Insightful musings from Facebook. Interesting take on politics.
By Rick Cripe, shared with permission...
"This is my opinion as to why there is so much acrimony in politics today. I welcome thoughtful feedback.It started in earnest around 20 years ago. The republican party codified how to use language to control the general electorate. I'm not just talking about a few people in charge being demagogues but a written down, distributed to the membership plan for making people trust the Republicans and distrust the Democrats. It wasn't anything particularly new or Earth shattering, but it was distributed by Newt Gingrich back in 1990 to make sure that the Democrats were repeatedly demonized by all Republican speeches. Gone were the days of "My esteemed colleague", no more of "The gentleman from Missouri", now it was all "Pathetic liberals" and "Radical self-serving traitors". I encourage you to read both:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/27/us/politics/27gingrich-text.html
and the related article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/us/politics/the-long-run-gingrich-stuck-to-caustic-path-in-ethics-battles.html
The truth is, it works. Many people are unwilling to do the basic research to check facts and would rather listen to soundbites that may or may not be true. As such, the Republicans won back control of both the House and Senate during Bill Clinton's terms (1994) and they ran hard with this idea of demonizing Democrats. Witch hunts, impeachment trials, on and on.
Also in the 1990's Rush Limbaugh saw his star rise dramatically. He also used the same ideas of language to create and maintain an audience that mocked and ridiculed Democrats at every turn. Others like Glen Beck and most of Fox News picked this up in the 2000's. I'm sure you've seen them all reinforcing one another's positions by using the same language over and over and over.
The Democrats mistakenly have believed that the truth will always win out over deceit. They have typically taken the road of "He's lying! Don't believe him!" It doesn't work. It only makes them appear whiny and weak. (See Dukakis, Gore, Kerry). The Democrats felt that if the voters only *understood*, they would clearly choose them over they Republican politicians who didn't have the voter's interests in mind. Again, that doesn't work. The people don't care about facts, they care about their emotions and what they *feel* to be true. As people say, perception is reality.
This even extended to judge appointments. The Supreme Court became the final battleground for so many social issues, so controlling the SC became of utmost importance. After the betrayal of Justice Souter, Republicans started fighting to make sure that there were no judges on the Federal Appeals Courts that were left-leaning and also made sure that they never actually voted to approve an appointment to the Federal Appeals Courts for a liberal judge. If they voted to approve one to the lower court, it would be hard to argue why they were not fit to serve on the highest court. As such, justice positions have been left open for many years.
Now it's 20 years later. These practices have been going on continuously since 1990. They're still using language to control the electorate. But now the people who are running for office don't have to be told to demonize their opponents because they *believe* it already. They've had 20 years of propaganda being force fed into them and they simply don't know of any other way of describing Democrats. Their voters have lived in this echo chamber for 20 years where everyone around them confirms that Democrats are lying socialists that want to take everything away from hard-working Americans and give it to lazy welfare queens, make everyone dependent on the government, take away our guns, and weaken America until the (insert current foreign boogieman) can destroy us and our way of life.
As such, anyone who works with a Democrat is working with the enemy and weakening America. It makes bipartisanship nearly impossible. It has turned compromise into anathema. It has allowed a fringe group like the Tea Party to dominate the primaries and run out of office any Congressman who could possibily reach across the aisle.
The Democrats have recently started learning how to beat the Republicans at their game. Define your opponent before he can define you. Don't whine. Appeal to emotions rather than intelligence. These are the things that will generate the most votes.
It is important to know that while the leaders of the GOP are basically bullies who should know better, the general public of the GOP are good, well-meaning people. Horribly misinformed for decades, trusting of their representatives, mistrusting of 'otherness'. It used to be 'otherness' meant 'black' but now it can apply to democrats, arabs, mexicans, gays, europeans, basically anyone who isn't 'them'. Part of the GOP leadership plan is to maintain the fear of 'otherness'."
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