[lbo-talk] Krugman: Success of the Right is a Puzzle

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Mon Nov 10 06:16:05 PST 2003


On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:


> Help us, Chip! You're the expert on the right's appeal. How can we
> short-circuit it?

On the mundane level of the Dems winning the Presidential election, I think part of the answer is harnessing anger, something liberals seem afraid of.

Not that the left hasn't always had lots. It's just that we tend to focus on things that only a tiny number of us get angry about, like people getting tortured by regimes the US supports. The right has always been angry about the same thing, except enemy regimes. But to harness anger, you have to have a target that a larger number of people can easily resonate with, that's very simple, that doesn't bog down in body math.

Like a president lying.

That's essentially what turned the 2000 election. The Repugs would not have been able to win if there wasn't a yeast of people who were demonically angry at Clinton. The economy was just too good. And the one way they connected with the wider populace is by saying this was a man who lied about something that could be proven.

Well now we've got that in spades, if we can make that a central issue and keep it focussed: that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11 and that there were no Iraqis on that plane. And that this president has lied over and over and over about that, and when caught, lies about it again. There's no reason why it shouldn't be just as inflammable. More even, since this really is about principles and policy, which the other one wasn't. But we have to hammer at it until it becomes a presence, until it becomes an issue. Because only then will voters in the middle that we're trying to reach even hear us. But when they do, I don't see why they should become even outraged than we are. Because to them it will actually be news.

And for some reason, the president lying to their face really pisses people off.

But to make it work, I think we have to focus in on the lie that is so completely provable that almost seems beneath us to mention it: that there were no Iraqis on that plane, and no connection between it and Saddam.

(It's actually a huge bonus that we don't have to digress into WMD anymore. Because if we don't bring it, they certainly wont!)

Michael



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