This was originally going to be a “How would you run a Presidential campaign for a candidate you disagree with”, but I realised that left a wide open space to just move their positions left/right/towards your own personal politics, and what I’m mostly interested in is the differing approaches, anyway.
What I’m curious about is this; if you take a political party/group/candidate you disagree with, look at their goals, and then were to set about attempting to reach those goals but using methods you would think mostly likely to work rather (perhaps) than the methods they seem to use, how would you approach it? For example; if you are against gun control, say, what approach do you think would work best to counteract gun control? If you are pro-same-sex marriage, what approach would you take that you think would work best to ensure recognition does not come to pass?
I’d really appreciate it if there weren’t many “Ho ho ho, well my political opponents are all racist/stupid/insane/evil, so I’d do this idiotic thing because they all want this ridiculously extreme end goal” posts.
As a reactionary, I have to say that progressive methods have been pretty successful. The country is more progressive than it has ever been, and progressives have won on almost every issue in every Western country for the last century. American conservatives have only a few victories to their name: busing, gun rights, free trade, and free speech - and the last two are not strictly left-right issues.
That side, I would refocus the left’s attention on issues where success is more likely, and pay less attention to issues where they are unlikely to succeed. The principal example would be gun control, a relatively unimportant issue where the progressive side is very unpopular and unsuccessful. Related are many of the ‘academic’ style issues that lack substantial support beyond universities, such as transgender rights and microagressions. The primary fight for progressives should be immigration, because immigrants are much more liberal than natural born Americans. With millions of new voters, the Left will be easily able to implement any issue they so desire. Related would be the idea of restoring the franchise to felons, a political longshot but an idea which has some support on both sides of the aisle (cf. Rand Paul) and would disproportionately franchise those likely to vote Democrat. Once traditional Christian conservatives were defeated, the Left would need to pivot quickly to stopping and subjugating Islam, which contains groups far more traditional and illiberal than any in America.
I think you need to clarify your OP. In the title, it says “your methods”, but in your OP, it says “what will work”. Those might be two completely different things. If we want to eliminate SSM, we could kill all the gay people. That’s the best way to make it “work”, but it wouldn’t be “my method”.
Are we allowed to engage in criminal or unethical behaviors to achieve our goals? False flag attacks, planted evidence, edited videos, bribery, etc are all highly effective when done right.
I am sympathetic to the argument law abiding citizens aren’t the greatest contributing issue with respect to gun violence. If those that oppose gun control would pass legislation to effectively limit the other contributing factors of the United States’ history of escalating gun violence and get results we’d both win.
A fair point. “Your methods” as you describe it would be what I’m interested in. Although I would tend to suggest a campaign to kill all the gay people would probably not work.
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark]
Are we allowed to engage in criminal or unethical behaviors to achieve our goals? False flag attacks, planted evidence, edited videos, bribery, etc are all highly effective when done right.
[/QUOTE]
I’m mostly interested in more above-board methods, partially because I’m curious about political approaches (not that those aren’t necessarily political approaches, I suppose), and partially because I’m concerned that delving too far into criminal or unethical behaviour would result in a thread of people having fun suggesting that their political opposition should be doing/needs to do all sorts of unpleasant things to get their way just for shits and giggles.
I’d like to see them make the “trickle down” theory work. That guy who agreed to pay everybody a minimum of $70k is currently the poster boy for why it won’t, because he bit off more than he could chew: he gave his least-performing people a huge raise, and his most-performing people a tiny raise, and now that he’s got all this work flooding in because he’s awesome, his best people are quitting because they think they deserved more, and now he’s stuck with a bunch of also-rans who can’t handle the workload.
He should have gone for a more moderate increase, say, minimum of 10% raise (so, enough to make his best people happy), with a larger percentage for people earning less. It’d work out to pretty much the same thing a few years down the road, but he’d be in a better place business-wise, and all that money trickling down would be an awesome thing.
For gun control, I’d like to see the gun rights advocates get bills pushed through Congress that set the five NRA rules for proper gun use into federal law. People who already own guns and follow the rules wouldn’t be affected in any way, so they’d all be happy; people who have guns (or buy them) and don’t store or use their guns properly would run afoul of the law, and even gun advocates I know admit that they’d be pretty okay with that; they don’t want to get hit by a stray round from an idiot who doesn’t know whether or not his gun’s loaded any more than I do.
Hm. Well, I believe in a capitalistic free market system. So, if I were going to help someone implement a socialist command economy I’d focus on the best aspects of a socialist system (while glossing over all of the problems) and play on peoples ignorance of what or how such systems work. I’d really emphasize all of the bad aspects of capitalism and free markets, and, again, play on peoples emotion and ignorance. Really harness the left wing fringe types who are true believers, but watered down and processed into a good palatable paste to spoon feed to the middle and centrist types without giving them the hinky feeling that radical left wingers give to people because of the crazy. You’d want to have your timing right as well, and you’d want to really target the center with the message, so it’s going to have to be pretty carefully prepared to target that audience. Make people want to have a real, socialist economic system with an authoritarian command economy that will take all of the guess work and volatility out of the equation and give people the idea of security and safety for everyone. Play fast and loose with the facts, with history, with economic theory, and instead focus on all the memes that people ‘just know’, underscoring the good and highlighting the bad of the system you want to push while degrading that you want to take down.
It’s the way that most things like this happen. It’s what allowed Communist, Fascist and totalitarian governments and economic/social systems to arise in the first place. You simply use the same sorts of tactics timed at the optimal time of trouble or worry from the public and you push a message that appeals to the broad middle…and you do it in a clear, concise and non-foaming at the mouth manner.
I wouldn’t be try to convince anyone to change their minds, I’d just be try to convince them that my candidate was one of them. Not that many people are single issue voters, they’re quite willing to ignore their own favorite issue to vote for a candidate who they trust to look out for them. That’s why it’s best to avoid the real wedge issues and focus on a subject like the economy. Every one is in favor of a better economy, the argument is over the ‘how’ not the ‘what’.
So if my candidate was anti-public health I’d have him ignore the issue as much as possible, sound like the rest of the crowd that accepts Obamacare with resignation, concentrate on a spending cut philosophy that didn’t focus on eliminating programs but cutting budgets across the board as a way to stop waste. Once in office he won’t be so across the board and he’ll slash the public health budget in a way that won’t kill it, but will cripple it, and force the tax burden onto the states.
And yes, I would have him lie. I’m imagining myself in the position of campaign manager, getting my candidate to tell the right lies would be a big part of my job.
**Illegal Immigrants **- I am sympathetic to the idea people should not be allowed to take citizenship when so many struggle the hard way to earn it. Forget the fence. Make laws against hiring illegal workers more punitive for the business and give law enforcement the resources to handle the inspections. Increase temporary work visas, extract an amount from each paycheck the total of which the worker may not recover until they leave the country and is forfeit if they run afoul of law enforcement and are expelled.
A consistent paper trail of employment and education can be a foundation in an application for citizenship in the future.
I’d steer the GOP PR machine more towards pointing out how corrupt and bought out most Dems are. How are they going to claim to work for the disadvantaged when they’re in Wall Street’s pockets? I think they avoid this because they both eat from the same trough, but so what? There’s so much FUD potential to depress the lib base. As is, they mostly make insane accusations that energizes the left. Everyone gathers around to see what crazy thing they said now and have a hearty laugh. That was fuel for the Daily Show, Colbert, Bill Maher, and most of the liberal blogosphere. Without that lefty politics becomes much less interesting.
I’d try to drive a wedge between blacks and Dems using immigration. Immigrants take black people’s jobs. Also a lot of large black cities are run by Dems. How’s that been working out? Let’s ask Baltimore and Chicago. Not sure how to make a graceful ad campaign about that, though. Something like that would need years of legwork and slow build up to not look desperate.
hat is a valid point, and something I’ve wondered about the democratic party for years. Generally the democrats do better when turnout is high, the republicans do better when turnout is low. Part of it is that marginally attached voters (the poor, the disabled, the socially and economically marginalized) are less likely to vote when they are faced with obstacles and those groups lean democrat. Throw up a few obstacles and they just stay home.
So from the progressive POV, make voting as easy as possible. There are various tactics to achieve this:
More public and private funding for GOV efforts
Make voting over the internet or cell phones possible
Offer instant registration, same day registration, etc. Make registration easy
Expand early voting
Abolish voter ID laws
Make election day a paid national holiday for anyone who votes (those who do not vote have to go to work to get paid that day)
Expand union membership (unions pump a lot of volunteer hours and money into progressive causes)
Give felons their voting rights back
Lower the voting age (to take advantage of likely progressive leanings of 16 and 17 year olds)
Create as many polling places as possible
The conservative rebuttal would be do the exact opposite:
End public and private funding for GOV efforts
Ban voting over the internet or cell phones
Make registering to vote hard
Abolish or limit early voting
Enact voter ID laws
Fight against unions
Abolish felon voter rights in states that still have them
Purge voter rolls
Ensure polling places are rare or hard to get to
Another good tactic both sides use is putting wedge issues up in state ballots. The democrats have the minimum wage or MJ legalization, while the GOP (used to) have gay marriage. I say used to because cultural attitudes have changed. If the conservatives can find another wedge issue (maybe abortion restrictions, or overturning GC, or opting out of the ACA) that will increase turnout in swing districts.
Anyway, what matters is which candidate gets elected and who does that candidate feel they are beholden to if they want to maintain their power/status (plus the candidates innate beliefs and motives play a role too).
I’d vastly expand groups like ALEC and Koch to increase financial incentives to tow the line on conservative issues. Also expand primary efforts against RINOs. In 2016 the Koch brothers group will spend about as much as the candidates themselves.
Abolish public funding of elections, make all donations private. And make big money donors more powerful (since conservative interests are usually more aligned with business interests, this will give conservatives an advantage. Create a system where any donation that is less than 7 figures is a waste of time).
A big part of moneys interest in politics isn’t just fundraising while running for office or while being in office, it is also having a cushy 6 or 7 figure job lined up when you leave office. So abolish rules against lobbying or joining private industry after retiring from politics (again, while both parties are beholden to moneyed interested, the conservative movement is more ideologically aligned with big business and can get more funding from large donors because of it).
Basically my agenda if I wanted to push conservative politics would fall into various groups:
Reduce voter turnout
Offer policies on the state level that increase voter turnout among my supporters
Control the purse strings so politicians realize that while running for office, while in office and after getting out of office their personal needs are met by following a conservative agenda
Expand primary challenges against politicians who don’t enact a conservative agenda
I wouldn’t so much worry about making conservative policies palatable to the masses, because they already do that by using effective narratives (the makers vs the takers, racial divisions, etc) and moral heuristics and do a pretty good job of it. I don’t think I could improve on it. If anything as a liberal I wish the liberal movement were as good at verbal framing, moral heuristics and narratives as the right.
You’d kind of have to be cynical to support and try and help out a president who is diametrically opposed to your core philosophy, which is what the OP was asking for.
Am I understanding the question to be, “What would adaher do if he worked on a Democrat’s campaign?”
It’s an interesting question, because I almost did work on a Democrat’s campaign last year. It’s a really funny story, especially for those who know me here on the Dope.
The short version is that she’s so corrupt and everyone she works for ends up in jail that no one professional would ever want to work with her. So a friend of hers said he knew someone, and that someone knew me, and we had a get together, me and the legislator, and we talked about issues of common agreement. Then I vetted her and found out that she’s so dirty that it’s a miracle she’s not in jail yet. People around her sure get sent to prison a lot though. So, um, no thank you, I’ll pass.
No, I don’t think that’s what the OP is asking, he can correct me if I’m wrong.
The political party that is most opposed to your philosophy is not composed of animals, many things they believe you also must, and you just differ on the execution. Realpolitik also plays a role in the party you support so their platform may not exactly match your own thoughts on the best solution.
So do what the title says, peruse an opponent’s way with a means that suits you. You are the one most likely to oppose this party’s actions so what would sell you?
If I believe that a free market capitalist economy, from my own example, is the best way to do an economy, then there is really no way I could be on board with someone touting a socialist economic system using a command economy except to be cynical. If, as someone else used, I believe in the right to choice (which I do) then there is no way I could help out someone who is pro-life without being cynical. Me, personally, I could probably help out either a Republican OR a Democrat…but it would have to be someone with some common thread I could grasp. Often, I agree with (some) Republicans wrt economic policy while being repulsed by their social conservatism. I’m often rolling my eyes at Democrats (some) wrt economic policy, but I feel at this time that social policy and international policy is more important. So…I could, perhaps, help Hillary in her WH bid while not agreeing with everything she is doing, while I could help…er…well…um…say, some theoretical moderate Republican candidate who isn’t too socially repulsive while being an actual economic conservative. In theory, since I don’t know of such a person.
It’s a really funny story, especially for those who know me here on the Dope.