...wrote my conservative opponent. The topic: the “achievements” of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
I just had to share this gem, because every time I read it again I giggle.
Giggle...then facepalm.
He coughed up this pearl while torturing readers with rambling screeds about JFK, about socialism as he understood it, about the demi-god Reagan, and about Jim Doyle's role in the 2008 Wisconsin economic collapse (My opponent seemed to have blanked-out or repressed all memories of the nation-wide scope of the Great Recession). Notably absent was mention of Walker.
His tirade was scatterbrained, off-topic. In his mind, he was being cohesive. His disjointed nonsense brought to mind Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, Kentucky Senator Twit- er, Rand Paul, Louie Gohmert, Steve King, and dozens of other Republican legislators, clueless morons all.
I reread his posts numerous times, trying to discern some unifying thread. How would he summarize his grab-bag of factoids, myths, conflations and outright lunacies? How would he craft a cohesive, coherent conclusion? He never did. Then he dropped the bomb that headlines this diary.
In several earlier diaries, most notably “Right-Wing Talking Points Invade a Child's Birthday Party,” I listed ways to refute and discredit conservative viewpoints. Among the greatest of these is the power to listen, closely, to your opponent, to discern his or her untenable premises, fallacies, myths and conflations.
And my opponent was offering a gold mine of them.
Few techniques have greater power and utility than this: use your opponent's words, still fresh in the minds of listeners, against him.
“You liberals,” he wrote, boundlessly confident that anyone questioning his views had to be liberal, “refuse to face facts. Obama is the most corrupt president in history. That's me telling it like it is. I'm a straight shooter.”
I started to form a mental image of the man: White male, sixties, maybe a middle management type. Might own his own small business. He used some out-of-date expressions: “telling it like it is” and “straight shooter.” I saw him immersed in conservative talk radio ideology, saw him hanging out with like-minded friends, imagined he was a bit loud at times. Chauvinist, maybe a bit verbally abusive to his wife, if he was married, low emotional intelligence, easily capable of alienating and shaming his children, “my way or the highway” mentality when it came to child-rearing...(Admittedly all speculation: I was letting my imagination paint a picture.)
His rambling, disjointed tirade was inducing fatigue in our audience. Other contributors slacked off. I got a few private messages from other participants, many of them friends, all saying pretty much the same thing: “You're wasting your time. Let it go. We know him. He's a blowhard. He won't listen. You won't change his mind with facts. And he won't back down. ”
Which brings up other points: Skewer the topic through it's heart and hand it to your audience. And stay on topic. Be concise. Give listeners and readers a role in the debate. Engage them. Don't force-feed them, the very thing my opponent was doing. He failed to see that he was insulting their intelligence.
“My opponent seems to have forgotten the topic of this debate,” I wrote. “He wasn't really ready to say anything about it. I am, and I will stick to the topic. And that topic was the article that __ posted. In it, Scott Walker is named “The Worst Governor in America” by CREW. CREW is an acronym for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. They are a nonpartisan organization, they cite the references used in making their determinations, and here is the link to the article.”
“I mention here a few shifty, underhanded and wrongheaded moves by this deeply immoral and misguided man. One: Walker has a troubled history. Even before he become governor, scandal nipped at his heels while ineptitude and inaction described his work ethic. As Milwaukee County Executive, he accomplished next to nothing. Nothing. He collected a paycheck from the taxpayer for doing nothing. Nothing of benefit to the people he was supposed to serve, that is. He did take a two million dollar gift, meant to form a trust fund for economic development, and used it to offset the county budget deficit, the very deficit his inaction and ineptitude served to enlarge.”
“Two: The biggest news event surrounding his tenure as “absentee” county executive was to narrowly escape charges of campaigning for governor while he was “at work” at his job as county executive, an illegal abuse of his taxpayer-sourced payroll. Walker claims he had no idea his staff, seated at desks only feet away from his own, were illegally engaging in campaign activities unrelated to their county-employee job descriptions and responsibilities. Several of his loyal minions took the fall for the misdeeds he claims that he knew nothing about.”
“Three: One of the first abominations Walker and the Republicans ramrodded into law once he became governor was Act 10, which greatly reduced the collective bargaining power of public sector unions. At no time during the campaign did Walker admit of this hidden agenda. Had he been honest (not a priority for this son of a minister), our Governor would have borne the name Tom Barrett.”
“So rather than do the real work, with support from Democrats, of raising the living standards of all middle class and working class Wisconsinites, who were still reeling from the collapse of an under-regulated casino called Wall Street, and an equally under-regulated financial market, an event now known as the Great Recession, Walker instead lowered the standard of living of one particular group: unionized public sector employees. Some, facing income reductions of five thousand dollars annually, simply left public service. And a massive wave of early retirements created a loss of institutional memory, loss of mentors, and loss of talent in the public service sector.”
(In an earlier Kos diary, I followed up on the career path of one unionized public sector employee, a teacher only a few years into his career. After Act 10 was passed, he left his teaching post in a Wisconsin public school...to work across the border at a public school in Illinois.)
“Four: Claiming he wanted to spur economic growth and development, Walker spearheaded the creation of a quasi-public entity, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. With Walker himself as Chairman, and staffed by a cabal of incompetent loyalist idiots, WEDC immediately succeeded in losing track of millions of dollars, and to date some nineteen millions dollars of loans remain so poorly administered and documented that they cannot be collected.”
“Do Wisconsin Republicans have the slightest idea how many better ways there were to put that money to work serving Wisconsinites? Do they ever even think about it? And it's gone. Gone. These same Republicans voted to save Walker from recall. Can you all say, “Heads up their asses!?”
“Has the fourth estate stepped in to demand, without cease, that a proper investigation be made of this obscenity? Is the best response to this monumental bungling (if that's what it was, and not thinly disguised payback) to just accept the Republican line, 'Oh, gee, guess we goofed. Won't happen again!'”
“But okay, let's inject a little more fun into this “discussion.” Let's agree to follow my opponent away from the topic of Scott Walker's corruption and ineptitude. I'll repeat a remarkable statement my opponent made. He wrote, 'Capitalism is the best form of government we have.' Is anyone troubled by this statement?” I asked.”
A contributor who had been quiet for a few days suddenly rejoined the thread. “Capitalism is not a form of government,” she wrote.
“Ding ding ding!!!” I replied.
Sensing a change in the mood, a friend who had been silent awhile typed in, “From Merriam Webster: Capitalism- an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market.”
“Kudos for citing your source,” I replied. “Helps to ground things.”
“Now my opponent has been “wandering” far, far away from the topic of Scott Walker, and dragging all of you with him. He has flitted from factoid to myth, and from conflation to misdirection to outright lie. It's been a real song and dance revue, but not about Scott Walker. I've trudged along with you through his bizarre “timeline,” if that's what you care to call it, waiting for some tie-in to Scott Walker, waiting for him to cite his sources even, waiting for a summation of this half-digested stew of ideological vomit.”
“We could stop all further discussion while he puts together his Scott Walker defense, presents that, instead of all this other, uh, “filler,” then resume once we've read through his source material.”
“But a statement like 'Capitalism is the best form of government we have,' Freudian Slip or whatever, may be the truest, most accurate expression (and unwitting revelation) of what my opponent believes. And what he believes is flat out wrong. He confused a form of government with an economic system. Let that sink in. Really let it sink in. It speaks volumes about the muddle-headed thinking that runs rampant among conservatives, thinking that imperils this nation, thinking that misleads millions.”
I had plunged the knife in deep. Then I twisted it. “Oh, sorry,” I wrote, “Just tellin' it like it is. That's me, being a straight-shooter.”
“Can I put this any more bluntly? Commerce, profit, Capitalism all bear no relation to patriotism, or to love of country. Commerce is not some divine providence, not some higher calling. Capitalism is not a synonym for freedom, liberty, justice, not a “shining city on a hill” not the inspiration for MLK's “I Have a Dream” speech. No, commerce is a decidedly small-minded, ephemeral obsession-compulsion. Capitalism isn't what made our country great. Never was, isn't, never will be. Get over your rapture about this materialist religion of yours.”
“Is there anything in that definition of Capitalism that speaks of representational government? Or the rights of citizens? Anything?”
I had touched a raw nerve. My opponent dropped all pretense of presenting his “information” and began calling me names, saying I was twisted, liberal scum, a libtard, not an American, a socialist, that I was mentally ill. This man was someone I had never met, a friend of a friend. Several posters piped up, saying it was time to end the “discussion.”
And there is where it stands to date, a jumble of loose ends. And for me, some doubts and regrets, too.
Several readers contacted me privately to say my opponent was, in other aspects of his life, a good man, a decent man. They'd been exposed to his political views and didn't encourage political discussions when he was present. This whole event unfolded when ___ posted the CREW article and my opponent and I commented on it.
“I told you,” wrote one of my friends, “that nothing you said would change his mind. He's unreachable.” He added, “It's sad, too. He's not happy. But he clings to those viewpoints...there's something kinda desperate about it.”
I responded, “I wasn't writing to change his mind. What I wrote was for all the rest of you to read. And here's more. The enemies of Democracy fall into two categories: the ignorant and the malevolent. The latter control the thinking of the former. My opponent fell into the category of the ignorant. He does the bidding of the malevolent, and thinks himself a defender of “right” or “The American Way,” or freedom, or some other muddle-headed notion. I doubt he could express it coherently.”
“When he spewed ignorance, incoherence and, frankly, stupidity, I replied with facts, cited my sources, and challenged him to refute them. He sidestepped the challenge and tried to confuse and cloud the debate. I insisted we stick to the topic and yes, I provoked him, used his own words against him. What you witnessed in his reply was rage. Unexamined, irrational, deep-seated rage. He couldn't face his failure. His ego wouldn't let him. Instead he projected all manner of evils on to me, a man he's never met, a man who exposed faults in his ideology. I shook his confidence in a set of beliefs that he has never critically examined, beliefs that he mistakes for some part of his essential self.”
“But they're not. His essential self remains intact. I haven't taken anything from him. If you think it will help him, tell him exactly that. He might accept the insight if it comes from someone he trusts.”
“I take your word that he is, in the other realms of his life, a good man, a decent man. Because I know you, I trust your judgment of his character. That is, until the topic of politics arises. This man showed remarkable blindness to the absurdities in what he believes. Whatever his talents or ability to think rationally and critically in his profession, in his his personal life, or in other realms, his political intelligence remains at a very emergent stage, almost infantile. He reverted to a child-like state during this exchange. And his behavior is not an isolated case in that political party.”
“I didn't “win” this argument. Rather, we all lost. We are still divided. And that means “The Malevolents,” his taskmasters, still have the upper hand.”
“The rest of you need to pursue economic, civic and political enlightenment, and engagement. Let your sense of what is moral, ethical and universal guide you. Your connection to this man, your history, your shared hobbies and interests, may give you more credibility to speak your truth and to compel him to hear it. Perhaps he will hear your sincerity and good intention, hear your civic-mindedness, hear your moral plea. You may succeed in opening his mind where I failed. And I failed. I got angry. My ego and my predatory instincts went too far. I could have pointed out that statement in which he conflated Capitalism and government and given him a chance to amend it. But I taunted him, and destroyed my credibility with this man.”
“There was a chance we could have found common cause, he and I, begun building a community. I'm as much to blame for preventing that as he was. Ordinary Wisconsinites have to do exactly that, find common cause, rise up and resist the conversion of state government from an entity in which public servants perform public service to a payout machine for the One-percenters.”
“So now,” I wrote, “I'm in the pathetic position of asking you to help me clean up the mess I made. I'm not patting myself on the back and running victory laps over this whole exchange. I feel sick to my stomach. This man could have become an ally.”
“Nahh,” my friend replied, “you're dreamin' about that “ally” thing. He's beyond hope.”
End of Part One
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