The one true genius of the failed political party we still call "republican" (although different names would now be more accurate) is in their understanding of media, sloganeering and the art of the sales pitch message.
They can't govern for shit. But they sure can sell a turd to the American people and call it "sunshine."
This theme has been discussed before so I'll refrain from summarizing their brilliance with "cut n' run" and "flip flop" type of messaging. I will, however, propose a new term we can use in our responses, and it's a simple one:
Chicken Little.
Everyone knows the story of Chicken Little. It was recently turned into a big Disney movie, so the notion of a half-crazed little chicken running around screaming "the sky is falling" is a potent one on the collective zeitgeist. Therefore it holds three key attributes to any advertising slogan technique:
1. Potent imagery
2. Simply phrased
3. Humiliates and belittles the subject
Tapping into the politics of the "mock", referring to republicans as "chicken littles" not only mocks them as little people, as chicken/cowards, but also points out what absolute hysterics and cowards they are as a political party.
They love to piss themselves with fear, as SusanG's excellent diary observes this morning. They love notions of end-of-world wars and civilization clashes. As Mr. 36% uses "fascists" to describe ragtag terrorists who control no political party and no governments, we see their Chicken Little tendencies in every facet of failed republican policy.
That's why this term has such potency. Imagine seeing Howard Dean, Russ Feingold and every other democratic party member using Chicken Little Republicans in every talk show appearance, on CNN, in press conferences and in interviews on the sunday bobble-head shows.
Even a hack like Chuck Roberts would be forced to repeat the term in that braindead Furby level discourse that dominates our pathetic cable news networks. But by repeating the term they reinforce the notion of republicans as scared cowards constantly shreiking about the "sky falling" on their heads every time an acorn hits them in the noggin.
The fear democrats will have is that by using the term Chicken Little Republicanism they'll sound like they don't take the threat of terrorism seriously. But that's absurd on any real governmental level -- democrats are about fighting the real war on terrorism, and the American people and finally sensing this as reflected in the polls. So dems don't need to worry about the "weak on terrorism" charge anymore, especially in light of republican failure on the issue. And while the wingnuts have defined us already this way, it's no longer anything to fear as it has no basis in reality. The only way to turn the tables is to observe what most Americans already know -- that theirs is a political movement built on hysteria and fear.
Theirs is a political movement built on panic attacks and rabid frothing paranoia.
So why not call it what it is? Why not use a simple comic book term to refer to a simplified comic book political party?
Chicken Little Republicanism. The political party of hysteria and fear at the expense of everything else. They are cowards. They are pretend patriots. They are irrational, illogical pants-pissers who deserve nothing but mocking and ridicule.
Variations of the expression:
* Chicken Little Politics
* "The Sky is Falling" Hysteria
* Chicken Little Conservatives
* Running around like Chicken Littles
Do not fear the republican response that using these terms means we're not taking terrorism seriously. We are. We're just not irrational, cowardly hysterics about a bunch of people that, as SusanG correctly observes, sleep and shit in caves.
There is something profoundly charismatic about people who are not terrified to the point of wetting their pants over the threat from a few extremist nutjobs. This is called bravery.
Republicans are cowards. They start wars with other people's childen then refuse to talk about those wars when they turn into chaos and disaster. When a few half educated idiot extremists are arrested in England for attempting to mix chemicals, they lose their collective water in the most pathetic panic attacks since Don Knotts saw ghosts in "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken:
If they want to paint us as traitors and terroist lovers, the natural chess move that trumps this silliness is not to respond in kind. It's not to call them "traitors" back, but to call them what they really are: cowards.
Chicken Little Republicanism.
Lets use the type of terminology that even the bobble-heads can't help but pick up and repeat as a viral meme that exposes their cowardice and hysteria for what it is: failure of leadership.