Who is the bad guy in this drama?
Democrats think the bad guy is a president who attempted to overturn an election, who threatened people to assist him, and who summoned a mob to intimidate Congress and the Vice President to carry out his coup d'état.
Not everyone sees it that way.
The conservative media sees this as a story about Democrats. They are dangerously extreme, impeachment-addicted tyrants out to destroy the constitution and persecute an innocent man.
Democrats think we are seeing the rule of law affirmed and guardrails put up to defend democratic institutions. Democrats need to get out more. They need to watch some Fox News and get onto the mailing list of the RNC and Republican officeholders to see how perhaps a third of their fellow Americans view the event.
Ted Cruz writes me three times a week. This morning he wrote:
Peter,Will you be watching today?The Democrats' Trump Impeachment 2.0 trial is set to get underway, and they're planning an untold number of hours of made-for-TV testimony.Let me be clear: This absurd trial is 100% partisan theater and nothing more. It is vindictive and WRONG.I've been leading the effort to stop this ridiculous show trial!
Cruz's letter goes on to say that the Democrats' real target is him, Ted Cruz, that I should expect new dishonest and even more dangerously extreme attacks and that I should send him "Emergency Support" in the form of money ASAP. Even five dollars will help. This is about building a mailing list of people who fear Democrats.
Fox News faces a two-front battle. On one side, their all-Trump-all-the-time format caused them to lose credibility as a legitimate news source and it put them at risk of defamation lawsuits. They fight a second front in the opposite direction from their grudging acceptance of Trump's election loss. They lost audience to Newsmax and One America and they want it back. Fox is threading the needle by doubling down on the safe-harbor subject: opposition to anything Democratic. It isn't that Trump is perfect or defendable; it is that Democrats are despicable.
Look at every story:
Democratic "obsession"
"Questionable constitutionality"
"Impeachment charade"
Pelosi double standard
"extreme lengths to cancel Trump"
"dumbest possible impeachment" strategy
Biden is "leading insurrection against American people"
Democrats "addicted to impeachment"
Americans "should be outraged over Biden's immigration actions"
Democrats "punish Americans"
Democratic "pipe dreams" on jobs
It goes on. The TV version of Fox is a stronger version of what we see on the web because TV adds the emotional valence of disdain, disapproval, outrage, and resentment in the voices of the hosts.
Democrats have an idea of what is happening in this impeachment. They are missing the second message.
Democrats speak of a cleansing and a re-affirmation of democratic values. They hope they are establishing a bright line: Elections matter, voters choose the president, and it is morally wrong to use bullying or violence to subvert the legitimate transfer of power. Democrats hope that impeachment, even if Trump is not convicted, sends a message to future ethno-nationalist populists that democratic institutions will stand against a demagogue.
That message is not getting through.
The populist political right is receiving and spreading a different message. This isn't about controlling a demagogue. It is about Democrats. Politics is a partisan war of force against a political party that will stop at nothing to defeat you because they are extreme, obsessed, addicted. They govern for the benefit of hoodlums, "illegal immigrants," China, and socialists. They will confiscate your guns and money. They will silence you. They hate God and religious freedom. Democrats, in cooperation with the media, technology companies, and the Deep State are carrying out an insurrection against legitimate government. We good Americans are fighting a total war against a depraved enemy.
In total war, all means are legitimate. That is what justified Trump openly defying the election in 2020 and the enemy is still there. Democrats now are as bad as before, maybe worse.
The messaging isn't working out quite the way Democrats hoped.
11 comments:
Ted Cruz as a correspondent is noteworthy. Email seems safer than opening an envelope from his "office". The televised SURVIVOR: THE US SENATE edition will harden US polarization, but it's process and outcome will document forever the recipitatingb events in hard copy and video. THe truth or illusions of the actual workings of all branches of the US GOVERNMENT wit large will be available for future, possibly dispassionate analysis. The anticipted plethora of contemporary books of analytic disection will be exclusively partisan. None is so blind as he who will not see.
Our thanks for suffering Ted Cruz's mailing list...beyond the call of duty.
The Republican basic governing principle, "screw the poor, I've got mine", which gained traction during the prosperous post WWII era has failed, leading to economic near collapse and the creation of, oops, more poor people!.
Since they can't get power legitimately anymore they have naturally turned away from democracy, a nuisance they barely tolerated at best. The patrician compromises of an earlier time are long gone, and this is a permanent shift, because there's nothing to go back to. Our best hope now is that we pull the shreds of the Republic together and relegate them to a minority in perpetuam.
January 6, 2021...
I don’t care if some republicans profit from the impeachment proceedings. I want the record to show who is for democracy and who is for partisanship. Republicans can not choose both in my opinion. I think 60 % of the American public would choose democracy. That’s enough to save America.
I don’t watch Fox or Newsmax. But it looks to me like Democrats are tripling, even quadrupling, down on identity politics. As well as “cancel culture“ and the mess that humanities academia has turned into.
I don't care if Trump is impeached or not. What comes out is bad for him. It will be remembered. If he runs again in 2024, and even wins the nomination, he will lose in another landslide. The Democrat will win and Trump will be labeled a two-time Loser. That will drive him insane. Doesn't get any better than that.
Thanks to their unqualified backing of a contemptible human being the Republican Party has nullified their legitimacy. Fearful of losing their seats in primaries the craven Republican office holders caved in like a cheap
accordion. Principles were not lacking, they were simply absent from all considerations during a crisis that threatened to topple our legally elected government. I don't want a reconciliation, I WANT A DIVORCE!!!! Unlike Lincoln, I see nothing sacred in a union built on the backs of slavery. Let the Red states go, and wish them Godspeed. I feel no sense of kinship with gun-lovers, racists and ignorant traitors who would install a dictator. Let's be honest. We do NOT have an informed electorate in this nation, the dumbbells constitute a majority and we are left to suffer such as Mitch McConnell. Rand Paul, Josh Hawley and the idiotic Ted Cruz. As presently constituted and governed the American southern states (including Texass) represent a vast, and entrenched reservoir of hate and ignorance, a charge borne out by the actions of their elected officials. Ridding our nation of this anchor to progress would benefit the enlightened. Of course, short of another bloody war this sensible approach to an intractable problem will never be instituted. Nice to think about though,
Bob Warren
I should have made clear that my comment was not a response to the impeachment proceedings or the debacle at the Capitol, for which I expect a lot of people will do be doing 10-year federal prison terms. And the feds are not like the DA in Portland. They prosecute and they don’t let people out early.
But what I am seeing on the democratic party side that is disturbing to me is one appointment after another after another that all look like they are vetted through identity categories, in virtually mandated slot filling. Even the voters in very liberal California rejected the affirmative action measure on their ballot this past November.
I think the national Democratic Party is playing to a small base here and I don’t think in the long run it will play well. Or should.
Meanwhile, in the comments on this blog, I still see the self-righteous vitriol and hatred that I would suggest is part of the problem. On both sides. Not only do I not think Joe Biden can BE a healer, I don’t think the country wants to heal. I think both sides want to triumph, and that would assuredly mean neither will.
Trump and his devotees have a pronounced habit of accusing their opponents of their own sins--"lying Ted Cruz" "crooked Hillary" "rigged election." For Republicans to charge Democrats with extreme partisanship and a determination to win at all costs is perhaps the most egregious instance.
"Sally's" charge that Biden has played "identity politics" with his appointments confuses intentional diversity and inclusiveness with "identity politics." As if an administration composed predominately of white men is not "identity politics." Biden is asking us to identify America with all its members.
Lastly, to the point of your piece. I don't think that those of us who support the impeachment and wish for Trump's conviction believe that it will convince Trump's base and the news outlets that cater to it to change their mind about Trump. A few of the comments above, including that of your son, make the case for why impeachment is important. Beyond that, though, it's too early to say what lasting impact the trial will have. I'm going to hazard the prediction that Trump's support will erode fairly quickly now that he's out of power and has much less opportunity to practice his demogogy. And already his behavior following the election, culminating in the January 6th insurrection, has been noticeably damaging.
I may be wrong, but I believe that doing the right thing pays off in the long term.
Mr Rothschild, inclusion was designed to overcome *exclusion*, which was toxic. But selecting candidates “through identity categories, in virtually mandated slot filling,” is tokenism, in this case writ large.
Good points, Sally.
The racial quotas that Biden is promoting are divisive and they put the lie to his supposed quest for “unity.”
Those on the left promoting a civil war might want to remember which side has all the farms, power generation, and guns.
Sally I wonder if you’re mixing up cronyism with competence. All of Biden’s appointment are highly qualified! That is what America looks like now.
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