We've got 2 years to get moving to change the debate.
What the hell have conservatives ever been right about? What the hell have they ever achieved that made life better for Americans and became part of the fabric of our lives? Nothing! Then why are WE on the defensive and so many of our people COLLABORATING with them? No reason at all.
Air America is up to 40 stations. We need to break 100 by the end of 2005.
We need a TV network
But even if we have a TV network and Air America has 1000 stations we need a cohesive message to broadcast. The basic message being we're right, history proves it and they're wrong. Simple, clear, unequivocal.
More after the break, a lot more.
Bush's campaign strategy was so transparent it was in every speech he made: "no mixed messages," "you know where I stand," "I don't do nuance," "I mean what I say." Clarity. Simplicity. No equivocation. No mistakes are acknowledged not because admitting mistakes is a bad thing in and of itself, but rather because it complicates message. Yes, Virginia the American people prefer strong and wrong. But if we give them strong and right, I bet we'll win.
And to prove that the clarity of Bush's message is what was most important, just look at what they foisted onto Kerry - the exact opposite. "Flip flop," "35 different positions on Iraq," "blows with the wind," "mixed messages." It took five minutes to explain why "I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it" does indeed make sense, BUT WE DON'T HAVE FIVE MINUTES. (Even so Kerry should have explained it. Should have spent the time educating the public how the Senate works. Should have taken the time to teach! But if he did that he'd be Howard Dean, alas he's not.)
(Lesson for 2008 #1: That's why Senators don't get elected President.)
Just like he should have answered the swift boat liars immediately. Thought we'd learned that from 1992, I guess not.
(Lesson for 2008 #2: I HOPE WE LEARNED IT NOW.)
Just like he should have defended Massachusetts every time Bush insulted his home state. If Kerry had said something about Texas do you think Bush would have let it go? It's about fighting. People respect a fighter. That's why they demolished Kerry's Vietnam legacy. His biggest asset became a liability. But he never struck people as a fighter anyway so their message that he was really a pussy who got his medals from a Cracker Jacks box stuck.
It's not easy to deprogram 50,000,000 people who are confident in what they know no matter how wrong it is. We have to create answers to debunk the conventional wisdom that is disseminated every day in the right wing media. Just the fact that most of the country thinks it's the "liberal" media shows you how difficult that's going to be. The fact that we're not so willing to lie makes it doubly hard.
The fact that we don't call the President a liar works against us. We should have at least a few "Attack Dems" who absolutely go out everyday and call Bush a liar, call Delay a liar, call Cheney a liar, etc. Mockery, scorn, derision are our friends, if not they are enemies to be feared. And I don't want to be afraid anymore.
By the same token, on mainstream TV the words Rush Limbaugh and liar should become synonymous. The words Fox News should never be spoken without the modifier "Republican propaganda outlet."
I think democrats, liberals, progressives should clamor to get onto Fox every chance they get. And they should argue and scream and fight and curse, but be factually accurate, and make the conservatives respect them. Never pussy out or let a haircut like Sean Hannity get the last word. If you have to call him a lying bastard on the air, do it.
On the other hand no Dem., liberal or self-respecting progressive should ever sit on a stage with Ann Coulter. Do not ever, ever justify her existence and the monumentally irresponsible decision that idiot producers make to ever put a whackjob like her on the air. People like Ann have a right to rave like a lunatic on streetcorners. They do not have a right to do it on TV. Get the mainstream cable stations that put her on to hold her accountable for her syphilitic word spews. Someone needs to call her bat shit crazy to her face on national TV.
There are answers to every piece of propaganda the right puts out there. We need to get them down in one place and learn them. That's what they do. Anyone off message must be brought back on message or pay a price. That's what party loyalty is about. Hey, if you really don't agree with us then good bye. We can continue to be the big tent inclusive party of no clear message and circular firing squads and be in the minority forever! Or we can all get on the same page and sell something. Goddammit if we really do believe that being a Democrat stands for something then stand up! If you don't, then sit down, Joe Lieberman.
Nothing the Republicans do or say should go unchallenged. If they say it's night, we say it's day and they're only saying its night because their big business lobbyist friends paid them to do so.
Obstructionist is good. Bomb throwers are good. Remember how Gingrich made his party the majority party? Attack, attack, attack and then attack again. Question everything they assert. Show them to be liars who only care about their big business base. Not Christians, not working people, not little people, not any people, just corporations!
Affirmative Legislative items to demagogue like a mother! Let's put the D-E-M in demagogue! (not a Contract for America... but fucking close):
1. Energy independence. An Apollo project to get America off middle eastern oil. Win for the economy and jobs, win for the environment, win for foreign policy and fighting terrorists. Seriously, how many win, win, win situations do you get? This is a no fucking brainer!
Note: go big on solar, wind, ethanol and biodiesel. Tax breaks for hybrid cars. Serious hydrogen research. Maybe even some new generation nuclear. But NO CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY. West Virginia is 50% Democratic and can't be counted on to vote for Gore or Kerry? That's fucked up. Coal is a fucked up 18th century technology that kills lungs. Fuck `em. When they get back on board we'll talk.
2. Single payer health care. Get on this now. SOME THINGS ARE TOO IMPORTANT TO BE FOR PROFIT. Healthcare is one of them. No more screwing around with managed care and half assed solutions to appease insurance companies or the morons who can't get over socialized medicine. Take every Goddamn Democratic Congressman and Senator on a tour of medical facilities in the inner cities of this country and then send them to Canada, Sweden and France. Then have them explain that WE have the best medical system in the world and that socialized medicine is evil. Get on it, love it and ride it until we have what every American deserves.
3. Fight to get the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill fixed so Medicare can bargain prices down and we can buy Canadian imports. Vioxx, Redux, Phen fen, were some of the biggest prescription drugs in the country and the FDA didn't give a shit that they were unsafe. You're telling me they really care about the safety of Canadian drugs (that are really American drugs just slipped over the border and then slipped right back but without that silly 80% mark up)?
4. Attack the idea that corporations have the same legal standing as people. They're not people! They're beasts that only see bottom lines. They're sharks. Predatory, profits over people. Get the Republicans to go on record that corporations are the same as people and deserve the same legal protections.
5. Oh and while we're talking about it, get those Benedict Arnold companies that incorporate offshore to pay their friggin' taxes. Go ahead Republicans defend that.
6. The Fairness Doctrine should be brought back. In a survey even 77% of Republicans agreed with this. The Dems. Should make it part of an election reform package.
7. Adopt Dick Gephardt's lobbyist reforms that he campaigned on. No lobbyists on the floor of congress. A two year waiting period before someone from Congress can lobby Congress, etc. People can all rally around hating lobbyists. That's the ticket. Why if we play this right Lobbyists could be our activist judges.
8. No extraneous language or provisions in bills. You can't have pork for a dam in Alabama attached to a bill regarding Medicare prescriptions. No immunity from liability for a pharmaceutical company in a bill ostensibly about homeland security. This is one of those pernicious practices that makes Congress look shady and impenetrable. It helps create those 1200 page bills that nobody can possibly read or understand. The Clarity in Legislation Act of 2005 should be something that people can get behind as SIMPLE SENSIBLE REFORM.
Simple sensible reform, got that?
Look, I know that we don't have control of the legislative agenda. That's not the point. In the short term it's not about getting all these things to the floor. It's about branding yourself as the party who WANTS TO GET THESE THINGS TO THE FLOOR. And we would, but these corporate boot licking Republicans won't let us Goddammit. Demagogue shamelessly on issues that the American public can embrace, and identify with. Things that will make sense to the average Joe and Jane. Put Republicans on the defensive.
Negative Legislative items to attack:
1. Tort reform. Explain that a tort is damage. If damage is done, going to court is the only way most people can get redress from a big inhuman corporation. If damage is done, someone or something should be held accountable. Would you want your ability to go to court to be limited if you suffered damages? Nobody likes frivolous lawsuits, but when damage is done, it's not frivolous.
What is also not frivolous is the corporate boot licking Republicans attempt to help inhuman corporations have it both ways - you can't have deregulation so that inhuman corporations can do what they please, and yet also have immunity when they damage people. That's Unamerican by golly.
2. No more tax cuts for the rich! Flying Jesus there's a deficit that's going to eat us alive. China is killing us. Hell even welfare state Europe is eating our lunch! How in hell can you be thinking about cutting taxes on the rich again?! Enough is enough.
If there's no deficit clock in Washington D.C. like they have in NY then the Dems should get one and put it on their national headquarters. Or on the Washington Monument!
Extra bonus points for the Democrats that get out in front on the argument that CUTTING TAXES IS DISEMPOWERING. My tax cut and your tax cut don't amount to much. It won't change my lifestyle. But when we pool our money together we can do great things like fund an army, build a road, or give every American health insurance. Why, TAXES ARE TEAMWORK. I'm not going to say it'll be easy, but Goddamit it's right! People will respect it if you fight for it. But make sure it's taxes on millionaires and corporations you raise, because they may respect a fighter but most of all Americans are cheap ass selfish crumb bums. But miracle of miracles, in tax hating California (land of Proposition 13 - artificially low property taxes and schools to rival Mississippi!) they just voted in a measure that levied a 1% surcharge on millionaires to pay for expanded mental health care. See, it's already catching on! Kerry would have done better to say he would create a new tax level for super rich millionaires than his "rolling back tax cuts on people who make over $200,000." There are a lot of people who make over $200,000 and they voted against him 63-37. There's lots less millionaires!
3. Fight privatizing social security! Grover Norquist is waiting for the WWII generation to die so that nobody will remember what it was like before Social Security and Medicare. Democrats have to fucking teach that before Social Security 50% of the elderly in this country lived in poverty. Before Medicare only 25% of elderly got proper medical attention. If any Democrat votes with the President on this one, they are to be targeted in the primaries. Anybody who voted for the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill AND this should be shot!
Which brings me to our big rallying cry - THE SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS
Look forward to Part Two of this diary.