In war, the best way to destroy an opponent's army is to get that army to
destroy itself or to get two enemy armies to go at each other in a mammoth battle that leaves you on the sidelines unperturbed. The worst way to defeat an enemy is to attack them head on...either in battle or with ideology...and
it is suicidal to attack two enemies that hate each other but will unite to fight you if you insist upon it.
The Republicans (with the help of Fox News) seem to present a united front against what they call "liberals". Attempts to attack them head on via criticism of low taxation or the war...only seem to make these "wingnuts" more united as a group of almost half the US population. The right-wing blogosphere actually
feeds off anti-war statements; they would starve to death for thoughts and start bickering with each other if others simply denied them their "food". In fact, as the war really does fall off the radar-screens of a lot of war-supporters...it becomes obvious that most of the right wing bloggers and broadcasters, especially Glenn Reynolds and Bill Oreilly, are not really all that well-rounded in a variety of different issues. They
need to talk about the war or they will be exposed as the dummies they really are on other issues.
The Republicans are clearly divided in two ways (4 groups) making it possible for smart strategists to split them like a log and get them to battle each other in 2006 and 2008.
First there are the Neocon Yuppies (anti-smoking and pro-sex) vs Redneck "Christians" (pro-smoking and anti-sex). Both these groups may be united on the war and taxes but they absolutely hate each other in every other aspect. Then there can be a huge difference between male Republicans and female Republicans in that the former are against victim feminism and the latter are actually more susceptible to victim feminist theory than Democrat women. Let's look at some big issues. Discuss any of the below issues on the airwaves, in campaign speeches and in the blogosphere...and you can be sure of causing disarray in the various Republican camps:
1) Anti-Smoking Laws: I may be off a few points but about 80% of Americans now wonder why we don't yet have a federal law banning smoking in all workplaces (including bars) as well as smoking in front of children in enclosed spaces like cars and trailer parks. The Republicans, however, are split down the middle on the issue, with the Redneck crowd claiming that smoking is a "property rights" issue. If you go to FreeRepublic and do a search for "smoking", you will see these pathetic people openly bragging about smoking in front of their children and firing barworkers who complained of asthma and asked their employers to please ban smoking in their workplaces.
Now...take a look at how the New Hampshire Senate just voted 12-11 against an anti-smoking law despite the fact that 79% of New Hampshire residents wanted the law. Do you see how the Republicans in the New Hampshire Senate are opening themselves to a rout in November? Did you notice that the Arkansas Senate just voted for a major anti-smoking law?
This is big, people. The wave of anti-smoking laws is ringing the Earth with Sweden, Scotland, Belgium, England, Italy only a few recent examples of total smoking bans. The US Republicans are not going to be able to resist this with talk about how the "liberals want to legislate us to death" or the "liberals want to take away our property rights". What the Republicans can be capable of, however, is the sheer idiocy of trying to resist.
Please get journalists to ask Republican politicians what they feel about bar and restaurant employees being exposed to smoke in the workplace. Get journalists to ask Republican politicians what they feel about parents smoking in automobiles with toddlers strapped into carseats. Sit back and watch the sparks fly as Neocon Yuppies abandon these Republicans like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
2) Toxic Substances: Go to FreeRepublic and do a search for Asbestos and do another search for DDT. You will see that Republicans don't believe these substances ever needed to be banned because they are apparently as healthy as tofu. Expose this insanity and you have the November elections in the pocket.
3) Premarital Sex: The Redneck Christians, when they condemn "Gay Marriage," are really using a code-word for condemning practicing heterosexuals at the same time.
The fact is, American "conservatives" have never given up on the issue that most determined their loss of Congress in 1972...their opposition to premarital heterosexual sex. On FR, they are still saying that the "sexual revolution was the Trojan Horse that turned this country into the liberal looney bin it is today."
There was a Newsmax article yesterday condemning Katie Couric as a "liberal" because she couldn't accept how a Florida property developer was going to ban condoms in his new town's drugstore (good for her).
During the critical phase of the Iraq War (at least the part that rivetted their attention most), the Neocon Yuppies and American servicemen and women looked the other way at this bullshit. But these Yuppies and servicepeople are not that stupid. They know, for instance, that many FReepers consider all US servicemen to be hero virgins who are all saving themselves to marry a nice American girl their own age when they get home.
Never mind the fact that a lot of US soldiers will be arriving home in their 30s and the FReepers will refuse to let these "heroes" date their own college age daughters...because of the "age difference."
Republicans, FReepers and Fox News are against the idea that a single male should have a decent sex life and/or freely chose the partner(s) he would like to have.
Expose this fact...and you will get the military to vote for the Democrats this November. It is that simple.
Drive home the real attitude of conservatives on heterosexual sex, and you will also get the 10,000,000 strong male "South Park Republican" crowd to vote Democrat as well.
4) Republican's Bizarre New Outreach to Women: I noted above that Republican women can actually be more prone to victim feminist theory than Democratic women.
Most men in the U.S. business world can tell you horror stories about a Republican female employee who tried to get someone fired because an unwanted (by him) spam email with a dirty joke or an unwanted (by him) pornographic popup was seen on his computer. This victim feminism dovetails right in with the Republican hatred of premarital heterosexual sex. Anything to do with sex has to be criminal to an American conservative.
In the past few weeks, it has become clear in the blogosphere that Fox News is going to concentrate on winning more female viewers than ever and convincing them that their "concern for women" is a "conservative concern"...by taking up a similar editorial attitude as Lifetime Television for Women on some issues directly or indirectly dealing with sex. There is a big Fox News segment series right now condemning the "mail order bride industry" for instance (also using that phrase to describe dating websites that just happen to have more foreigners than Americans). Sure enough, Fox News is also making it seem like American men are "unpatriotic" if they date and marry foreign women and (gasp) use the Internet for that purpose.
All this is happening while the IMBRA Law (the secret marriage broker law tucked under the VAWA that President Bush was falling all over himself to sign in order to get Maria Cantwell not to filibuster Alito) is about to be overturned by a federal court. Apparently the courts feel that American men can say hello to foreign women on the Internet without having to send their criminal background histories and marriage status first.
When Bush agrees with a certain type of feminist about taking away constitutional rights...you have to wonder what is going on. For those who agree with Bush on that law, Fox News says that you are now officially a conservative.
Meanwhile, a man can get banned on FreeRepublic these days for saying that he'd like to date and marry foreigners.
The one-sided Fox News programming would actually be welcomed by the feminist left...as it shows the Republican Party, Fox News and even FreeRepublic have lain down their arms and surrendered on almost all feminist issues except abortion and lesbianism (if the latter is really an issue). Between now and November, we might be seeing "all victim feminism, all the time" on Fox News.
Here is the controversial point: No matter how much it might please a traditional Democrat that the Republicans and Fox News and Freerepublic have caved on this issue...it does represent a weird threat to see the Republicans trying to get Democrat women to join them for being more "victim feminist" than the Democrats.
The Republicans have also left their flank wide open because, if the media can get across that the Republicans are actually stressing victim feminism as a campaign issue, and trying to outdo the Democrats in their support of feminism...a ton of Republican men will not vote for them in disgust. They will switch off the Fox News Channel.
I will admit that my primary motivation to see the Republicans defeated in November is because Karl Rove has clearly decided that he wants to compete with Democrats on who can most promote victim feminism.
So, even if you agree with the Republican strategists like Karl Rove on his embracing of this brand of feminism, it is in the interest of Democrats to at least expose the strategy and let the Republican Party explode from within.
All the Democrats need to do to destroy the Republican Party is have the chairman of a famous Women's Studies Department say "look, Karl Rove agrees with us". :-)
When a man like Karl Rove stabs half his constituents in the back, including military members who might want to marry a Romanian or Bulgarian women he met over the Internet while serving in Iraq...that is the time when a man like Karl Rove needs to go down hard.
All of the above 4 issues are wedges that can be used to split the Republicans like a log in 2006. Public discussion of the above points would sew dissension in the ranks and at least cause a lot of Republicans to stay home in November.
-By the way, the above IMBRA law that Bush signed so happily was the first this century that tried to make it illegal for married men to cheat on their wives, at least with foreign women. I say "tried" because I assume that the law is actually about to be overturned in court (none of the international dating websites are complying with the law because it is under a restraining order ). You can decide if it is "conservative" or "liberal" to want to make marital cheating illegal again.