dagblog - Comments for "Why Play with Fire? Four Explanations"

Sorry Doc, but this is silly.

quinn esq — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:35:08 +0000

In reply to Yes, I do know those things,

Sorry Doc, but this is silly. Public figures have strong incentives to prevent civil violence???

Oh. Ok. I can stop worrying then.

Seriously, there are ALWAYS public figures and public figure wannabe's who stand to gain from violence. Often, there are real costs and risks to them if they run too far out ahead in this direction. what we see now is that more and more of them are playing around the edges.

I mean, you can make BIG money and BIG fame and BIG power gains from violence. It's hugely tempting. The fact that the Civil Rights movement may have won some battles in the 1960'sis an n of 1. Hell, I can show you 1,000,000 assholes who've gained from violence through history. Like, ummmm.... the citizens of the United States, for starters. From 1776 on.

So a big time complete and absolutely total NO, to the idea that encouraging bloodshed inside the house is self-destructive in every way. That doesn't hold in countries, corporations, organizations, sports teams, bands, marriages, churches or families.

Your point is also a good

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 17:54:11 +0000

In reply to Agreed. It was not my intent

Your point is also a good one. The play-to-the-base strategy was Bush's, and that's part of the reason that Republicans aren't trying to shut down the hysteria.

Agreed. It was not my intent

Doctor Cleveland — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 03:23:00 +0000

In reply to Fair enough, but my main

Agreed. It was not my intent to blame this civil irresponsibility on Bush, who was never inflammatory. Good point.

I do think that the GOP's strategy of playing to the base under all circumstances is an indirect consequence of 9/11, which made that usually-unworkable strategy work for Bush. But playing to the base is not the same as inciting the base to violence, which Bush clearly did not do. It's a good point.

Fair enough, but my main

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:30:23 +0000

In reply to Okay, I retract

Fair enough, but my main point was that what we're seeing from the right these days is not a consequence of 9/11 or G.W.'s response to it.

Okay, I retract

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:07:00 +0000

In reply to I disagree with your recent

Okay, I retract "demagogue."Or I restrict it: he demagogued the war, and terrorism. He didn't race-bait, but he (and his proxies) were happy to to paint opponents as "soft on terror." So he was only a demagogue when it came to national security, but that was all the demagoguery he required.

But my main point is that Bush ran to the Right under all circumstances, whatever the normal political logic was, and his post-9/11 popularity appeared to ratifty that approach.

I disagree with your recent

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:32:06 +0000

In reply to I agree with those basic

I disagree with your recent history. Bush was partisan, ideological, warmongering, and confrontational, but he wasn't a demagogue, at least relative to compatriots like Tom DeLay and even Ronald Reagan. He didn't go for the George Wallace government-persecuting-America rhetoric, he didn't play up fears of Hispanics, blacks, or homosexuals. (Again, it's all relative.)

I actually believe that 9/11 was a respite from the 40-year-trend of persecution paranoia. 9/11 and the Iraq War focused the nation on an external enemy and villains who actually wanted to do America harm, even if they lacked the means. But the current hatred and paranoia are focused on internal "enemies" who are not enemies at all. It was building in the 90s, paused from 2001-2003, and then started cranking up again with Bill O'Reilly and FOX News in 2004. I think that it's telling that Pat Buchanan, a true demagogue, didn't even support the Iraq War.

I agree that the chances of real demagogic president are slim but I think not as remote as you believe. People in this country and elsewhere have been known to swoon and lose their senses over a charismatic leader who tells them what they want to hear. Fortunately, there's no one on the political scene who adequately fits that description.

Yes, I do know those things,

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:14:51 +0000

In reply to "Liberals talking about

Yes, I do know those things, Quinn. Anger and violence are part of human nature. But public figures have strong incentives to prevent spasms of civil violence. At the very least, it serves their interest to channel the hate toward some external enemy. But encouraging bloodshed inside the house is self-destructive in every way.

And they have appealed to the hateful and violent implicitly for the last forty years, but in the decade before that they indulged in actual violence and lost everything that was on the table for discussion at that point. Southern segregationists have done pretty well when they've stuck to the political process, because Northerners and Westerners weren't willing to get into a serious hassle over the way things worked in the South. But when segregationists turned to outright violence, and the rest of the country were seeing them as angry mobs on TV, the Jim Crow policies suffered absolute and permanent defeat. (No one's ever going back to separate rest rooms or any of that madness.) In 1952, the average white voter outside the South didn't especially care if black Americans could eat lunch at the Woolworth's in Birmingham. By 1962, when segregationists were blowing up churches, the position of whites outside the South had basically turned to, "Enough is enough." And the segregationists weren't offered any compromises then. It's only when they went back to peaceful political means (however vile the rhetoric) that Southern racists started to advance their policy goals again.

"Liberals talking about

quinn esq — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 06:12:51 +0000

In reply to Why Play with Fire? Four Explanations

"Liberals talking about violence."

Can I just say that some of us have times - moments or hours or years or sometimes entire lives - where violence seems like a GREAT idea.

Where anger and hatred and all that self-righteousness, all that adrenalin, all that mobbed up excitement, just feels GREAT.

When even violent acts themselves are attractive, ENJOYABLE.

I donno where this fits in your schemas, but some people like to be angry, like to hate, like watching violence, like seeming to be part of violent things, and even like participating in violence.

I know it seems bizarre, but tens of millions of people kinda fit in these categories.

Now.... for those who're LEADING these games, some of them feel this as well - it's not just a con. They know the juiciness of these feelings. And they also seem to know something liberals keep forgetting - that once a dynamic is set in motion, there are 1001 ways to ride the tide, surf it, incite and lead it, and if it fucks up... 1001 ways to disown it.

The Republicans would be gone for a generation? Hello? I'm not sure you were watching the last 40 years, but these pricks APPEALED TO THE HATEFUL AND THE VIOLENT AND GAINED SUPPORT.

I agree with those basic

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 05:16:08 +0000

In reply to I completely agree about the

I agree with those basic scenarios, although there are a couple of others. There is a scenario in which an extremist-friendly candidate wins the GOP nomination but then, with the brass ring of the Presidency so tantalizingly close, decides that s/he needs to rein in the crazies. (I can imagine a nominee afraid or unwilling to do that, but I can also easily imagine one responding to clear political imperatives.) There's also, although vanishingly unlikely, the possibilty of some kind of intra-party revolt if the GOP's 2010 gains are lackluster and the leadership even becomes crazier. I'm not counting on that.

I also think the idea of a right-wing demagogue winning is frightening but remote; it would require some fairly drastic events to make it happen, and big crises might actually break Obama's way rather than his opponent's. (Say what you will, the POTUS is reassuring, and while incumbents take the blame they also get to be the heroic daddy.)

I certainly agree with the GOP's frustrating and unorthodox tactics; a healthy party should have reversed course long ago, and the political price they paid in 2008 should have been unbearable. In this, actually, I think we can blame the long echo of 9/11, which still distorts our politics although it no longer sways many voters. Bush gained the presidency with 49% of the vote and governed in a confrontational, ideologically rigid way; by summer of 2001 he was already beginning to reap the consequences of his bad strategy, when he pushed a Senator out of his own party and lost the majority. But September 11 saved Bush, and made his self-destructive approach to politics work. The rally-around-the-flag effect, and Bush's demagoguery, actually got him increased majorities in 2002, when most presidents see Congressional losses. The Republicans decided that the lesson of 2002, which they've learned to excess, is that being more ideological always works. They stuck with that strategy even after getting beaten badly in 2006; they're sticking with it after getting beaten even harder in 2008. I don't know what it will take to make the Rump GOP abandon the 2002 playbook.

I completely agree about the

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:52:56 +0000

In reply to Great response, Genghis.

I completely agree about the role that a true leader G.O.P. leader would likely play, and agree that we won't probably won't see any shift until 2011. The only possible interference, other than a really serious domestric terrorist attack, would be serious Republican losses in 2010. But I think that's unlikely. Furthermore, Republicans had very serious losses in 2008, but they behaved in the opposite way that a losing party usually does, veering to the extreme instead of back towards the middle. That's consistent with your point about Republican leadership eschewing any kind of positive message.

I see three possible endings to this. One, a serious Republicans presidential candidate tames the hatemongers. Two, the rage strategy undermines the party to the point that they suffer serious enough losses to reconsider their tactics. Three, a charismatic right-wing demogogue actually wins the presidency. Obviously, three is the one that I'm most concerned about. It's not likely--the U.S. system makes fringe candidacies difficult, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. It has certainly happened elsewhere.