Exploiting Tragedy is their strength

AmericanHope

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Wednesday March 23, 2005 · 7:10 AM PST

2005/03/23 · 07:10

OK..I haven't written much on the Terri case, in fact..I don't even know how to spell her last name without looking.

So I am going to tell you that there is one very important element of her case.

Exploiting Tragedy..or as I am going to use short hand..ET.

The GOP has used ET throughout the last 5 years in a remarkably successful way, and the reason for that is partially because of the way the GOP has branded itself as a governing body. Here goes

Think of all the ET the GOP has done in the last 5 years. Let's start with the obvious

9/11

lets go further

laci peterson

now there's terri.

Some of you might remember my diary 2 days ago where I said that if the Dems were smart, they'd highlight all the recent gun violence to show why we should have things like the assault weapons ban. And how do you frame this? You frame it with the undeniable--the event that happened. The GOP is supporting the acts of gun violence b/c they support guns. They are doing NOTHING TO PROTECT you from this violence.

Nothing to protect you. Imagine how many women would respond to this. Bush got 48% of the female vote in 2004. 48%. Why? Because John Kerry never said that Bush is doing nothing to protect you.

And then the GOP steps in exploiting tradegy. They used 9/11 to say that the democrats cant protect you, and they used laci peterson to say that they care about women. These 2 events are undeniable. They absolutely happened. So it was easy for the GOP to point to them to state their claim.

And since the GOP has branded itself as the response party-- that is, if something goes bad, the GOP will have a response [unborn victims of violence act for laci, or whatever it was called, attack iraq/afganistan] and the dems wont..tradegy is a great opportunity for them. The GOP always has a response to tragedy, esp since they pick and choose the tragedies that highlight their responses.

Now, here's the bottom line: ET is a risky game. For the GOP--Sometimes you win [9/11, laci] sometimes you lose [terri]. But the GOP uses everything it can, and that includes tragedy.

Should the dems point this out? Of course. But here's the reality: politians exploit tragedy. and sometimes its whats needed. FDR used the depression to get the New Deal through, a deal so good that even in today's right-wing saturated news, people want to protect it. You need to use EVERYTHING about our world to win. And you need to be smart on how you use it. You cannot argue with tradegy--why? Because it happened and its undeniable.

I'm not saying the GOP shouldn't ET, I'm saying the Dems should, too.

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