I posted this in a Pit thread, but I think I’ll actually get a response if I post it here.
It seems like every day, there’s some sort of brouhaha about someone doing something idiotic at a Town Hall. Most of the conservatives on the board are quick to distance themselves from the actions of people who would, for example, scream “Heil Hitler” at an Israeli and then boo-hoo at him when he got upset. It seems like most conservatives on the boards consider these people to be outliers, and that the majority of the party is not made up of people who would act this way.
But every day, more and more of these people emerge, and the media is covering it with increasing fervor. At what point do you, as a thinking conservative, begin to believe that the party is actually being hijacked? Are you really the majority, or is your party being overrun by belligerent, semi-racist reactionaries? If you think that the majority of conservatives are thoughtful and intelligent, do you resent the fact that these people get so much face-time and the debate is not being won by persuasive argument but instead by fear-mongering gibberish? Or do you not care how your goals are met, as long as they are?
Finally, what effect, if any, do you think this tactic will have on the future of political debate in this country?
Shrug. It’s the same tactics that the various left-wing political organizations in the US have been using for years now. I can’t even count the number of confrontational demonstrations I saw prior to and during the Iraq War that portrayed President Bush as Hitler and encouraged the killing of US troops. Now true, this wasn’t the mainstream Democratic party, it was outright Communist and socialist groups such as International ANSWER, but they began to have more and more of an effect on Democratic campaigns in the last 6 years or so.
So IMHO the damage has already been done to the political process.
No, in fact it’s not disingenuous. Yes, there was a lot of anti-Clinton sentiment, but I don’t recall ANYTHING on the level of the anti-Bush and now anti-Obama reaction. People told jokes about Bill Clinton, but I don’t recall anyone calling him Hitler.
The last real conservative was Bob Taft. Conservative “intellectuals” like WFB Jr. placed far more value on style and cleverness than substance. The neocons starting with Reagan ushered in vast deregulation, privatization and tax cuts while pandering to gun nuts and the religious right to create a popular base. The obvious failure of Reaganism, made clear by mess left by Bush, leaves the “intellectuals” of the Republican Party with nothing to say but “Nay” and their ragtag followers take their sorry message rudely to the Town Hall.
I remember the last time I posted a threadon how movements should deal with the lunatic fringe, in the midst of a flurry of anti-war protests and feminist threads. The consensus then - again, focusing on left-wing loonies - was:
Should it be different now that it’s a right-wing loony that we’re talking about?
Yeah, I’m gonna have to ask for cites on this one. The socialist group I’m a member of never encouraged the killing of US troops; many of us worked closely with ANSWER and we never heard them say any such thing either.
This isn’t to say that, like the right-wing extremist loonies getting more than their deserved share of media coverage lately, there weren’t self-styled leftists out there saying such things. But it’s just as absurd to tar and feather the entire anti-war left for such things as it is to tar and feather all conservatives who oppose health care reform simply because of the moonbats hogging the spotlight. Tarring and feathering you for opposing health care reform, however, is another subject entirely.
I’ve got ten letters for you, and they spell Tim McVeigh.
I mostly remember the jokes, too, but yes, there was plenty of anti-Clinton sentiment of this type: even if you discount the Oklahoma City bombing, there were more than a few militias that got worked up about what happened in Waco. Clinton was also accused of political murders, and I understand people said similar things about his health care plans and Obama’s plans. They may not have caught on to the same degree because it’s a different media environment today compared to 15 years ago, but it’s not THAT different. And it wasn’t new in the '90s either.
Well, frankly I wouldn’t depend on the media in the US to give me an accurate picture of the real state of the GOP. This is for two reasons -[list=1}[li]Conflict makes for better TV, and [*]the media loves Obama and does not love the GOP. [/list]They are certainly not going to focus on thoughtful debate, on any side. [/li]
I feel rather like liberals must have felt about MoveOn and the 60 Minutes National Guard thing back a few years.
I don’t believe, based on the depiction of the media, that there are any more idiot conservatives than there are idiot liberals.
I think you are not, perhaps, getting a complete or balanced picture of what conservatives are like, either from the media, the blogs, or (especially) from the SDMB. There are several Dopers who are combing the Internet and picking out the worst they can find, so they can drag it back here and Pit it and scream and yell and pretend that this is what all Republicans are like.
Look at this nonsense, for instance, and note the title. No mention of “some” or “one” - as broad a brush as Ann Coulter ever picked up.
Very little. What goes around, comes around, and we had enough idiocy from the left for the last eight years or so that this is not much of a change - just from the other side.
Hamsters must be drinkin’ again. Can’t quote my own post.
Just coming in here to say that I mistyped a phrase and wanted to eliminate any possible misinterpretations. It should say “tarring and feathering them” and not “tarring and feathering you”. The sentence was not intended as a personal threat against RikWriter or any other poster and I sincerely regret the error.
You would believe there are more idiot conservatives than idiot liberals, if you spent an hour lurking on Democratic Underground and an hour lurking on Free Republic.
Note one of the themes of the thread–at some point, whether during the Bush years, or possibly starting back with Clinton, there was a subjectively perceptible downturn in discourse. Maybe it was the rise of Rush or Fox News in prominence, maybe it was the growing confrontational methods of the WTO protesters, whatever. You don’t have to agree with it for the moment. Though it may be intellectually easy to discuss how things have always been this crude, going all the way back to the Jefferson/Adams campaign, it’s probably the rare poster who doesn’t understand the visceral feeling underlying the sentiment; shared comprehension, if you will.
Now take a moment to focus on that. Again, put aside the ‘yeah, buts’ and recognize and understand the concept itself. Got a good grasp? Great. Then take just a moment to understand the meta-point Starving Artist has been recently making.[sup]*[/sup] Doesn’t make him any more right than you thought he was before, but maybe understanding the concept a bit better will ease discourse. That is, there was a lot of out-of-hand dismissal that lead to escalating hyperbole, and aside from tit-for-tat facts and comparisons, there was a missed opportunity to explore some larger issues and ideas.
[sup]*I’m referring to the 1968 shark-jumping issue[/sup]
It is likely to be due to the common human failing of considering what you notice to be equivalent to what is.
Like I said, liberal Dopers comb the rest of the Internet, and pick out the worst they can find, and then Pit it. Don’t believe me? Cool - show me the last time some liberal started a thread about how someone on FreeRepublic made a good point.
