthcare bill is also ad hominem, even though the bill isn’t a person. It is an evil thing – an abomination, low-quality health care, higher taxes, declining standard of living, monstrous. Everything about the email is incendiary. It’s like the Republican Congressmen who were joining the Teabaggers outside, inciting them to riot, yelling things like "baby killer" to match the epithets of hatred.
Decrying these tactics, retorting these accusations, trying to establish a dialog – none of these things have had any effect. In truth, our side really has no power to do anything about any of this. They’ve chosen a path, one that has worked for them for a while. There are people out there who want to jump on board. There’s an almost infinite source of money to fuel them, because it’s big money that feels threatened.
Most of the Democrats seem to be getting their rhythm about responding. They mostly don’t [respond]. These tactics destroyed John Kerry. Obama miraculously overcame them [though his opponents helped]. I don’t have any notion about how the 2010 Congressional Candidates will manage the local versions. But I was thinking today that the places where this kind of
ad hominem, incendiary politicking has done the most damage are where the candidates engage it and then go a bit crazy. Donald Segretti took out Ed Muskie in one night. Michael Dukakis was taken down in a heartbeat by Lee Atwater. Karl Rove deep sixed John McCain in South Carolina, and was a force in untold races before he finished off John Kerry. The Academics who address such things [Drew Westin,
The Political Brain, George Lakoff,
Thinking Points] offer sound advice – control your own narrative, talk about your values, etc. If I were going to advise the Congressional Candidates for 2010, I’d suggest just a few things. Know the Republican Talking Points and name them as such when they come up. If you must talk about them, talk only about what they are designed to do, don’t engage them as real questions. Watch every tape you can find of Barack Obama, and do whatever he does. He’s the gold standard. One of his best lines was when he met with the Republican Caucus. He responded to an inflammatory Talking Point, "
That’s not true, and you know that it’s not true." Tell the truth in a George Washington sort of way [and maybe read my
aha post below]. In the end, it’s up to the people to get over this kind of bullshit by realizing that they are being manipulated to work against their own better interests…
I’m looking forward to reading Friedman’s “radical centrist” op-ed in today’s NYT. And, I’m reasonably sure that the radical right, a veritable scourge on the landscape at least since Eisenhower’s day, is headed for big destruction in the coming months. It was good to see Boehner self-immolation in public the other day…there is every reason to believe such immoderate displays shall continue. They’ve read the “real” body politic all wrong and they must necessarily be held to account in the mid-terms. Senator McCain is squawking loudly for repeal of H.R. 3962 and looks every bit as pathetic as Don Quixote out tilting at windmills. Rabid Arizona Tea Partiers may help to lose him his seat in the Senate anyway. This will be fine – it is important for the fringe to be properly marginalized. That is, in fact, their proper place in the scheme of things. I get email from a vacuous evangelical fool in Kansas running for the House of Representatives who thinks that we need a state religion and that abortion is the most pressing issue before the country – at least that is how he introduced himself 8 months or so ago. This is what he says this morning as he counts his “political capital” chickens long before they hatch:
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Fighting ObamaCare:
Repeal, Replace, Retire
Dear Friend,
Just moments ago, liberals in Washington stubbornly passed their socialist health care legislation despite the will of the American people.
I have a three-step solution to combating the health care bill:
1. Repeal. I was one of the first signers of the Club for Growth’s “Repeal It!” pledge. If elected to Congress, I will work every day to repeal ObamaCare. As a former legislative director and chief-of-staff in the United States Senate, I have the experience to get it done.
2. Replace. I believe that ObamaCare should be replaced with common-sense market-based solutions to reform America’s health care system. My number one priority would be tort reform. We also need to be able to buy health insurance across state lines. This would expand the competition and drive down costs for everyone.
3. Retire. We need to retire every lawmaker who voted for ObamaCare. I will use my political capital and leadership to defeat liberals in Washington. I will also introduce term-limits legislation and fight for its passage.
The fight against ObamaCare starts today and I am prepared to be a leader in this fight.
Please support my bid for Congress with a donation of $5, $10, $25, $50, or $100 today!
Thank you for your continued support.
Sincerely,
Rob Wasinger
Republican for Congress (KS-01)
Fred Thompson Endorsed
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Now the interesting thing I found here was that the last time I heard from him, he was touting McCain’s endorsement and he is down to Fred Thompson. I guess we would have to give Fred Thompson a point for having the decency to disappear from the landscape. I’m watching for him to turn up in a reality show, perhaps with the former governor of Illinois. This morning, they are burning their own and our cash in an infantile, reactive series of pointless maneuver. I’m planning to write the Attorneys General in the 12 states filing suit against the feds and I want to ask them when their mandatory auto insurance requirements are coming off the books – I might consider moving to such a place where a fellow doesn’t have to do a single thing he might not want to do.
Carl — I’m posting this days later and it probably won’t get noticed, but I’ll put it up anyway. Here in GA, our Democratic Attorney General has refused to file such a lawsuit against the feds. The right is trying to impeach him. But no need. Our Republican governor plans to appoint a special AG to do his bidding and file the suit. Apparently there is some arcane law on the books that allows him to do this. You’re right: it is a big waste of time and money, which is the reasoning our AG gave for not filing it. The state is firing teachers and cutting Medicaid; so this pointless, expensive quest is doubly a shame.
Dear Ralph – as a Dad to a native Georgian, I’m disappointed Mr. Perdue would choose to commit the state’s resources to a reactionary and essentially zero-sum game. I suppose it is symbolic of something in his mind – I don’t see the point at all. I wish some Georgia conservative would sharpen up their #2 pencils, grab a Big Chief tablet and do some computation and cost-benefit associated with suing the feds. Sonny should have done this himself before spending gubernatorial resources figuring out how to compel the issue in the way he has. He obviously cares little for Georgia and Georgians.