A common conservative meme is to create the myth of attack on their treasured central values: the War on Religion, the War on Christmas, the War on Traditional Values, the Attack on the Family, the Attack on Life, the War on American Pre-eminence, Here Come the Socialists/Immigrants/Islamists and so on. Nothing rallies the troops like the threat of attack. This is a favorite tactic and fallacious argument of the demagoguery that constitutes the vast majority of radical right rhetoric.
This tactic is so base that it should provide a clear avenue for true attack from the Progressive side -- ridicule of the notion that these most powerful and richly backed institutions could in any way be under effective threat, debunking the act of assuming victimhood, and disrobing the truth from the cloak that the victim supposing attack isn't really simply asking for freedom, but rather dominion.
This last point I think is never exposed adequately. I don't think that we on the Progressive side of the world do a good job of exposing right wing bleating. We have a tendency to make fun of it on its surface, but not reveal it for what it is: pure and simple group victimhood, and call out the contrast between assuming victimhood and real motives for domination, and the contrast between victimhood and the real legacy of American progress through clear-eyed assumption of opportunity.
The right wants what the world has not granted it, dominion for narrow views limiting rights and opportunity for all in our great country. Freedom isn't enough, but rather until given power to dominate, the right will rally individuals by making them feel put-upon. Right. How many of those tea-baggers looked put-upon? How discriminated against are Rick Warren, the rich Christianist and his middle- and upper-middle class followers?
When the right complains of an attack on the freedom of, say, religion the actual point is not that freedom of religion is being threatened in any way, but that their religion is not given prerogative to impose their way on the rest of us. Take for example the recent dust-up over coverage for contraception. Taken far and wide as an attack on religious freedom for Catholics and others who oppose birth control, the real position is that the measure would constrain these groups from imposing their values on the many employees of their institutions who do not share the belief. In the case of the Catholic Church, this would include the 98% of Catholic women who have practiced some form of birth control.
In the supposed "War on Christmas", the complaint is that Christians are seeing Christ taken out of Christmas when in the fact of our multi-cultural society there are many who do not care to change or subordinate their beliefs to what may be a Christian majority. It is this that our Constitution guarantees, that one religious group may not be established over another. The right strips victimhood from the minority who may rightly have a complaint and assumes it for themselves, we poor, we few, we right.
For the powerful and monied to assume victimhood is pathetic, but it is also an effective tactic in calling in individuals who feel themselves victimized in other ways. The right claims the muscular, aggressive approach to go on the attack (Onward Christian Soldiers), but accumulates its army from sad-sack whiners. They claim strong individualism but practice a magnificently large pity party. This is the sentiment underlying the right supporting Citizens United, that the wealthy and corporate interests are underrepresented in American political discourse.
Here is the opening for the Progressive: Americans have never felt sorry for themselves, Americans have seized the initiative and created their own future. America is for the courageous, not the complainer. America is over the politics of victimhood, of the Silent Ugly Majority, and over having loud radical minorities seeking dominion over our practices and heritage. This is the message of Progressivism, that the majority will not cede the future to complainers seeking to impose their minority will. Get over the pity party, get over victimhood, get over all these imagined threats and get about the business of producing a future.
We point out the absurdity of the right's complaints, but we need to get below the surface and make clear the motive as well. Surely it is noticeable that so many rightists get worked up and exercise their outrage over various issues. But underlying the spectacle are motive and tactic that are worth calling out and which may be effective in separating for the non-committed what is the American legacy and what is not. Progressivism will struggle to lead into the future if a separation isn't made, if the false equivalence isn't defeated. The difference is clear and can be made clearer. The right stands for a culture of complaint and seeks dominion for a minority interest against the American heritage. Progressivism stands for a vigorous America still seeking its fortune and future.