Justified Rhetoric
by David Atkins
Paul Krugman wrote a marvelous post yesterday hitting on a theme that has been a pet peeve of mine for years: that a political attack is no less true for being “harsh” or “divisive”, as the pearl-clutcher brigade would say.
Krugman:
Greg Sargent takes us to Paul Ryan’s latest speech, in which Ryan expresses outrage over what President Obama is saying:
Just last week, the President told a crowd in North Carolina that Republicans are i favor of, quote, “dirtier air, dirtier water, and less people with health insurance.” Can you think of a pettier way to describe sincere disagreements between the two parties on regulation and health care?
Just for the record: why is this petty? Why is it anything but a literal description of GOP proposals to weaken environmental regulation and repeal the Affordable Care Act?
After briefly explaining that weaker environmental regulations would in fact mean dirtier air and water, and that ACA repeal would in fact mean more uninsured Americans, Krugman closes thus:
So Ryan is outraged,outraged, that Obama is offering a wholly accurate description of his party’s platform.
Let me add that this illustrates a point that many commenters here don’t seem to get: criticism of policy proposals is not the same thing as ad hominem attacks. If I say that Paul Ryan’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries, that’s ad hominem. If I say that his plan would hurt millions of people and that he’s not being honest about the numbers, that’s harsh, but not ad hominem.
And you really have to be somewhat awed when people who routinely accuse Obama of being a socialist get all weepy over him saying that eliminating protections against pollution would lead to more pollution.
Honestly, the only things keeping Republicans politically afloat nationwide (outside of the gobs of money they’re able to spend on propaganda) are 1) their ability play victim and bully almost simultaneously without shame, and 2) the fact that a large number of self-professed liberals and left-of-center types go weak in the knees the first time anyone actually calls out Republicans for the actual consequences of their policies. Republicans can cheer the death of an uninsured man during debates, but the entire nation clucks in disapproval if Alan Grayson suggests that the Republicans want sick people without insurance to die quickly.
After trying to take the bread off the tables of America’s seniors while doling out big tax breaks to billionaires, Paul Ryan is whining about President Obama’s harsh rhetoric. And sadly, his whine will register with a lot of comfortable “moderates” who value “civility of discourse” over actually telling the truth or getting anything done.
Digby said it well yesterday:
And Lord help the poor Democrat who even timidly attempts to speak to those grievances — he or she is instantly attacked for “dividing the American people,” (unlike that congressman who giggled and smirked about “driving the liberals crazy.”) It’s an extremely successful gambit that’s deployed over and over again because liberals and establishment types invariably take the bait. For reasons best left to sociologists and psychologists, the mere hint from a right winger that a liberal might be divisive makes them run for cover.
Goodness knows I have more Democrats like that in my own local circles than I can shake a stick at. It’s easy for progressives online to get sucked into an echo chamber in which Democrats are fleeing Obama by the millions because of his lack of progressivism. But the reality is that there are also millions of people in this country who would otherwise vote Democratic on policy, but happily vote for a “nice” Republican if the Democrat seemed too “mean.”
It’s not just that Republicans have a lot of moneyed interests on their side. It’s also that the Republican base is simply much more politically belligerent than the Democratic base. In a perfect world, the entire Democratic voting bloc would laugh in Ryan’s whining face. In this world, sadly, a great many of them will listen with a “sympathetic” ear and an “open mind.”
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