I know some of you think I have something personal against people like Greenwald, Hamsher, Moore and the rest of the professional left. I assure you, I do not. I'm sure if I met them and had a conversation with them, I'd find them delightful. In fact, I can honestly say, I admire them all for the things they do right. I still point to Bowling for Columbine as one of the best examinations of our gun culture ever, and Roger & Me changed the definition of documentary forever. (Well, until Ken Burns came along and added another definition, anyway.) I happen to like a lot of what Glenn Greenwald and Jane hamsher write; I only have a problem with their increasing tendency to exaggerate, and even outright lie, in an attempt to "sensationalize" their views on issues. They think they're helping the cause by providing extreme lefties with "red meat," in the same way the right wing does. They would be wrong.When the professional left simply makes things up, it actually undermines the movement. Our media can’t be like Fox News and expect to win elections.
For the last 40 years, the progressive side of the debate has been largely dormant. We have been extremely ineffective, politically speaking, to the point that a small minority of right wing cretins has been able to dominate electoral politics for the last 32 years. The reason we have been dormant is because a large portion of our most vocal “advocates” apparently believe that the sorts of things Limbaugh and the douchebags at Fox News do and say actually work, and make the right more popular. They do work, but not because the right wing becomes more popular. The right wing doesn't win elections, we LOSE THEM. That's a VERY important distinction.
Our side must always keep in mind that the number one Republican strategy is to depress turnout at the polls. They’re a small minority of the population, and it’s the only way they can win. In other words, there are actually TWO purposes for their rhetoric; one is to excite their extremist base with red meat. But the other is just as important; they want to make the people in the political middle, including swing voters who ACTUALLY decide elections, not want to vote. Their “base” makes up about a quarter of the population and this is a democracy; do the math.
When progressives try to mimic the Fox News crowd, it has the same effect; it depresses turnout among moderates and swing voters. That's why we lose.Think about it; if the GOP’s main strategy is to depress turnout, and our rhetoric depresses turnout, how are we not helping them in their effort?
This isn’t just conjecture. When you look at voter turnout figures (Go here, here and here), you see a steady downward spiral since the end of World War II. Look at the presidential election years; when turnout was around 60%+ every election, we got people like FDR, Truman, Ike and Kennedy. Since 1980, the ONLY time we even came close to 60%, in 2008, we got the first Democrat to win a clear majority for president since LBJ in 1964. (Clinton won twice, but never got more than 50% of the vote.) In the 1950s and 1960s, the off-year elections featured 45-50% turnout, and we had a moderate/progressive majority (usually Democrats), and the nutbars who occupied the Dixiecrat and Taft wings of the two major parties had minimal influence in Congress.
That’s not coincidence, folks.
When we’re positive and honest, we win. When we’re negative and dishonest, we lose. It’s really that simple. In 2008, we rallied the troops behind Barack Obama and he won in a walk. Immediately after his election, our side went right back into whine mode, and we lost in historical fashion in 2010. Again, NOT coincidence.
If we truly want a progressive country, we’re going to have to convince a majority of voters that progressive values are a winner. We can’t do that by lying. In fact, the lying is killing us. Pretend you're an average voter -- the kind we need on our side to build a progressive country -- neither right or left wing, and you're trying to decide whether or not to vote at all. You already think the right wingers are a bunch of lying loons.
- When a self-described "liberal/progressive," especially one most average Americans actually trust, claims the Department of Homeland Security is behind the raids on Occupy camps, and that turns out to be false, why would that not cause us to lose credibility?
- If our loudest voices are going to claim, on the one hand that we represent 99% of all Americans and then turn around and complain that a major labor union is attempting to “co-opt the movement,” why would you NOT turn away from progressives as a bunch of dishonest jerks?
- If self-described “investigative journalists” are proclaiming that Obama’s “caving” to the far right on everything, and you later read that the far right is upset because they didn’t get anything they wanted, who would YOU trust?
- When a liberal “investigative journalist” demands that Obama veto a bill, and you look it up and find out that such a bill doesn’t actually exist, what would your opinion be of progressives’ credibility? For that matter, what do you imagine happens to our ability to reach them later? Even if they find the section of the actual bill to which that liberal “investigative journalist” refers, what do you think happens to our credibility when they figure out that what we’re whining about is actually less than 2 pages of a 902-page bill that also contains several other provisions, such as increased whistleblower protection, that aren’t so bad? Do you really think confusing such people will make us MORE popular?
Republicans lie because they have to. Their “base” is made up of millions of gullible miscreants who live for red meat and attacks on “liberals.” They also know the lies upset people and turn them away from the Democratic process and stay home on Election Day, which makes it more likely they’ll win.
When you defend the lies these folks tell, you're also giving Fox News more credility. The NDAA, for example, has a provision that provides for greater whistleblower protection. What if everyone at FNC adopted the talking point that the liberals are trying to kill "The Whistleblower Protection Bill"? Would you complain? I would, because it would be a lie. Calling the NDAA the "Indefinite Detention Bill" is dishonest propaganda. And when a professional lefties lie or exaggerate to make a point, they're doing exactly what Fox does as a matter of course.
You can’t celebrate progressive politics and also celebrate those who feel they have to lie to support their point of view. Those views are incompatible.
I am a progressive. A full-on, died-in-the-wool proud LIBERAL. But more important than liberalism is truth. Without it, we get tyranny. If you doubt that, look at the last 32 years. Lies get us tyranny; the truth will set us free.
