So, what’s new? Politicians have played the fear card in every election since, oh … probably since the beginning of elections, though I have no proof.
Oh, wait. What’s new? Right. The memo discusses ways to take advantage of the party’s supporters. Nice! Money wins, again.
Well, this is something. Just when you thought politics could not possibly get any more cynical than phony accusations of “death panels” and “Tea Party” conventions that rip off crazy people with the promise of revolution, we discover that the Republican National Committee thinks its funders are so stupid that they can soak them the basis of “fear,” “socialism,” and tchotchkes.No really. According to a document uncovered by Politico, RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart gave a presentation at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida, on February 18 in which he explained how “ego-driven” Republican donors could be bilked by a campaign of fear and the promise that only the Republicans could “save the country from trending toward socialism.”
The document is breathtaking in the contempt demonstrated for Republican supporters, expecting them to insist that a president who, on the one hand, is accused by his own supporters as being overly cozy with Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry—to say nothing of his hawkish foreign policy—while he’s also dubbed the second coming of Joe Stalin. “What can you sell when you do not have the White House, the House, or the Senate…?” the memo asks. The answer is apparently a series of cartoons in which Obama is portrayed variously as The Joker, and “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid are depicted as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo, respectively.”
The document, which stretches on for 72 pages, has been both defended and disowned by RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s staff. This is understandable. On the one hand, it’s bad form for a party to admit that the only way to excite its base is to treat them as, er, mentally challenged. On the other hand, the guys who came up with it are themselves big-money guys and so were all the people present for the horror show they presented. (The document was apparently leaked by someone who found a stray copy lying around the Gasparilla Inn & Club, the hotel hosting the $2,500-a-head retreat.)
In many ways, the document is a parody of what liberals think conservatives are actually like.
The small-donor schmucks—the ones who give of their tiny incomes so that fat cats might enjoy even more tax breaks—are to be shaken down on the basis of their stupidity. Under the heading “Visceral Giving,” the rich Republican folk seeking to bilk them describe their rationales for giving as “fear” (of a black planet?) based on “extreme” feelings and a “reactionary” outlook. The commies at The Nation could not have put it any better themselves. Meanwhile, the fat-cat donors are credited with more “Calculated Giving.” They don’t trumpet the scare tactics: Rather, they need to have their egos stroked with “Peer to Peer Pressure” and “access.”
Read the entire Daily Beast article, by Eric Alterman, here.
The first televised fear mongering arrived in the 1960s. Here’s a sample (anything sound familiar?):
This one ended Barry Goldwater’s bid for president, even though it only ran once.
Oooo, look: State’s rights …
Hey, now: Communists!
This article appears in Mar 2-8, 2010.
Interesting article. The problem I have with Frank’s comment above is that saying “both sides do it” allows us to dismiss this incident. The more interesting question is which party is doing the fear mongering today. One cannot help but conclude that it is the party of death panels, creeping socialism, and “I want my country back.”
Its easy to support my statements and to disprove yours.
The death panels are not in the health care bill by name but are an obvious result of a socialist medical systems. All you have to do is go to other countries that have socialized medicine and you can see that the death panels have formed. The ground work for such panels are clear to see in Obama’s bill, even if they do not come out and say it. Also the death panels are really just tying to save money. As a result of this certain people will get cut off (the old) and will die as a result. Its really very simple and easy to understand. Its called cause and effect. So don’t look for the word death panel because you wont find it, but the spirit of it is in there.
Creepy socialism is another incredible obvious condition. SCHIP has just been expanded to include incomes of over 100,000 dollars a year and children up to 30 years old. I would call this a big increase in the nanny state AKA creeping socialism. There are many more examples.
The comment I want my contry back is just a simple response to the things I mentioned above.
Both side do it is true. It is a run of the mill tactic now days so no one really cares anymore. The CL does this on a regular basis. It just that you folks agree with the scare mongering of the left so you do not see it as scare mongering.
Neither Political Parties are worth a damn….
I don’t know about you but as far as I’m concerned we have two of the most corrupt, deceptive and thieving political parties in the history of this country and the stench is getting worse everyday. There is truly more honor amongst La Cosa Nostra or the Mafia. They (the two parties) fight each other incessantly can’t agree on a damn thing and would blow up the world rather than help the president save us from their disgusting egos! We expect filth, sleaze and lies from the Republicans but now we have these so called “blue dog” Democrats who are just as worthless and venomous. A prime example is the disgusting politician known as Larry Kissell; a homegrown Charlottean who calls himself a Democrat. He is one of the worst examples of a blue dog there is.
There is no acceptable reason to vote against Obama’s Healthcare bill…period other than keeping the massive and ungodly profits in the hands of the Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industries. We say we can’t afford a trillion dollars yet we spend hundreds of billions annually to kill innocents in wars that we have no business in whatsoever. There is no justifiable reason for us to be in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s all about oil; always has been and always will be, anything else is a lie. Hell we should have declared war on Saudi Arabia; they produced these terrorists. We have the flag waving extremist tea party radicals who will kill anyone (small children included) for any reason after wrapping the American flag around themselves in the name of Patriotism. They would not flinch over spending hundreds of billions of dollars to do so.
Rush Limbaugh said it best when he he declared “I want to see him fail” referring to our President. This is the same philosophy held by Republicans, the blue dog Democrats and the so called Tea Party as well. They can call it being fiscally responsible and being accountable to the American people but we know better. It’s strictly about skin color and should be called for what it is….Racism! Don’t fool yourself and think that all Democrats wanted to see Barack Obama elected President; they didn’t and fought just as hard as the Republicans to keep him out of office. Fortunately the American public couldn’t stand anymore of George Bush, Dick Cheney et all of the most disgusting, corrupt and lying administrations in the history of this country. He and Cheney were beyond the shadow of a doubt the absolute worst of the worst. Another example of the worst is North Carolina Democratic representative Larry Kissell who obviously has his own agenda in voting against this historic bill.
Our elders choose daily between eating pet food, buying their meds or seeing their physicians because the cost are through the roof and Republicans don’t give a damn; never have and never will. They and their families “have” health insurance They have always represented Big Oil, the Pharmaceuticals, the Tobacco Industry and the Insurance giants. This is where their money, bribes and payoffs come from. These are they whom their loyalty is pledged; it’s where their lavish lifestyles are financed. Don’t get me wrong, there are Democrats in bed with them too. I’m convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Republicans will vote “no” on feeding the starving, helping the crippled or saving anyone from disease if Barack Obama suggests it. They hate him simply because he’s Black and they still haven’t accepted the fact that he beat the wheels off not just John McCainbut collectively beat their asses as well. He did so through truth, honesty and integrity; something that is totally alien to this sordid political party. This society has been starved of these traits for many years.
They are determined to vote no on anything except those bills that benefit their handlers who are Corporate America. They have no solutions, no bills presented to help us, no ideas on anything except to allow the former vice President and Halliburton to get away with a no bid contract in Iraq worth tens of billions of dollars that would allow them to rob us blind and they did. Only a fool can’t see that most wars are about Corporate profits and “money”; plain and simple. Public opinionis easily swayed mostly because of the intellectual deficiency amongst many Republican followers and tea party loyalists. Our political system of government is in shambles and total disgust; no wonder so many politicians are leaving the arena laden with defecation. I don’t know who heads the Mafia right now but I’m seriously considering petitioning him to run for the senate or congress and to bring as many as 100 of his constituents with him. We can’t do worse and one thing for sure if they say they’re going to do something; they usually do. Many of these worthless pieces of shit (politicians) need to simply “go away”; go away or be put away. osei
Kwame is right what he wrote sounded like someone who is just pissed about everything. Truthfully I think he is right it’s sad to say and hard to believe this country has that corupt. I am loosing my hope for a better tomorrow.
I agree with most everything that Kwame said except the part where he said the republicans hate him because he is black. Well that may be true but it’s more about power. Remember they did it to Bill Clinton,John Carry, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter and on and on if you are a Democrat you are evil. The republicans are the kings of lying and smearing people.