(Halting the Spread of the Right-Wing Virus)
Step One: Interrupt the Blowhard (Stop the flow of verbal diarrhea.)
Step Two: Put a cork in his mouth.
Step Three: Redirect. Or,
Step Four: Seize your right to be heard and do not retreat, compromise, or yield.
…..................................................................................................................
“Stop, stop STOP!” I said, holding up my hands and symbolically pushing away the thick-middled blowhard who was performing a soliloquy of right-wing talking points about public assistance programs, “There are children present!”
My wife and I had driven to a small town an hour north of Milwaukee. Our friends Todd and Vicky live there, and were throwing a birthday party for their daughter Jessica, who had turned ten. This couple were Democrats living in a Republican stronghold, but had nonetheless managed to make a few friends after living there for almost twenty years.
It is a bizarre world we live in where I even have to make such a statement. That politics should have so much say in social affiliations is a damning confirmation of social decay.
As we drove into town, Jane said quietly, “It's Jessica's birthday.”
“Yeeaahh,” I said slowly. Something in her tone caught my attention. “What are you really saying?”
“Today is about her.”
“Yeeaahh,” I repeated. For a moment I took my eyes off the road and dared to meet her glance. “Oh, Star-for-whom-all-evenings-wait, I'm not catching your drift.”
“Flattery fails where jewelry must go,” she said, tapping her ear. “Stay off the subject of politics...and religion.”
“Happily, my beauty.”
So when Todd's neighbor from across the street, who spoke with the volume and bluster of an alcoholic, began his strange and untimely descent into political oratory, in my friend's back yard of all places, I found myself trapped between permitting a virus to flourish and honoring my commitment to my wife.
“Stop, stop STOP!” I said, holding up my hands and symbolically pushing away the thick-middled blowhard, “There are children present!”
This is step one: Stop the flow of nonsense. Right-wing talking points are logical and factual fallacies. Scrutinize one and you quickly discover its weakness and can easily refute it.
Practice active listening by recording a talk-radio monologue, one delivered by a right-wing talk-jock/apologist. Play it back and make a list of the talking points. Those aren't facts! Below each, jot down a short refutation. They will come easier than you think. Research a good refutation if necessary. Keep them handy for political/social emergencies. Yes, I actually carry a list of them. My wife calls them my “incendiaries”. I call them my fire extinguishers.
What you hear in the recording is a string of talking points that have a veneer of soundness, the sound of sense. But dig deeper into any one of them and you discover it has no depth. It is, in fact, fallacious, easy to refute. It is a single legionnaire, by itself weak.
Attack that one point. The strength of a conservative talk-jock's monologue lies in the speed with which it is delivered. The causal listener is convinced by overwhelming quantity, not the quality of any one talking point.
You have an opening now. When you say, firmly, “Stop!” you halt the flow of falsehoods. It's also true that you skirt the edge of the social contract.
In a social setting, and I'm qualifying, a social setting now, it is rude to interrupt someone. But it's also rude, and incredibly insensitive and inappropriate, to spout right-wing talking points at a child's birthday party.
Bullies don't give a shit about courtesy, about fair debate, about civil discourse. They don't know what the social contract is...but they don't hesitate to imitate the behavior of the demagogues they idolize, and they practice such behavior indiscriminately, in the wrong places at the wrong times. (Better they save it for the bathroom mirror, the only legitimate place for this kind of narcissism, or for their therapist.) They spout these cherished myths and sound bites believing they only say what we all believe, or must come to accept and believe.
You, however, just told a blowhard, in a social setting, to stop. You interrupted the dribble of talking points. Blowhard is not used to being interrupted. Use his momentary confusion to your advantage: Cork him.
“I don't know why you thought this was a legitimate venue in which to spout right-wing talking points, but it isn't. Open your eyes. This is a social setting. A social setting. This is a child's birthday party. This is the backyard of our mutual friend. You want to throw a “Let's-talk-right-wing-politics-party?” Send out invitations.”
Congratulations. When you interrupted blowhard, you called him out on his abuse of the social contract.
You confused him even further by pointing out that his words were not suitable for the ears of children. He violated another social contract rule: “Protect children from words, ideas and thoughts they cannot process. This is the responsibility of every sane adult”. While he considers his words (Right-wing talking points are, at their core, lies, hence inappropriate.), you attack. Refute one specific talking point that he spouted.
If he interrupts, you once again say, “Stop, stop, stop! You had your turn.” You've just introduced another social contract rule, and reminded other listeners of it. Polite people take turns. If you have to spell out this rule, do so right to his face.
Are you shaming him, and violating another social contract rule? No. Declare your right to be heard, and with calm vigor insist he has violated the social contract by droning on and on, in the manner of the right-wing talk-jocks he emulates. You must skirt the edge of civility, at times, to restore it.
It has become commonplace for Republicans to make outlandish statements in places and among specific constituents whom they believe find such ideological swill perfectly normal. (Remember Romney's little pearl, “Corporations are people”, and of course the instant classic,“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” from Todd “The Dipshit” Akin.)
These statements- pardon my euphemism there- these lies, uttered in the public commons at campaign rallies, or in radio studios and at fund raising dinners for the entitled, may be repeated at social events by the unthinking true believer. When they are, these lies must be stopped, skewered, flailed, beaten and dismembered.
Such verbal diarrhea carries with it the stench of moral decay. Odd then, that moral superiority and moral certainty are qualities Republicans claim to possess in spades(!). Children, however, have a remarkable capacity to sense delusion in adults. This is on par with their equally remarkable instincts that tell them to avoid alcoholics, social predators, and narcissists and psychopaths. Responsible adults affirm the perceptions of their children and remove such threats.
The harmful influence of delusional adults is just cause for you to stop the spread of right-wing drivel at a barbeque, birthday party, retirement party, fourth of July gathering, picnic, any setting that is primarily social.
In the two minutes before I said, “Stop, stop, STOP!” I interrupted this man at least three times. Persistence is necessary. I was dealing not only with self-righteousness running rampant, but with what appeared to be some level of inebriation.
I was ready to refute his talking points. I keep the following data handy, and paraphrase or repeat it verbatim as needed:
1. Out of every five daughters who grew up in highly dependent homes, four (80%) did not share their parents' fate. Duncan and colleagues add, “The stereotype of heavy welfare dependence being routinely passed from mother to child is thus contradicted by data."
2. As Northwestern University's Dan Lewis and his colleagues write, "Claims of dependency and fraud create a moral indignation that symbolizes middle America's goodness. The claims are more important politically than the “corrective” reforms and programs that follow."
3. Handler and Hasenfeld call it the "myth and ceremony" of welfare, "designed to affirm the modern, contemporary, middle-class employed mother by ensuring the failure and moral condemnation of the welfare mother."
4. Is food stamp fraud abundant? No, especially since debit-style cards replaced actual stamps. Early studies, when cards were introduced, showed a 94% compliance rate, and this number has risen to 98%. today. Even when it was discovered that recipients wrongfully received food stamps, or received an incorrect amount, the problems were most often traced to errors by the caseworker, not intent to defraud by the recipient. Oversight also revealed that some of the errors in that 2% category represented recipients who weren't receiving enough food stamps, who were actually entitled to more.
5. But once you get on the gravy train, you never have to get off, right? No, oversight of eligibility is stringent and ongoing. You can't buy prepared food with food stamps, or a Cadillac, or pay your rent or utilities with them. Most recipients hold down jobs, albeit low-wage ones. And their income is monitored. Recipients have to re-qualify quarterly. The actual number of recipients is lower than the number of eligible Americans. Why? Because the myth of the welfare queen is a myth. Americans aren't rushing to game the system, and oversight is working. Not a sexy, we've-got-the-moral-high-ground talking point anymore...
In the split second before I said, “Stop, stop, STOP!” I could not have told you what I would say after saying those words. I am a mere foot soldier, commanded by a higher cause than my own comfort and security to step into the breach, to stare down malevolent self-interest and self-aggrandizement, self-delusion and self-indulgence, and say, “No! Not here! Not now!”
No child should be exposed to preening, unapologetic, unbridled self-interest, self-absorption and self-aggrandizement. These are the festering pustules on an soul enslaved by addiction. There is nothing glorious, patriotic, noble or American about these maladies, no matter how rich or powerful the person in possession of them may be.
(The “How to” portion of this diary ends here. The story of that day, it's implications and fallout, continues...)
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