As the weeks have turned into months, and the election draws ever nearer, it has become all-too-apparent what strategy the Republicans will be using this election cycle.
They can't run on their own policies: their policies have been the ones that have taken this country perilously close to the cliff's edge.
They can't run on their track record: see above.
The only tactic they have left is to throw enough shit to see what sticks.
However, they can't do it out in the open. The word 'Republican' has become as unsellable as a Ford Pinto (or in today's economic climate, a Hummer). So the Conservatives and Libertarians and Republicans (whatever they're calling themselves nowadays) are going to the shadows. They have to pretend to be Independents and Liberals and Progressives, and then throw their shit in a passive aggressive manner.
And that, gentle readers, is Concern Trolling. How do you spot it and combat it? More, below the fold.
This is not the first diary entry on Concern Trolling. But as the election draws nearer, we're going to see a lot more of it from a wide manner of sources. Here are some ways...
1 - online, their Username sometimes gives the game away. We've seen people pretend to be on our side, or claim to be neutral, with names like IndyNH or IndieNH on several sites, or McCainDemocrat on Fark.com). A name is a powerful thing: it can be used to lead people astray if they're not paying real attention to the issues. Many people will take the name of something at face value, and that's just stupid (why else do you think we have Operation Enduring Freedom, Clear Skies Initiative... Republicans discovered that the names of something political doesn't have to then describe what that thing will do. It only has to get them votes). Always be wary of anyone that is trying to get a foot in the door by use of their Username.
2 - they will attempt to gain the trust of other users. People are people, and some are more prone to being taken advantage of. A Concern Troll will pretend to share your outlook on life... and when they think they have your trust, they'll start with the passive-aggressive snide attacks.
3 - after establishing themselves, they will muddy the waters. They'll do things like point people to articles like this one in The Nation entitled "Democrats for McCain", hoping you won't read more pages on The Nation (but will just make the association with Democrat and McCain). And they'll sow the seeds of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. "I hope people don't think us Liberals are being naive by supporting evolution" would be an example of a dead give-away that you have a Concern Troll on your hands. They're trying to fog the clarity of the issue by claiming there's a need for a debate that doesn't exist.
4 - after muddying the waters, they will try and play innocent. Anyone that acts perpetually innocent doesn't strike me as being genuine. If they try to do it after a veiled comment that uses the GOP talking point of the day? You know you have a Concern Troll.
OK, that's how you spot them. How do you deal with them.
1 - try to ignore them if you can. If you can't ignore them, it always helps (with widely established Trolls) to show just how much their posts are appreciated for their comedy content. One thread I saw had a few people replying to the Concern Troll's sound-bites with haiku poems. Each one ending with the word WHARRGARBL...
...because a dog with a face full of water makes more sense than a Concern Troll.
2 - This Is The Information Age, so use the information. A recent study reported in Newsweek found that people need to use higher brain functions to be hypocrites. But if you keep the brain of the Trolls occupied with facts and numbers, their brains find it difficult to maintain their Trollishness and their gut feeling of shame kicks in.
To test the role of cognition in hypocrisy, DeSteno had volunteers again assign themselves an easy task and a stranger an onerous one. But before judging the fairness of their actions, they had to memorize seven numbers. This ploy keeps the brain's thinking regions too tied up to think much about anything else, and it worked: hypocrisy vanished. People judged their own (selfish) behavior as harshly as they did others', strong evidence that moral hypocrisy requires a high-order cognitive process. When the thinking part of the brain is otherwise engaged, we're left with gut-level reactions, and we intuitively and equally condemn bad behavior by ourselves as well as others.
So to make them see the error of their ways, just stick to the facts. You don't need to descend to their low level because just keeping their brains off the prepared sound-bites (especially if you're reducing those sound-bites to something with the strength of a castle of sand) will make enough of them slowly realize that they're being dicks.
3 - call them out on what they are. This is the ju-jitsu of politics: using their 'strength' against them. If all they have are sound-bites, then names are very important to their M.O. Once you give something a name, you frame the debate and you make their task of convincing others tougher.
The late anthropologist Bob Levy recalls how not having a name for something makes it harder to deal with (as told by George Lakoff)...
Levy addressed the question of why there were so many suicides in Tahiti, and discovered that Tahitians did not have a concept of grief. They felt grief. They experienced it. But they did not have a concept for it or a name for it. They did not see it as a normal emotion. There were no rituals around grief. No grief counseling, nothing like it. They lacked a concept they needed -- and ended up committing suicide all too often.
If someone appears to be progressive, but keeps accidentally sliding in statements that make you doubt your convictions, it's hard to reconcile those convictions and you begin to doubt them. Until you realize you are being manipulated by a Concern troll. Once the name is spoken, just like with Rumplestiltskin, the balance of power is shifted in your favor.
4 - let everyone else know there's a Concern Troll on the loose. I personally use an animated GIF. Using images has proven to be quite effective in dealing with Concern Trolls.
But use hyperlinks and examples from their own words.
5 - don't let them beat you to the punch, never listen to their "advice", and never back down. The only way the [f]right wing has been able to hide their weakness in stopping terrorists from killing thousands of Americans is to claim some non-existent weakness from Liberals. Never let them get away with it (I always quote August 20, 1998. And how Clinton tried to kill bin Laden. And how Republican Senators said it was a distraction).
If you think of all the occasions where the Republicans and their cohorts have Concern Trolled (very often), the Democrats have faired badly when they've taken this "advice" (Iraq) yet been extremely popular when completely ignoring it (on Social Security privatization). It's not advice, it's Concern Trolling. Never forget that.