A strategy, but where does it lead?
In the post WWII era, America ran budget surpluses under Presidents Eisenhower and Clinton. We don’t recall reading in either case that it was “extremists” who were behind the idea that a country might try to balance its books. Indeed, we recall that prominent Democrats praised the Clinton surpluses.
In contrast today, we have the bizarre spectacle of those ordinary American taxpayers who favor balanced budgets being called terrorists and far worse. Average Americans are apparently now SOB’s who need to be “taken out” and so forth. We thought the rabble-rousing by Jimmy Hoffa was particularly interesting, in that he used the phrase “give America back” rather than “take America back.” Perhaps we’re reading too much into the choice of words, but it seemed to us that professional speechwriters drafted Hoffa’s remarks.
In any event, it is obvious that calling average taxpayers the most vicious names is what amounts to a political strategy these days. Congressmen, union and party leaders and many in the media are reading from the same playbook. But it seems a ridiculous strategy: in the 2010 elections the GOP scored historic gains and Independents flipped by 33 points, and the tea party was vilified in the run-up to those elections. How is shouting louder going to make shouting less ineffective than it was last time?
If we were in the business of writing novels, we’d twist the plot at this point. Our anti tea party master strategist would try to create an over-reaction to the name-calling to discredit the tea parties over and over again in the nightly news. If the mild-mannered folks wouldn’t oblige, we’d get some burly fellows to pretend to be tea partiers. They’d carry offensive signs and push people around, and possibly worse. And of course there’s always the option to just make disgusting things up; the media are happy to cooperate.
But this has all been tried before, albeit at a slightly lower volume. So what is plan B? It’s hard to imagine going through another 14 months of various interest groups shouting at ordinary citizens and calling them the most vile names. It’s unsustainable emotionally, ineffective politically, and soon it’ll just be tiresome. So what’s Plan B?
September 8th, 2011 at 9:45 am
Tony Blankley writes on the escalating violent rhetoric aimed at the Right. He fears we are close to resorting to violence in American politics.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_tony_blankley/politics_turns_dangerously_rougher
I believe the dems’ rhetoric is getting more shrill and extreme because they know they are losing the debate on the direction of the country and they are on the verge of losing their majority in the Senate and losing the WH.