GOP Projection and tarring Democrats with GOP traits.
Reading Daivid Niewert's excellent recent entry, Projecting fascism, http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/... I was reminded that this is not the first time that Republicans have deliberately and relentlessly projected their own failings onto Democrats. I encourage you to read it if you haven't already.
Projection of the GOP's own failings onto opponents has been a very successful tactic for quite some time. There have been many strong variants of this and "fascist" is only the latest. While this may not have the effect of totally demonizing the GOP's opposition, it is not intended to. It works for its purpose of taking attention away from Republican failings first, before a legitimate attack is made.
Here are a few easy examples:
Anti-American" or "...hates America" - Here we have an Administration that argues to repeal the estate tax to strengthen our new aristocracy, that argues for the right to torture suspects, that argues against Constitutional protections, and on and on. Not much could be more in opposition to American principles, so it was critical to use these words against Democrats first. Instead of reversing the argument, liberals defended themselves and explained that Bush was not America. This gave the GOP their expected argument, from which they could claim that undermining the President undermines America's actions. As a result, the GOP has gotten basically a free pass on their un-American legislation, and posturing that goes directly against American principles.
"Flip-Flopper" - George W. Bush completely reversed many of his strongest campaign promises immediately after taking office. Re-watching his debates with Gore shows a completely different point of view than his campaign in 2004. Whether his reversals have been poll-driven or ideological has been ignored, in favor of debating whether Democrats are actually the flip-floppers. Democrats fell into this trap amazingly easy, even defending "nuance" as a character asset, reinforcing the GOP's portrayal that Democrats stand for nothing.
"The Angry Left" or "Bush-Haters" - The conservative movement relies on anger. Its foot soldiers tend to be bile-driven anti-immigrants and white-supremacists. To head that off as a media story, the ironic-sounding "Angry Left" became a talking point. The left (including myself) fell right into this trap as well, embracing the idea of being angry, and even debating whether or not they hated Bush, taking attention off of the rabid and frightening right wing. This was critical in order to keep suburban middle-America voting Republican.
"Elite" or "Latte-sipping-Liberals" - This one is very interesting, in that while "elite" or "latte-sipping" describes Republican policies and Republican politicians, it does not tend to describe the angry foot soldiers mentioned above. That gives it particular potency, keeping the manipulated angry mass of GOP voters thinking that Republican leaders actually have anything in common with them. George W. Bush went to high school at Andover, and college at Yale. His "Texan" accent is a relatively recent acquisition.
"Not supporting the troops" - It's hard to even think of what the GOP used to support this statement, but their NON-support has been staggering: cutting pay & benefits, extending services, not deploying enough troops, not providing body armor, downsizing the military for the benefit of expensive private contractors, prosecuting soldiers for following orders (and not senior officers for giving them), the list goes on and on.
------------
This has been an easy gambit for the GOP for several reasons:
Democrats rarely use a consistent narrative, or a good story, to make an argument. This allows whatever analogy or story that is put out by Republicans to stick, because there is never a clear, continuous, counterargument. These arguments are simple enough that almost anything can be added to them, keeping the narrative running for years.
Democrats rarely use direct language on TV. Politeness may be a virtue, but when a lie is told, there is nothing wrong with calling it out; but Democrats rarely do, preferring instead to say "that's debatable", or something soft like that. There is of course a legitimate desire to stay above the fray, by keeping civil.
Unfortunately, most people don't connect those dots on their own--they simply do not have the time to do enough research for their own connections to convince them. Strong words and direct statements do that for them. These words have done that for them, however incorrectly.
This new fascism claim may be unique, however, in that it is being directly disseminated by senior Administration officials. Perhaps that indicates a new desperation. However, if Democrats respond as weakly to that claim as in the past, they will lose the opportunity to point the finger where it needs to be pointed.
---------
Is this changing? Are Democrats finally catching on to this game? I haven't seen any indication--has anyone else?