Daily Kos

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  •  The responses here are making me crazy. (4.00 / 28)

    This diary brings up an important issue that I've been thinking about a lot recently.

    We sit here in our Daily Kos bubble talking about how George Bush is the worst president ever and how Republicans are a bunch of greedy corporate pigs who want to starve the poor and take our rights back to the Dark Ages.  Meanwhile, over at Red State or Free Republic, they're talking about how Clinton was the worst president ever and how the Democrats are a bunch of bleeding-heart hippies who want to punish the rich and sell our country to the terrorists.

    Now I agree with the kossacks.  That's why I'm here.  But the point is that we're not talking to each other.  At all.  And the people in the middle, the people who really decide all the elections, many of whom have voted Republican their whole lives, hear us saying things like "Anyone who voted for Bush is a fucking moron," and they think, "Oh, yeah. There's someone I want to listen to... NOT!"

    I'm not advocating selling out our core beliefs, but please, for the love of God, can we figure out a way to talk to that Bush-voting middle-aged mother the diarist mentions without reinforcing her notions (fed by the MSM) that all liberals are hate-spewing, sanctimonious pricks?!  Please? Pretty please??

    OK.  I feel better now. Arquebus, thanks for this diary, and the soapbox.

    Live in the Bay Area? Join San Francisco Kossacks!

    by Toastman on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 04:47:59 PM PDT

    •  It wasn't always this way (4.00 / 5)

      And it won't always be this way.  But when Richard Nixon found out that a vast swath of America was perfectly good with buying a lie if it meant someone else took care of governing, the modern Republican party was born.  Ronald Reagan and his  minion took it to the highest art - an example for W.  Most recently their corporate cronies have found great common cause in keeping broadcast media full of angry screaming heads - dispensing lies, fabrications, and ugly delusions.  We need to quit buying lies.  Right now.  Left, Right, Center.

      Keep our light alive

      by Bubby on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 04:57:06 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      •  How do we do it? (none / 1)

        The reality is that staunch conservatives have a probably unshakable belief that the media is controlled by liberals who are intent on hiding all the good news coming out of Iraq and making W look as bad as possible.  

        How do we change their minds?  You and I know it's not true, but telling them they're being fed lies would be about as effective as telling a 9th Century  Mongolian serf that the world was round.  It's impossible to prove to them, so it may as well not be true.

        Live in the Bay Area? Join San Francisco Kossacks!

        by Toastman on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 05:08:13 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  Just stay out of the way (none / 0)

          There are no "staunch conservatives" in positions of political power any longer.  There are only opportunists and toadies who cloak themselves as conservatives. There is nothing 'conservative' about this bunch.  You are hearing the wail and howl of a well-funded noise machine - they've upped the volume to have you ignore the incompetence.  What you are experiencing is the cementing of your resolve and the certainty that they are not the way.  That is enough for now.  

          Keep our light alive

          by Bubby on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 05:24:12 PM PDT

          [ Parent ]

    •  Toastman, there is no talking to these people (3.50 / 4)

      These people are not your father's Republican Party. They have become some sort of pornographic abberation. They have no beliefs, no values, no moral compass. All they know is steal, corruption, give money to the rich, destroy everything magnificent about our country.

      I used to have friends who were Republicans, they were decent people, not any more.

      Good Republicans, what I call thinking Republicans need to reclaim their party from the extremists.

      There were at one time, good (or at least not bad) Republicans. Nelson Rockefeller, Javits, even Goldwater is starting to look reasonable in hindsight.

      Please don't everyone jump on me, I'm no lover of Republicans, I'm only making the point that they have become the personification of evil, it wasn't always so.

      Tell your healthcare and insurance horror stories at Guaranteed Healthcare

      by nyceve on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 05:31:14 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      •  Then we need to listen. (4.00 / 4)

        I can't accept that rank and file Republicans have become the kind of amoral Night of the Living Dead you've described.  Bush? Sure.  Rove?  Hell, yes. But most Bush-voters have just chosen to believe what the Right is telling them.  After all, that's what their TVs say, right?  And they think that we are just as deluded as we think they are.

        When we call them fascists with no moral compass, they go on the defensive.  They lock the doors and batten down the hatches.  They refuse to move an inch.  Why should they, in the face of what they perceive of as an 'enemy'?

        When we ask questions, hear out concerns, concede that sometimes Michael Moore is actually an asshole, then they start to listen to us.  Ever so slowly, as they realize that we're not the fangs-bared, slavering bogey-men they thought, they take baby steps towards our side.  And the more welcoming we are, the more we talk to them where they are, the closer they come over.

        ...and then we throw a burlap sack over their heads and drag them kicking and screaming to the pot of boiling oil.

        Seriously, though, if we can't talk to them, then what?  Wait for them to change their minds on their own, or hope for Civil War so we can shoot them?

        Live in the Bay Area? Join San Francisco Kossacks!

        by Toastman on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 06:00:12 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  Civil war's more likely (none / 1)

          it seems.

          BlueNC.com

          by Anglico on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 07:18:30 PM PDT

          [ Parent ]

        •  Sorry, but who the hell do (4.00 / 2)

          you think you want to talk to?

          I know a ton of conservatives/republicans. Some are decent guys. Every single one of them has political opinions that would make you ill.

          Fags should die.
          Muslims are animals.
          Israel should kill all the Palestinians.
          Blacks are hopeless.
          Laughing at poor people.
          Welfare queens.
          America number one.
          Nuke Iran.

          You want to fucking TALK to these people? These people are SHIT. Do you realize that? They are shit. You find me a so-called moderate republican and I WILL get out of them the most reprehensible true colors imaginable.

          Fucke 'em. Seriously. They can fuck themselves with their hateful, dominant monkey evil.

          The right is killing America

          by grushka on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 08:29:23 PM PDT

          [ Parent ]

      •  So right nyceve, (none / 1)

        My dad, who was a diehard republican, and an engineer, who worked in enough of the defense firms to hear things, couldn't stand any of the bushes, and didn't vote for them.

        What an excellent day for an Exorcism... SCI/Kenyon

        by DianeL on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 07:51:26 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

    •  Sugarcoating (4.00 / 4)

      I don't think that complicity in reinforcing willful ignorance is an ethical strategy.  Or an intelligent one.  On the contrary, I think assertiveness and bold, progressive stances are precisely what is needed, since watered-down namby-pamby neo-Repub talk gets one nowhere.  I seem to recall that the Kerry campaign ratcheted up the Repub lite Jingoistic themes to little positive effect.  The Vlad The Impaler stance has served the Republicans well - why should the Democrats wince at ripping it off for liberal purposes?

      As for the SCLM - well, again, the centre won't shift until Dems start dragging it leftward.

      "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." - Pierre Trudeau

      by fishhead on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 05:50:08 PM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      •  Absolutely. (none / 0)

        I'm not advocating sugarcoating, actually.  I'm just saying that telling people that they're idiots is not going to win them over. I don't want Repub-lite.  At all.  That has been proven a losing strategy.  I want to see Democrats stand up for what they believe in, just not insulting everyone else while they do it.  I think Dean, Reid, Clark, and most of the 'fighting Dems' do this pretty well, actually.

        Live in the Bay Area? Join San Francisco Kossacks!

        by Toastman on Mon Oct 03, 2005 at 06:07:20 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

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