Glenn Greenwald: GOP launches brutal personality and cultural attacks .. Yet again, Democrats seem

[RedEarth]

The GOP's cheerful viciousness
Yet again, the GOP launches brutal personality and cultural attacks on the Democratic candidate. Yet again, Democrats seem determined to allow it to do so.
Glenn Greenwald

Sep. 04, 2008 | With last night's cheerfully vicious speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin, the Republicans did what they always do in order to win elections: they exploited raw cultural divides while mocking, belittling and demonizing Democratic leaders. Yet again, they delivered brutally effective and deeply personal blows to the Democratic presidential candidate grounded in the same manipulative and deceitful yet very potent themes they've been using for the last three decades.

Ever since Ronald Reagan's election, this is what the Republicans do every four years. They render issues irrelevant and convert campaigns into cultural wars and personality referenda. They converted our elections into tawdry reality shows long before networks realized their entertainment value. And every four years, Democrats seems shocked and paralyzed by all of this and desperately delude themselves into believing that mean-spirited "negativity" and nastiness will alienate voters, while the media swoons at the potency of these attacks.

.....

None of this is to say that the GOP attacks will enable them to win the election. It is quite possible that enough Americans this year are so alienated from the GOP brand that they are now largely immune from these kinds of substance-free personality assaults, that they won't be blinded by cultural tribalism and personality appeals into handing this political party an additional four years of power. But these tactics have worked in the past because cultural tribalism, resentment and alienation are very powerful influences in how people think -- in general, they're more powerful than rational assessments of policy positions or even one's self-interest -- and the Democrats' gamble that they can win this election without really engaging those issues, while allowing that war to be waged in a one-sided manner yet again, is a true gamble.

........more

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/04/gop/print.html

[LSparkle]

1. UNLEASH JOE BIDEN!!!

Obama needs to stay above this cesspool, but Biden MUST start
playing attack dog -- NOW.

[ikojo]

17. I agree with Mr Greenwald....too often the Democrats praise

McCain before they attack him (they were for him before they were against him). They say how they are friends with McCain and how they respect him...this is what Americans will remember..that the so called opposition party also thought McCain was honorable and a maverick.

Time to remove those labels Democrats!

Get out the pit bulls and ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK.

If the Republicans want to make this about personality go for it. McCain is boring and Palin...well she is a prude. They need to go after Palin with the same intensity they would had McCain not pulled a coup and nominated a male as his VP candidate.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

2. Recommended because this is a basic question of how dangerously our campaigns are run.

The Republicans' tactics, coupled with the stupidity of so many voters, has led to a series of electoral results that, to me, are threats to the security and very existence of this country.

[Moochy]

3. Greenwald is excellent as usual

[madrchsod]

4. hillary and biden.......

[JDPriestly]

5. The economy is horrible. People are losing jobs while stores are raising prices.

Gasoline is down a little, but still just a little less than twice the price it was when Bush took over.

Here is a website from which you can download a chart of gas prices:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html

I do not know what eia is.

The chart I downloaded shows the average for regular as $1.066 on Jan. 11, 1993 approximately when Clinton became president, 1.474 when Clinton's term ended and Bush's began. Most recently the average for regular was $3.68, however it reached an all-time high of $4.11, considerably more than twice what it was when Bush took over, on July 7, 2008.

Meanwhile, wages have not risen at that rate.

Electronic toys are cheaper. Food, travel, the price of a movie ticket are more expensive, but, if you are lucky enough to have a job, you probably aren't getting Cost of Living pay rises in spite of rising costs of living.

Housing prices are down if you are buying, but I have not heard that rents are down. And how often do you buy a house. We've had ours for many years. The reduction in house prices has reduced the (paper) value of our assets.

I should explain that I think we Democrats should simply focus on the economic plight of Americans. And inflation in food prices should be a major theme. Democrats should point out how inflation in prices and reduction in pay has put middle-class Americans in a squeeze. Every American understands that. The Republican religion of free markets and free trade don't fit with their claim to be the Christian pro-American party. They are hurting real Americans with their outlandishly doctrinaire approach to everything.

Gasoline prices are just the tip of the iceberg.

[truedelphi]

9. You say: The reduction in house prices has reduced the (paper) value of our assets.

Well that is true, but the other side of that coin is that housing prices in many places went UP an unprecedented 100% in just five years (2000-2005)

If you have had your home quite a while, you are still seeing a gross appreciation over what you would have if the housing bubble had never existed.

There are some unfortunates who bought their new homes in an area that is now a "Foreclosure Row" and their home values are now close to zilch. But then again, anyone following the simple economic dictate of "Buy low and sell high" wouldn't be in that fix.

[JDPriestly]

12. You are of course, correct about housing prices.

But if you borrowed against the inflated value of your house, you are really feeling the pinch. I'm not in that situation, but I'm sure a lot of people are.

[truedelphi]

13. Yes, anyone who finds themselves facing a catastrophe thinks of solutions

No matter how painful.

Fifty per cent of all American bankruptcies occur because of medical catastrophe.

And many people don't go bankrupt, but they do turn to their homes "paper" value and borrow against it, hoping their lives will get back to normal and they can opay off the equity line of credit.

Then there are the "Johhny and Susie keep up with the Jones" - and they needed that equity credit line for vacations to brag about, clothes and other plummage with which to flaunt their personally instructed tight bodies, etc.

[JDPriestly]

14. A lot of people have borrowed against their homes to

pay down credit card debt and education costs for themselves or their children. Then there are the many, many, many people who borrowed money to start "businesses" because they lost their salaried or steadily paying jobs. It's tragic what is going on.

[truedelphi]

16. Out for a walk through the peaceful and glorious

Country side yesterday,
And TAPED TO THE BARK OF ONE of my favorite trees was the legal notice -
"This lot will be sold from the steps of the local County building, located at: XXX FOrbes Street"

Even the trees are feeling the bite of our tough economy.

[MasonJar]

10. Unless my math has totally deserted me it seems that $1.47 is far less than half of

$3.68. It is in fact almost 3 times as much. $4.11 is certainly closer to 4 times as much.

[glitch]

6. Even the nasty people I know are sick of their nasty.

I don't know, rope a dope seems to be working so far. Greenwald is usually right though. But then so is Obama.
I guess we'll see.

[chill_wind]

7. This is their last hope: Cultural War Redux. It worked the last 2 times.

They're praying it will work a third.

Some insightful thoughts:

Palin's Speech Tactic: Substitute Cultural Symbols for Actual Policies

By Robert Kuttner, AlterNet. Posted September 4, 2008.

In this strategy, every Democratic misstep is inflated into a cultural parable, while gaping holes in the Republican story are neatly sidestepped.

(...)

So now we understand what John McCain's handlers were up to: Intensify the culture wars, and once again use cultural symbols as substitutes for policies. In particular, use Hockey Mom Sarah Palin to change the subject from why regular Americans are hurting in the pocketbook to why Palin is a more regular American than Barack Obama. Will the Democrats change it back? Whether they do will decide the election.

Last night, we learned once again how Republicans keep managing to turn seemingly weak candidates and weaker economic circumstances into instruments of political victory: They are superb at creating master narratives that make Democrats, liberals, and "the media" into the cultural enemies of ordinary people.

Those who view this as an overly narrow and outmoded Rovian tactic of throwing raw (moose) meat at the conservative base miss the point. The strategy of energizing the base is leveraged into using cultural symbols to reach out to everyone else who is frustrated with how little they get back from the economy and the government--not just hard core right-to-life women in Missouri and Oklahoma, but downwardly mobile white men in Ohio and Pennsylvania.


(...)

It's understandable that McCain and Palin want to change the subject, for they have so little to offer voters. Bloggers and talking heads have taken the bait. And it's legitimate that they should expose the holes in Palin's story. But the responsibility for changing the subject back to pocketbook issues belongs to the Democrats.

the rest:



http://www.alternet.org/election08/97593/palin%27s_speech_tactic%3A_substitute_cultural_symbols_for_actual_policies/?page=1

[benld74]

8. WTFU Democrats, DO NOT allow this to happen!!

[Maureen1322]

11. Call local Obama office and volunteer.

[depakid]

15. Democrats never learn

If they won't define McCain and Palin in their own terms the Republicans and the corporate media will do it for them.

The least they could do is STOP praising Palin- but apparently even that's too much to ask.

It's looking more and more like Dukakis round 3.

[txwhitedove]

18. K&R, great article.