The Democratic Need to Demonize
When I read Pamela’s comment to my post on Rush Limbaugh & the Conservative Pantheon, I laughed a rich full-bodied laugh. As the Emanuel/Carville plan to demonize the outspoken radio talker has backfired, Democrats are now going after the Alaska Governor:
Multiple Democratic strategists say the party plans to increasingly elevate Palin in the same manner it has employed Rush for weeks, using her high-visibility, her social conservatism, and memories of her harsh attacks on Obama during the campaign to tar the GOP as partisan, obstructionist, and backward-looking.
What is it about these guys, always needing someone to demonize? Jim Hoft quips that it’s “a bit odd that they are attacking Sarah Palin now since the election ended months ago.”
And they accuse our side of divisive politics!
Now that Democrats are in power, this could backfire on them, reminding voters that Obama’s campaign (and recent) rhetoric notwithstanding, his party still engages in the old Washington politics of blame and attack:
A Pew Research poll conducted last fall found that 41 percent of independents said that they thought the press had been too tough on the governor. Now that President Obama’s approval numbers are slipping, especially among independents, that key group could perceive the Democrat’s attacks on Palin the same way they saw the media attacks. If they think the Democrats are unfairly dissing Palin, there’s just no win there for the Dems.
But, the real question that remains is what does it say about today’s current crop of Democrats that they feel they must demonize the opposition to get their message across. Maybe it’s their form of distraction. They want people to focus on Republicans’ flaws so as to prevent people from seeing their “message” for what it really is.
Whenever you hear someone talk about mean-spirited Republicans, remind them that Democrats–and their allies in the media–are always looking to vilify their partisan rivals.
And wonder as well about their need to be mean.
28 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
In South Carolina, Democrats are posting phony GOP “Impeach Sanford” signs. Are you Democrats simply incapable of having an honest debate?
Comment by V the K — March 31, 2009 @ 9:40 am - March 31, 2009
And on Sunday, I was waiting in the turn lane behind a car decorated with anti-Bush bumper stickers, including one calling for his impeachment.more than two months after he left office.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — March 31, 2009 @ 10:41 am - March 31, 2009
Orwell laid it all out in _1984_. Statists/fascist-socialists can’t win on truth or facts, so they must keep the faithful fueled on hate.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — March 31, 2009 @ 11:01 am - March 31, 2009
Alinsky Rule #9.
Comment by heliotrope — March 31, 2009 @ 11:17 am - March 31, 2009
#2 – Dan, it’s drivers like the one you described who I just love to cut off in traffic. Usually because they are driving so slow and talking on their cell phone at the same time, acting as if they own the road.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 11:23 am - March 31, 2009
It unreal, these jerks know that they can not win on their arguments alone, they have to resort to these tactics. Too many of dems turned into these kinds of folks that is why I am finally leaving the dem party and registering as an Independent.
Comment by Pamela — March 31, 2009 @ 11:23 am - March 31, 2009
You guys are too much….
#3
Its great that Orwell is back in the righty lingo after an 8 year hiatus!
Were you scared to quote him for fear of hypocrisy?
Happy days are here again! eh?
Comment by gillie — March 31, 2009 @ 11:34 am - March 31, 2009
#6 – Pamela, if you are leaving the DNC because of people like #7, then more power to you! It shows how much sense you have versus, well, #7.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 11:56 am - March 31, 2009
If Dhimmicrats took on crime, terrorism and illegal aliens the same way they demonize conservatives, we’d be living in the best country on Earth.
But then again, who ever said that Dhimmicrats were Americans? Liberals love America the way Chris Brown loves Rhianna.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 11:58 am - March 31, 2009
It reminds me of how hitler blamed the Jews. Are the GOP today’s Jews for the dems?
Listening to some comments on lefty blogs it appears that a lot of dems would like to apply the final solution to the GOP much like hitler did to the jews..
Comment by unseen — March 31, 2009 @ 11:58 am - March 31, 2009
Well when your stock in trade is victim politics… you have to have a villain/oppressor. Not everyone (unfortunately for Dems) can be a victim you know.
Comment by Dark Eden — March 31, 2009 @ 12:02 pm - March 31, 2009
PeterH,
I have been thinking about i for a longtime now. Finally did something about it today.
Comment by Pamela — March 31, 2009 @ 12:02 pm - March 31, 2009
I hope they go after Palin in a big way. The exposure would elevate her status on the national political scene while seasoning her to play Chicago-style demonization hardball. It’s great to practice now while there’s not an election on. By the time game day rolls around, she’ll have honed her defenses against their tactics, and developed the brand equity and polished presence to win. She already has the right values and message. If the other side wants to scrimmage with our stars, I say we should take as much of that as we can get. It only strengthens us while depleting them.
Comment by Mark Miller — March 31, 2009 @ 12:02 pm - March 31, 2009
#10 – Welcome to “teh resistance” (with apologies to V the K)!
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 12:04 pm - March 31, 2009
Liberals know they can’t win on rational arguments. Enough said!
Comment by Dave_62 — March 31, 2009 @ 12:22 pm - March 31, 2009
And Pamela, you are traveling a well worn path. Did you know even Ronald Reagan used to be a Democrat? He said, “I didn’t leave the Democrat Party. It left me.” That’s true of a lot of people.
Comment by Dark Eden — March 31, 2009 @ 12:35 pm - March 31, 2009
Aren’t the democraps the party which supposedly believes you don’t kick a guy when he’s down? Or is it now the party that believes you should stick a knife in the guy especially when he’s (or she’s) down?
Comment by eaglewingz08 — March 31, 2009 @ 1:20 pm - March 31, 2009
Aren’t the democraps the party which supposedly believes you don’t kick a guy when he’s down?
Only if you swear complete and total allegiance to them. Otherwise, Obama Party members consider you worthless and subhuman.
Palin raises the Obama Party’s ire because at its core is a huge well of misogyny: women should be subservient to Obama Party males because said males have, in their immense benevolence, granted them the ability to kill the babies produced by the sex that Obama Party members demand these women provide them, and also in the process, ensure that Obama Party males never have to be held responsible for the children they produce.
Establishing that all children have value is a horrifying thought for the Obama Party members; the lack of abortion means that they would have to start paying for their bastards, and that they would also have to face the consequences of their social policies that denigrate the family and marriage while encouraging promiscuity and irresponsibility.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — March 31, 2009 @ 1:52 pm - March 31, 2009
Evidently, Democrat operatives/activists believe that you should kick a woman if she chooses life, or if she doesn’t get an abortion on-demand, so to speak – i.e., on the operatives’/activists’ demand that she should have gotten one.
Democrats lost when they targeted Liimbaugh. Now they need to pick on a woman, or someone ‘smaller and weaker’ in terms of her daily media footprint. Classic “bully” behavior, and sure to lose again.
Supposedly, James Carville mapped out the Limbaugh strategy and now the Palin strategy. Man, that guy is tanking in my estimate. I knew he was a partisan hack, but… one *this* lame? He’s jumping the shark, and making Palin-haters (her harshest critics) look like the nasty, petty people that many of them probably are.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — March 31, 2009 @ 2:45 pm - March 31, 2009
#10 – “Listening to some comments on lefty blogs it appears that a lot of dems would like to apply the final solution to the GOP much like hitler did to the jews.”
In the UK, I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what they were planning on doing soon – weeding out “life unworthy of life” circa 1939:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2009/03/31/british-enviro-official-calls-halving-uk-s-population-us-media-virtually
Aldous Huxley and George Orwell had it right on the money in their respective books. We. Are. So. Screwed.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 3:00 pm - March 31, 2009
Apparently the DNC didn’t get the memo with their asinine “Americans didn’t vote for a Rush to failure,” billboard.
They may not have voted for it, but a rush to failure is exactly what they got. Wasn’t it Kerry, who served in Vietnam, who kept saying “You break it, you buy it”?
Guess what libs….
Comment by ThatGayConservative — March 31, 2009 @ 3:22 pm - March 31, 2009
Sooooo…..you can defend it, can you, gillie? Can you explain why the “Special Olympics” Kid is so eager to distract the Proles?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — March 31, 2009 @ 3:25 pm - March 31, 2009
A reasonable person needs to ask themselves – why are the liberals so afraid of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh that they have to resort to such Alinskyite tactics to utterly destroy them?
The truth, perhaps?
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — March 31, 2009 @ 8:52 pm - March 31, 2009
It’s not just today’s Democrats. It’s part and parcel of liberalism.
I was listening to Mark Levin today, who was playing Reagan’s speech in support of Goldwater, and even back then he was talking about liberals demonizing anyone who opposed their statist policies as not caring about children or the elderly.
America is founded on conservative principles and Americans are, as such, inherently conservative. Which is exactly why liberals MUST lie and demonize to win.
Comment by American Elephant — April 1, 2009 @ 3:36 am - April 1, 2009
#24 – “America is founded on conservative principles and Americans are, as such, inherently conservative. Which is exactly why liberals MUST lie and demonize to win.”
And that is exactly why we as conservatives MUST defeat liberals at all costs. They cannot be trusted to lead.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — April 1, 2009 @ 11:57 am - April 1, 2009
BWAHAHAHAHA
Republicans don’t demonize? Republicans aren’t mean?
You crack me up.
Comment by Houndentenor — April 2, 2009 @ 9:51 am - April 2, 2009
And again, Houndentenor attempts to avoid the question by going ‘Look over there!’ Do some of the Republicans attack and characterize their political foes? Yes. Do they do it as a collective whole? No.
Calling Tim Geither a tax cheat isn’t demonizing, it’s the truth.
Calling John Kerry a liar about his accounts of Vietnam isn’t demonizing, it’s the truth.
Calling Sarah Palin unqualified? Umm how? Accusing her of covering for her daughter’s pregnancy in some elaborate scheme? Demonizing. Trying to claim she’s so stupid that ‘she can see Russia from her house?’ Demonizing.
Comment by The Livewire — April 2, 2009 @ 11:21 am - April 2, 2009
When demonizing Gov. Sarah doesn´t work, who´s next?
Comment by Roberto — April 2, 2009 @ 12:11 pm - April 2, 2009