Wife beaters, soylent green, insurance companies. Now it makes sense.
I've been horribly perplexed watching the right wing hysteria concerning health care reform. Apparently we're all going to be living in collectives or reeducation camps, forced to grind granny into Soylent Green, while Obama sends the Sandmen after any oldster spry enough to escape the fryer. Thousands of amok running state funded abortion doctors will be selling baby parts wrapped in the Constitution, and millions of wise Latinas will be cloned from stem cells to oversee the Workers Paradise.
Holy crap! I don't know ANYONE who is happy with their insurance. Mundane everyday claims denied, apparently just to see if they can get away with it (there's easy money in just checking the "nope" box), getting dropped because you had the audacity to get sick, profit motivated leaches (not government bureaucrats) standing between you and your health care provider, and on and on and on.
Then it finally struck me. Stockholm Syndrome. These people have been abused by the system for years, and the Right is playing on their fears such that they can't leave the status quo. Scared abuse victims going with the devil they know.
It's going to be a hard road. I'd be interested in other thoughts on why the Right can so successfully twist people to agitate/vote against their own self interest, and how to turn it around.
Okay, the only problem here is a) I never felt sexually attracted to Dick Cheney, and b) I pity the fool who would.
And, also (Charlie, wink, wink) I don't see that the Republican party has done anyone any favors lately, and they certainly aren't showing their "softer" side. In fact, I doubt they have one.
That all being said, I agree with your post and highly recommend it.
August 5, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
too funny.
August 6, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seconded.
August 6, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, providing this blog has actually found the reason that the neocon and corporate power structures were able to "manipulate" the vast unwashed massed on the right, I only have a single query.
Is bashing the abuse victims in the face when they show up at the shelter the right strategy to help them face their psychosis?
Seems to me, having actually landed in a battered woman's shelter as a scared nine-year-old peeking from behind my mom's legs, that the correct response is compassion and empathy rather than condemnation and scorn. If the left really thinks the right is psychologically damaged through years of systemic abuse, I am not quite sure why they think heaping further abuse on their fellow citizens is a good strategy.
Victims of long-term abuse will make excuses until the cow's come home to explain their black eyes and broken arms as misunderstandings or accidents. They will rationalize their abuse as being somehow required or deserved. The last thing they respond to is aggressive confrontation or to having their own stupidity shoved in their faces.
I think the democratic party missed a huge opportunity this year was to build on the reconciliation President Obama started in the general election. When 10 to 15 percent of republicans voted to send Barack to the White House, America had a very small window of opportunity to widen those gains. We didn't and here we are, trapped in the same old Partisan Two Step. It may be a lively tune but is starting to feel a bit worn as a method of conducting citizen involvement in politics.
We The People should be playing an adversarial role with Congress, both on the left and right, rather than fighting with each other over semantics or who has been most abused by the system we all helped build through decades of inattention.
August 6, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been thinking about the SLA and SDS and the rambunctious 60's. As a young girl I remember being appalled at their violence but I was also secretly thrilled with their actions against "the man". It is my memories of those times that has made me stop saying "Do you believe how crazy they are?". I know I have said this before, but watching the wing nuts froth about IS amusing after being told how un-American and immoral I was for the past 8 years. I just hope they stop messing about before someone gets hurt.
I'll be understanding and compassionate when they stop throwing crap at my house. When they knock on the door and ask for help I'll help.
August 6, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Problem is the wing nuts never will, but the vast majority of conservative still get tarred with that brush. I am simply saying that such a reaction to fringe beliefs is counterproductive to progress.
August 6, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too deep. An alarming portion of the American population is woefully ignorant. They're not interested in straining their brains to understand complex issues. They need their down time.
However, if an issue is packaged as a bauble in a glittery, shiny wrapper, it may well catch their attention.
It seems the right has the savvy to figure out which baubles will jerk people out of their torpor. They dangle those baubles, usually fake, at every opportunity and, voila, they've captured the coveted attention of the impressionable uninformed. No persuasion required. It's really that simple.
Once they've grasped the bauble, it's hard to convince them to let it go. Even if they finally agree it's a fake, it has such allure, they'd just as soon keep it. That's what liberals are up against most of the time.
August 6, 2009 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, I don't think there are baubles. I don't think the GOP has any shiny packages, or much of anything, given the lack of an alternative plan from them. This is about abuse and negative reinforcement. This is a grand deception. It's right there in plain sight, although it is incomprehensible to the rest of us who can ask our own questions.
Here is how it works: The punditry first play Q&A. They pose a question, then answer the question. It made sense on its face. The big-hearted, trusting people[BHTP] nod their heads. Pundit repeats process, and BHTP again nods, and nods, and nods. After the momentum has built where the BHTP is nearing whiplash and his neck hurts, the pundit then demonizes the Left. BHTP stops nodding after this new information gets past his perpetual nodding disease[PND].
Now the BHTP is disturbed. Labels are put on the Left and dire consequences portrayed. The nation, the children, the Lord, and any ability to defend same with firearms is threatened. Most importantly, it is all characterized as a secret plot, a conspiracy. BHTP stops listening to Left, stops hearing opposing views, goes into blind emotional rants whenever BHTP feels any one of the aforementioned threats are suspected to have been revealed. Who can the BHTP trust? Certainly not those un-Americans, which leaves the rage-making pundits.
The entire process is based in fear. We have known this for years now. These are fearful people. Their most pervasive fear is nothing more complicated then change. BHTP are lazy and do not wish to be disturbed. They were hibernating for eight years and now they've been woken up and they are grumpy. Truth is most of them are upset about insurance rates, too, but they have enough to cover themselves and their family. They probably work for an employer that offers insurance. But even if they do not, the alternative is socialism!!! And despite all the concrete evidence around the workld with national healthcare policies, it is going to cost even more money because back when we went through the Q&A, the BHTP were informed government is intrinsically wasteful and ineffective. Only competition motivates people. {Competition only motivates greedy people. Take profit out of healthcare and they will go elsewhere.]
Yesterday I found an answer. I'm not really comfortable with the technique because it adopts their tactic, but it is a serious consideration nonetheless and much more relevant and realistic then a socialist takeover of everything and a federal euthanasia program. We speak to their fears.
SWINE FLU!!! Will health insurance protect anyone from swine flu? Will a national vaccination program protect anyone from swine flu? Not really. It's a crap shoot whether we have the right vaccine for any outbreak in sufficient numbers when it occurs. A disease mutates. By the time numbers are sufficient, we may be looking at something completely different.
Universal healthcare will enable sick people to be seen by a doctor sooner, to be diagnosed earlier. Treating a cold might prevent their being weaker when the swine flu does comes around, or it might enable them to be taken out of work before they give swine flu to everyone else, those they work with and those who do business with their employer. Think McDonald's people. Think your supermarket, Wal-Mart even.
We can contain swine flu if we can get people to the doctor. We can avoid swine flu if the sick will get treatment earlier. At the extreme, we can avoid an epidemic. We do not want people with the flu going to the hospital ER where they house all those sick people and expose them to the flu. Better they go to a clinic. Enabling them to do that protects the rest of us, the real Americans. [Okay, I do not believe in the myth of the real American. It suggests there are un-real Americans, but I would use the term to play on their fears.]
The flu will not be prevented with insurance, but healthcare. We need Universal healthcare because we don't want 47 million people to contract swine flu and spread it to the rest of the country. We need those people treated timely and in a place that does not threaten people in the hospital. Someplace where they will not make the rest of us sick.
August 6, 2009 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
To see my post on this you will find it here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/gregorzap/2009/08/healthcare-the-last-word.php
August 6, 2009 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
There comes a time, though, when people ignore the person crying wolf. I'll never forget when I lived in DC having conversations with other Washingtonians making fun of the latest Orange alert. While, for most Americans, it only really applied to airports; there every nuance of the alert ranking system played out over the beltway, on 95, and in the Metro. Today--yellow! Tomorrow--orange! Now, yellow again!
Eventually, it was ridiculed. (Ignoring that some were actually frightened by the alerts--many actually had lost friends and loved ones in the Pentagon attack. But even a few of them I'd talked to thought the alerts were playing with our fears)
August 6, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
If "bauble" sounds too nice, how about a fog horn or fire alarm. All I'm saying is the GOP message machine understands that before you can hammer in your message, you have to have the undivided attention of the recipient.
The specter of 45 million uninsured Americans contracting swine flu and unwittingly walking around with it until they collapse might be an effective bauble. One that stoops to the GOP's level.
Your initial argument assumes the BHTP listen to the pundits. They are more likely to overhear people talking at work, glance at the headlines of today's newspaper left on the table in the break room, or listen to the evening news while doing the evening chores. Most Americans are passive learners when it comes to policy issues. We seem to agree on that.
The swine flu angle, unseemly as it is, might have legs. Your post was a good one. The whole concept gets lost though when it's over-analyzed.
The entire model can be encapsulated thus:
Hook attention -> hammer in message.
The hook has to be something that makes an emotional connection. You mentioned fear. That works great.
August 6, 2009 12:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, we're on the same page. Hook and hammer. That's why every guest from the Reich carries the same message, all day, wherever they may be seen.
August 6, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you might be onta something! ;)
August 6, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good discussion. I'd certainly agree that fear is the most effective attention grabber/motivator, and the Right is expert at it. So how does one effectively oppose this radicalized, scared faction? Screaming back won't work. Having the cops escort the frothers out of town halls will feed into their paranoia. Establish free speech zones away from the meetings? Hah! Just kidding. I don't think new agey sessions where everyone can get in touch with their feelings stands a chance either. My fear is they'll look like, and be treated as, a major movement when they're actually just the loudest (Isn't that how the Bolsheviks made it all happen?)
I see on HuffPo that the AFL-CIO is mobilizing to take the frothers on directly. Hopefully it won't backfire. I don't think the frothers are open to changing their minds, and will just double down. Perhaps shining a light (pointing the camera) at the excessive wackos will motivate people of reason to get off their duffs to support reform. Sure.
August 6, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
We could feed their paranoia another way, which would b premeptive. Have everyone sign a statement at the town hall meeting that they were not paid by anyone to attend the conference or to disrupt the conference. They will have to include their name and address. I suspect many would rather run away then admit they were paid, or give up their name and address to the host.
As a student of Russian History, yes, these are classic revolutionary tactics. Seizing power by force of wil when the majority is immobilized.
Now is not the time to be drawn into battle. Now is the time to reform healthcare Then the inuured can get treatment! LOL. Well, actually, it's not funny at all.
August 6, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pyroxene, thanks for this post. It's an important one!
The huge difference between GOP and progressive messaging is the GOP's hooks are most often lies, distortions or gross exaggerations. If you look at messages from the liberal side, they're all based in fact. The facts don't play to the emotions, but you can be darn sure the distortions do.
For example, this is the opening of a viral email my mother received:
This wasn't written by some little old lady musing over her computer keyboard.
I think viral emails were priming instruments for insurance company stooges. Several conservative relatives have sent them to my sister and parents knowing my parents are liberals (my sister is a little bit on the fence).
One cousin sent a viral email with nothing but illustrations. The final illustration was one of a trillion dollar bill with Obama's face on it. How do you refute a picture? It leaves a lasting impression on someone who's uninformed and uncommitted on the issues.
When Obama and his supporters make the case that people's insurance premiums will triple if insurance companies are left unchecked, it falls flat. There's no emotional connection. It doesn't seem real. And it's not to someone on Medicare. The notion that health care costs will bankrupt the nation is an abstraction for most people. Also, Obama's analogies have been pathetically weak.
Most of the people I've seen in photos of town halls seem older. I read that AARP has been bombarded with phone calls from panicked seniors worried that there will be cuts to their Medicare benefits and that they will be forced into end of life counseling. Those people were the target. They're the ones who don't want their security messed with. Many younger people deny things will worsen or simply resolve to adjust as the new paradigm emerges.
Health care reformers need a hook. Then they need to lay the groundwork with an effective instrument like viral email. I would suggest footage like the town halls Rachel Maddow showed the other day. I saw it on HuffPost and was sickened by it. Very powerful stuff. Those would soften up the audience for the message. Which is...?
August 6, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the link to Maddow's segment. This has emotional impact. Revulsion. Unless you're a teabagger. This stuff might soften people up to be receptive to the benefits of health care reform providing those benefits can be captured in a soundbite.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7336
August 6, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
My life is packed in 38 boxes waiting to be moved to a my new office, but I can give you a start to my answer--only the first part, as how to turn it around has been evading people for at least a couple of centuries.
The trick has always been to divide and conquer. 90% of the southern population held no slaves. Why would non-slaveholding whites support a labor system which was in competition them? Because there was someone lower on the totem pole and people look downward as well as upward when comparing social status. From that point it was quite easy to convince tender consciences that the slave actually had it better than the free laborer. See, for example, Grayson's The Hireling and the Slave: http://www.archive.org/details/thehireling00grayrich
Southern "populists" like Pitchfork Ben Tillman used a similar tactic to cloud the fact that poor whites and blacks had common enemies. The result? Blame the victim. See his speech, Their Own Hotheadedness. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/55
If the agents provocateur provoke violence on the part of progressives at healthcare town meetings you can expect the same response from the right.
Same story to keep the unions out of the south...just convince the poor whites that blacks will benefit more and there goes the possibility of a united labor front.
So get those who should be allies to hate each other--not just white v. black, but young v. old, farmer v. foreman, native born laborer v. immigrant laborer, and viola, your work is 2/3 done.
History would be really depressing if it didn't provide lots of examples of heroism in the face of this tactic. Maybe some of the efforts failed--temporarily, but at least they were noble failures.
August 6, 2009 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Evidence from the Bush II era suggests the way to get people to vote against their own interest is to diminish that interest in favor of one that's more emotionally compelling.
For example, the economic policies of the Bush II administration favored the most wealthy individuals and corporations, but did nothing to enhance the quality of life for everyone else. Quality of life was, in fact, deteriorating for almost everyone.
Why did people keep voting for him? The answer is abortion and gay marriage -- issues that had virtually no impact on them whatsoever. With effective framing, those two issues obfuscated the administration's abuses of power and hooked a population that found those issues easier to apprehend than the myriad, overwhelming corruption, incompetence and lack of accountability on display.
That's my take, anyway. Good question, amike.
August 6, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is sort of the opposite side of the same coin. Get the "right to lifers" and "freedom of choicers" at each other's throats and both will be diverted from the forces which oppress them both. Nice point, Ohno (hat tip)
August 6, 2009 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought everyone lived in collectives. I mean I do. Don't you?
August 6, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in a reeducation camp (they broadcast the stuff over my TV day and night).
I never knew Limbaugh had his own website (if the thought to check had ever crossed my mind, I would have shuddered and tried to shrug it off). Anyway, it's pretty funny. He proves unequivocally that liberals are Nazis (oh, and ObamaCare will give the government direct acccess to your bank account!).
August 6, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmm. You have a point there dickday.
"A collective is a group of people who share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project(s) to achieve a common objective. Collectives are also characterized by attempts to share and exercise political and social power and to make decisions on a consensus-driven and egalitarian basis. Collectives differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an economic benefit or saving (but can be that as well)."
I guess we're all here typing in the TPM online collective!
There are less benign interpretations (reference- see BORG).
August 6, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously though, in a discussion (loosely defined) today I ran into so many anti-reform talking points it was astounding. Nearly impossible to get past. I really do try, as I would think most people here would, to do due diligence on the pro-reform talking points (trust but verify). I don't get that feeling from the opponents. Is it laziness, or denial? This circles back to the original point, which was only slightly tongue in cheek, about the Stockholm Syndrome like nature of the anti-reform movement.
Good commentary folks. I'm not sure there's an answer, but if the problem can't be defined there certainly won't be.
August 6, 2009 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink