I think these points are severely muddled by the fact that there exists an entire industry devoted to trying to convince people that the left hates ordinary Americans. People’s judgements on these issues aren’t necessarily in tune with the reality of what the other side is actually like, and in part that’s not a mistake: it’s an active political and foxertainment strategy for the right.
As Bob Somerby points out, you often get right-wing voters on talk radio saying that the Democrats this year denigrated their faith, hate God, etc. etc. etc. But they never name names: in most cases, because they can’t think of a single example for what they feel must be true. In fact, it seems more to work the other way around: they assume that it must be so, because their faith is what they see as defining them as the good guys against the Demcratic bad guys.
By the way, I don’t mean to imply that one side has a monopoly on the truth and the other side has a monopoly on lies, deceptions, and half-truths. But, on certain basic issues like Iraq (& evidence of its pre-war WMD, links to Al Qaeda, relationship to the 9/11 attacks, etc.), that does seem to be at least largely the case.
Yeah, I forgot that when the board of directors of The Right, Inc. meets to set policy, this is always on the top of the list. One might just as reasonably (or unreasonably) bemoan the fact that the “leftertainment” industry always protrays businessmen as evil spoilers of the environement or soulless exploiters of the poor in movies and television.
When I said “they almost always are”, I meant they were almost always portrayed that way by the media, not that they almost always are IRL. I misunderstood your post, Loopydude. I guess you meant they sometimes are IRL.
Clarification understood by 49,246; 55,949,407 (less those nutty liberals in the 49,246) to go…oh, wait. That assumes all the SDMB members read your message.
Rush Limbaugh is the perfect example of this; he will hammer “the liberals,” and then add the disclaimer that he’s not talking about “the average Democrat.” That is what the dems need to steal.
Case in point: an honest and pretty much uncontroversial point about partisan exploitation is made, and it’s immediately and dishonestly twisted into a hyperbole.
This is absolutely correct. The quotes that Polerius are using criticize specific Liberal ideologies or extreme groups. It mocks or criticize specific individuals or spokespeople. This is fine. It is perfectly ok to attack the symbols of the oppositions idealology.
Liberals, however, attack the electorate. Red States are “stupid” or “backward” or “redneck”. People who voted for Bush or Republicans are “racist/homophobe” or “brainwashed”. The mere fact that Democrats use celebrities to the extent they do is an insult. Are we simple voters supposed to be swayed by the mere sight of Ben Affleck or Bruce Springsteen? What should we care about the oppinions of Cameron Diaz?
Truth? You say ‘misled’ as if were an undeniable fact. There are plenty of threads around here debating whether or not Bush misled (read: lied) to the people, this thread is not deserving of such a hijack.
How can you be condescending to people who don’t read papers or watch any worthwhile news ? Your giving them too much credit that they might even have perceived the so called “liberal atitude”. (which might be true or not…)
People who got about 10 mins of news before the election and maybe watched a program or two in order to “feel” more informed on election issues. Maybe… just maybe watched one debate… or not.
So lets be realistic… these people gobbled up the GOP soundbites that were custom made for their brains and mentality… while Kerry was trying to explain an alternative in a long winded fashion. In doubt they prefered not to have change… its kind of autistic way of acting… but thats how they acted.
People on the internet have way much too information … cannot imagine there are people who have very little notion of what is happening in politics. They know about terrorism and jobs… if they haven’t lost their jobs they vote Bush. Simple as that… or Bush is more likeable. Elections aren’t about issues anymore… its a popularity contest.
I don’t particularly care about that claim. It does bug me when they tack on “and that’s why they lost the election.” Still, the best way to rebut assertions about voter’s motives is with actual data on voters motives.
Don’t see “turned off by liberal shrillness” or “to get back at those condescending liberals” in that list anywhere.
Do you have a cite for the “doesn’t seem to be nearly as widespread” claim?
Sorry for the expression, but I think this is horseshit.
Do you have proof that conservative pundits mock liberal pundits only, and not *all * liberals?
In the quote in the OP
I don’t think “monkeys” refers to liberal pundits, but to the entire audience.
Also, the fact that Republicans have managed to make “liberal” into a derisive epithet speaks volumes, because it now means that many conservatives are being condesceding *every single time * they describe someone as “liberal”.
I think that many conservatives have a very low opinion of liberals (they’re nuts, naive, traitors, “drink too much Kool Aid”, etc), and they express it often. So, they have a very low opinion of a large percentage of the population, even though it may not be geographically based. But there is also geographically-based condescention in the way “Massachusetts liberals”, for example, is used.
So, I think that your claim that conservatives most often mock liberal pundits only, and not the large percentage of the population that is liberal, is horribly false.
