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Ann Coulter is calling for Bill Kristol’s resignation after Kristol called for the resignation of RNC Chairman Michael Steele in the wake of his comments about Afghanistan.
Like Steele, Coulter’s reading of history is sketchy at best. And her argument against current policy in Afghanistan is plainly rooted in partisan and inaccurate claims of fact. But that’s largely besides the point.
As I noted the other day:
The political landscape in a country with two major parties is a landscape of poles. It is a rare moment when the two parties hold the same position on a major and controversial issue. For the last few decades or so, and certainly during the Bush years, the popular conception of the Democratic Party – warranted or not – has been the party of doves, where Republicans are the party of hawks. However, as the Democratic Party has responded to very effective criticism from the right that they are "soft" on national defence by becoming more hawkish in aggregate, and as the Democratic Party has begun to own the issue of Afghanistan specifically with President Obama’s embrace of escalation, the Republican party is naturally pushed towards the opposite position.
Having owned the "Party of War" brand for so long, it is taking a long time for Republicans to return to their earlier roots as the party of isolation. But as Ron Paul showed in 2008, the isolationist, anti-interventionist message is one that resonates with a lot of Republicans (and many progressives – I myself agree with a fair amount of Ron Paul’s ideas on foreign policy, though certainly not all). As the Democrats own Afghanistan further and get themselves further mired in war, Republicans will move to oppose the President.
That opposition will be dishonest, non-fact-based, and not lead the nation towards a more peaceful future in aggregate, but it will be opposition nonetheless. I predict Republicans will eventually accomplish a complete flip on Afghanistan and end up opposing the war. Coulter is just the latest in a long line, and the second in as many weeks, to make the jump.
14 Comments
A dittohead Republican that I know has been making comments that we should just “go nuke Afghanistan.” I don’t know if el-Lushbo is spouting this nonsense or not, but he must be because the person I know wouldn’t have an original political thought if his life depended on it.
So it could be Republicans will flip to just shrieking about nuking the **** out of Afghanistan as their “final solution.”
OTOH, go figure. If Coulter is now hating on Kristol, does that mean that I now must (shudder) *agree* with Kristol? Not a pretty thought.
Jason, the quoted matter from your earlier diary is exactly the thinking that has gotten us to this place, i.e., “the two parties are different and THAT (that, that) is why we MUST (must, must) keep voting Democratic (or Republican).
You’re a relatively young guy (relative to my aging ass! :) and I admire the way you tow the party line. I’m not just saying that; I really do – perhaps because you remind me of myself at your age. But after 50 – and in the face of the undeniable lack of backbone this Democratic President and, to be fair, others before him, along with the spineless pols in their respective caucuses, have unflinchingly displayed – wait, did I say backbone, spine? Those words imply they once actually intended to stand by the principles they so freely spouted in winning their seats, rather than opt for political expedience… and we know THAT (that, that) isn’t the case!
Through my (admittedly jaundiced) eyes, diaries such as this have one aim and one alone: To keep up the notion within the still-idealistic among us that these people really give a shit. They simply don’t. We who do, on the other hand, lack the ability to bring about change. And THAT(that, that) is the real shame.
Hold on a second there. My quoted matter is simply stating the reality of political landscapes within a two party system. We need to understand that reality in order to combat the knee-jerk lesser-of-two-evils argument. I’m not endorsing that argument every time it’s made (sometimes I feel it’s appropriate, sometimes it’s not), but we certainly deserve to understand the very real dynamic in play.
Allow me to fine tune your comment, J. It is not “the reality” of political landscapes. It is what we’ve been sold as being the political landscape, and implicit in that is the notion (more strongly, the belief) that voting for one party or the other will lead to the enactment of the policies they (falsely, and for pure political expedience, as often as not) claim to espouse.
I’m wanting to put a fine point on this because I believe it is at this very place – the place where we, the politics consumers, for lack of a better term – decide whether to buy the “reality” being purveyed, that our system first leans off the rails.
We have that power; the power to decide whether the political landscape being mapped for us is reality. To me, our willingness to separate whatever landscape is “bought” by a plurality sufficient to elect people from the actions of those people after their election is what derails the train completely.
No, it’s the reality.
We live in a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all political system. These kinds of systems – as opposed to parliamentary systems, proportional representation systems, or other voting types like Instant Runoff Voting – produce a two party system. This fact has been confirmed by thousands of papers, PhD dissertations, mathematical studies as well as a general survey of countries with these systems. It’s a feature (not a bug) of our “one man, one vote” democracy. Our system, at its very core, literally discriminates against anything but two parties.
Now, I’m all for changing that system, though it’s a long road. But until it’s change, it is in fact a reality, and we need to learn to play the game we’re given while working to change the rules. Otherwise we’ll continue to lose to those who do get it.
When someone so in love with self promotion becomes utterly irrelevant, this is the result. She doesn’t care how she’ll be portrayed, only that she’ll be relevant and topical. Why else would you attack the leader of the noise machine?
Actually – we’re victims of a strategy of divide and conquer – dictated from well beyond the President’s pay grade, and in fact, from beyond our very borders.
This country is only equally divided in the media – and the perception they portray, via the most polarizing issues. Your neighborhood does not reflect these sentiments at these extremes. Don’t confuse what the media tells you, with reality.
Media ownership study ordered destroyed
Sept 14, 2006
‘Every last piece’ destroyed
Adam Candeub, now a law professor at Michigan State University, said senior managers at the agency ordered that “every last piece” of the report be destroyed. “The whole project was just stopped – end of discussion,” he said. Candeub was a lawyer in the FCC’s Media Bureau at the time the report was written and communicated frequently with its authors, he said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14836500/
“You can’t tell any more the difference between what’s propaganda and what’s news.”
FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein
15 August, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28political_science%29
A number of techniques which are based on social psychological research are used to generate propaganda. Many of these same techniques can be found under logical fallacies, since propagandists use arguments that, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid. A few examples are: Flag-waving, Glittering generalities, Intentional vagueness, Oversimplification, Rationalization, Red herring, Slogans, Stereotyping, Testimonial, Unstated assumption.
In the West, the term propaganda now overlaps with distinct terms like indoctrination (ideological views established by repetition rather than verification) and mass suggestion (broader strategic methods).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” (The US dictionary definition has gotten somewhat squishier since then, as all the larger dictionary companies have been bought up by multinational corporations.)
Mussolini was quite straightforward about all this. In a 1923 pamphlet titled “The Doctrine of Fascism” he wrote, “If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.” But not a government of, by, and for We The People – instead, it would be a government of, by, and for the most powerful corporate interests in the nation.
I smell Karl Rove all over this stunt (Steele is just the clown – Rove is running the entire strategy for the GOP right now). He convinced Coulter to take one for the team. Attacking Kristol actually serves to bolster his credibility – a critical component for the Hasbara Sound Machine.
Kristol is CENTRAL. They need him to be front and center, and this puts him right there, on the high ground.
No, it isn’t the reality – doctoral dissertations (read: sales jobs) mathematical studies (read: hand-picked statistics) and your own cockeyed optimism not withstanding.
If the winner takes all, why have the latest winners – the Democrats – failed to take their mandate anywhere?
Cue Jason: “Oh, but they HAVE (have, have…). They’ve reformed health insurance [not]. They’re about to reform Financial Regulation [um, no]. They’re ending the war in Afghanistan [uh-uh]. They’re empowering workers [puh-leeze].”
Seriously Jason, what is the point of this diary other than an attempt to rally disillusioned lefties by bright-lining a difference between the GOP and Democrats – one which, in reality, is comprised of propaganda and imagination, not policy?
I think you’re moving the goal posts, or I’m not understanding the conversation. If you’re arguing that two dominant major parties aren’t a feature of our political system until we change the foundations of that system, including the dynamic I laid out in the post with how the two parties interact, then you’re wrong. If you’re arguing that Democrats haven’t done enough with their mandate, then you’ll get no argument from me.
I’m arguing – as clearly stated – that your post is just more propaganda aimed at (re)invigorating disaffected lefties by putting up an easy-to-hate target. Your claim that the two parties seldom hold the same positions is nonsense when applied to what actually affects people: approved legislation/enacted policy.
That’s not the point of my post at all. If anything, it’s goal is to make progressives realize what’s happening – the Republicans are about to flip on Afghanistan – so we can hold the Democratic party accountable to its stated values of being the party of peace and not let the classic two-party dynamic work against us.
Not sure how you got what you did out of it. Perhaps my writing is unclear.
Oh, I realize it wasn’t the point, J. But it was the effect nonetheless. You and others continue to believe that the “polar differences” between the parties are (1) real and (2) actualy mean something. If we don’t have enough proof that they don’t by now, we never will.