Do not ever make the mistake of thinking that the Republicans are anything but the enemy.

[calimary]

81. Wish I could recommend this ONE MILLION TIMES!!!!!

This is the birthplace of the enemy - hate radio.

And yes, unfortunately, I've been driven to concluding republi-CONS are indeed the enemy. To think of them as anything less is to weaken before them. I'm so sick of Democratic naivete. We've seen it on display all week in the reaction to the way the Supreme Court clearly seems to be leaning. "They thought the ACA would sell itself..." "They thought the people would see..." "They thought the benefits of the health care reform would simply speak for themselves and that people would see how it benefited them."

UN-FUCKING-BELIEVABLE!!!!!

HOW many times are our people in DC gonna stand there still, smiling, and presenting all their nice teeth for the bad guys to kick in, on the presumption that finally, at long last, some among them are gonna play nice? What are they smoking????? These bastards ARE the enemy. They ARE the bad guys. They've been planning, strategizing, engineering, and waging, a very effective propaganda battle against us for at least three decades, and we've done NOTHING to respond or counter-sell. I dunno - maybe our side thinks that the salesmanship part of this is beneath us somehow, and/or that somehow the enemy is really not all that bad or evil or pernicious. But the GOP assholes DO believe in bad things for our country because what they want only benefits the top 1% of the 1%, which is proven NOT to be of any help or any good or any benefit to anyone not part of the 1% corporate elites, and they've been VERY effective at selling their message.

On the other hand, we SUCK at it. Nobody realizes they should have hired George Lakoff years ago to help them understand messaging better, and PR better, and salesmanship better. Our side is fucking naive. Infuriatingly naive! You know there are ravenous sharks in the water but you figure they won't bite you so you jump in anyway - because you just KNOW they'd rather eat fish than humans. Yeah... sure. And I've got some nice ocean-front property in Topeka KS I'll sell you real cheap. You just trust that the scorpion that begged for help getting across that deep, wide river on your back will not sting you because he PROMISED so sincerely that he wouldn't! And then, EVERY TIME, one of yours gets halfway across and the scorpion does what scorpions do - stings. And then you're screwed. Doesn't even matter that the scorpion winds up drowning along with you. Didn't stop him from stinging you anyway because that's who he is and that's what he does. And to assume anything else is simply kidding yourselves.

The GOP are scorpions. That's just what they ARE. And they need to be treated as such, and reacted to as such. They must NEVER be trusted. EVER. They must ALWAYS be watched. ALWAYS. Because they are ALWAYS on the offensive and looking to tear down ANY progress the rest of us has made. If there are ANY among you here on DU who still blindly think they can be reached, met halfway, dealt with as reasonable adults, that they'll deal honestly and with no subterfuge and won't lie or deceive or distort or double-cross you as soon as eric cantor or paul ryan or grover norquist tells them to, or come around to our point of view, You. Are. Wasting. Your. Time.

My experiences and observations force me to conclude that they are lost souls who've been so co-opted by the fairy tale they keep pushing: "just keep voting for us and YOU'LL be rich TOO!!!" How else would so many unfortunate, hapless human sheep be convinced to continue voting against their own interests. They're being sold pie-in-the-sky and they've been so inundated with adverse but well-packaged and ubiquitous propaganda that they don't even think anymore. And then when they lose their homes and their insurance and their teabagger Congressman has nothing more for them than "gee, guess it sucks to be you," they're further inundated with more propaganda that it's really the Democrats'/liberals' fault.

When deregulation happened, and the richest of the bad guys started buying radio stations, what did our side do? Roll over and go back to sleep! NOTHING! Because they figured that - well, the GOP will play fair. They will! And there MUST be a pony under all that horse shit! No. Wake up and smell the coffee - and the horse shit. There IS no pony. There's only IGMFU. As in "I Got Mine, F-U."

And the saddest part, the part that breaks my heart and drives me freakin' NUTS, is that in many ways it actually IS the Dems'/liberals' collective fault. Because TOO MANY on our side were so naive, and figured their opponents are reasonable human beings, with hearts and consciences, who are there, honestly and genuinely, with good hearts trying to help people. AND THEY'RE NOT!!!! And our side keeps falling for it. Just grinds my guts!!!

They ARE the enemy. They ARE the bad guys. And if we don't start treating them as such, and dealing with them as such, we'll just keep getting rolled over and over and over and over. And I don't understand, after all the evidence to support this, WHY our side still doesn't get it. And I do not accept the argument that "oh, no, we can't do that - it makes us just like them!" BULLSHIT. Their ruthlessness keeps winning. And we keep getting rolled. HOW FAR are we willing to keep "making nice" while they monopolize the airwaves, take over the statehouses, jam voter-ID laws down our throats and metal probes up our vaginas? HOW LONG will this be allowed to go on before we start fighting back with the same cold-blooded ruthlessness that is now needed in EVERY political battle, no matter how small or local or seemingly insignificant? Have we not had at least 30 years of templates and examples to study about how the takeover is accomplished? Okay, have our guy at the top being the moral and ethical guy, but underneath and behind him we need our own ruthless take-no-prisoners warriors.

I think we have to readjust our thinking. EXPECT them to do bad things and DAMMIT, BE READY FOR IT AHEAD OF TIME!!! Maybe it takes hiring a few operatives who think like the enemy does, so we can out-think, outwit, and outflank them. Sounds like an old "Survivor" TV show, doesn't it? Well, take a lesson!!!

Remember what Mad-Eye Moody always warned Harry Potter: "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!"