The right and the press react to Biden’s speech

I have often referred to what I call “The Art of the Hissy Fit,” defined as the right using “faux outrage to get the media to press the Democrats to disavow or apologize for something they were perfectly entitled to say or do. Most often, it’s something extremely mild compared to what Republicans say and do every day.”

One example of this play to work the refs from the past was the GOP’s flamboyant pearl-clutching over the Democrat’s behavior at the funeral for progressive Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota who died in a plane crash during the 2002 election season. Democrats held a memorial service/celebration of life in which people eulogized Wellstone and also rallied for his political cause (as he would have wanted) with some stemwinding political speeches. The right went nuts, cynically decrying the event as being “disrespectful” and calling for the Democrats to apologize over the alleged insult to Real American values — which they dutifully did.

It was a crock, obviously, but those who’ve been around long enough to remember that event will recall that the pundits went crazy, demanding that the Democrats answer for the outrage while the Republicans snickered behind their backs. It was a minor incident but it illustrates this ongoing tactic of the right wing which has been on display again over the past few days after Joe Biden described the “MAGA Republicans” as “semi-fascist.” The hand wringing and rending of garments by Donald Trump’s minions has been a sight to behold.

So-called GOP moderate New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu called for Biden to apologize as did House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy in a pre-buttal speech on Thursday in which he said:

“In the past two years, Joe Biden has launched an assault on the soul of America, on its people, on laws, on its most sacred values. He has launched an assault on our democracy. President Biden has chosen to divide, demean, and disparage his fellow Americans — Why? simply because they disagree with his policies. That is not leadership. When the president speaks tonight at Independence Hall, the first lines out of his mouth should be to apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as ‘fascists'”

And yet:

It’s enough to make you dizzy, isn’t it? Here we have evidence of Republicans routinely calling Democrats fascists (and communists and even pedophiles etc.) yet they are, once again having a hissy fit over Biden using the same word to describe them, as if he’s the one beyond the pale.

Meanwhile, this week their leader Donald Trump demanded to be reinstated as president and went on a podcast Thursday morning to declare that he is financially supporting the January 6 insurrectionists with plans to pardon all of them and have the government offer them apologies if he becomes president again. I don’t know if that’s fascist but it certainly is demented.

Normally the Democrats immediately fall all over themselves backtracking and apologizing in these situations but they have been remarkably stalwart this time. In fact, on Thursday night President Biden gave his speech in Philadelphia expanding on his judgment of the MAGA movement’s turn toward fascism (although he did not use the word again) and he was unsparing in his description of what a toxic dangerous movement it has become. He said:

For a long time, we’ve reassured ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed. But it is not. We have to defend it. Protect it. Stand up for it. Each and every one of us. MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people and refuse to accept the results of a free election.

Biden said, correctly, that “they see their MAGA failure to stop a peaceful transfer of power … as preparation for the 2022 and 2024 elections,” quoting conservative former federal judge Michael Luttig. And he noted that they are working “in state after state to give power to decide elections in America to partisan and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.” And he rightly pointed out that “they promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”

He made a distinction between these “MAGA Republicans” and mainstream Republicans, suggesting that the latter were to whom he was addressing this speech. I’m not sure the difference is as obvious as he would like to think, however.

Mainstream Republicans who are still backing the party after January 6 and the leadership’s ongoing endorsement of Trump, despite his obvious unfitness, probably aren’t going to be persuaded. But it needs to be said anyway. As Biden put it, “too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal” — and it’s important to keep reminding people of that.

It’s still hard to believe that a president of the United States is compelled to give such a speech but here we are. Biden stood at Independence Hall and warned that we have a powerful fascist movement in this country and exhorted the American people to fight back.

Journalists, meanwhile, were hand wringing over this:

Why am I not surprised? Here we had a serious speech warning about a real threat to democracy and the press decided the optics of the marines standing behind Biden was an equally important issue that needed airing. As usual, the Democrats are held to a different standard as if this triviality is the equivalent of Trump holding the Republican Convention at the White House or bringing a bunch of military gear onto the Washington Mall for his tacky 4th of July celebration. You see, Biden pledged to “do better” so really, it’s even worse.

Here’s an example of the respectful tone by the Republican leadership in the wake of the speech:

Here’s another:

Satanic, Hitler, Nazi, that’s all fine. Just don’t call it semi-fascist. That would be wrong, very wrong. And having those Marines standing there was a dangerous threat to all we hold dear so I’m sure they’ll be calling for Biden to apologize for that too. Some things never change. 

Update—

Greg Sargent makes a similar point:

There’s a whole lot of pearl-clutching going on among the GOP Victorian Spinsters of the Senate. The latest is that they were very, very, VERY offended by Adam Shiff referring to a new report that Trump had said if they voted against him their heads would be on pikes.

The press, of course, went right along with it as if it made any sense at all:

And so did some of the Democrats, naturally:

Let’s be clear. If it wasn’t the “heads on pike” comment that made then stage their phony outrage, they would have found something else. This is a tactic. Reporters have been around long enough to know this and so have the Democrats.

I wrote about it a long time ago:

The Art of the Hissy Fit

Written by Digby / TomPaine.Com October 25, 2007

I first noticed the right’s successful use of phony sanctimony and faux outrage back in the 90’s when well-known conservative players like Gingrich and Livingston pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair and were repeatedly and tiresomely “upset” about fund-raising practices they all practiced themselves. The idea of these powerful and corrupt adulterers being personally upset by White House coffees and naughty sexual behavior was laughable.

But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.

In fact, they became so good at the tactic that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day. Perhaps the best example during the Bush years would be the completely cynical and over-the-top reaction to Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial rally in 2002 in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.

With the exception of the bizarre Jesse Ventura, those in attendance, including the Republicans, were non-plussed by the nature of the event at the time. It was not, as the chatterers insisted, a funeral, but rather more like an Irish wake for Wellstone supporters — a celebration of Wellstone’s life, which included, naturally, politics. (He died campaigning, after all.) But Vin Weber, one of the Republican party’s most sophisticated operatives, immediately saw the opportunity for a faux outrage fest that was more successful than even he could have ever dreamed.

By the time they were through, the Democrats were prostrating themselves at the feet of anyone who would listen, begging for forgiveness for something they didn’t do, just to stop the shrieking. The Republicans could barely keep the smirks off their faces as they sternly lectured the Democrats on how to properly honor the dead — the same Republicans who had relentlessly tortured poor Vince Foster’s family for years.

It’s an excellent technique and one they continue to employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark “controversies.” (The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.)

But it’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation) as this well trafficked internet article defines it:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

The article goes on to lay out several defining characteristics of ritual defamation such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” Perhaps its most intriguing insight is this:

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people — and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric. The social order these fearsome conservative rituals pretend to “protect,” however, are not those of the nation at large, but rather the conservative political establishment which is perhaps best exemplified by this famous article about how Washington perceived the Lewinsky scandal. The “scandal” is moved into the national conversation through the political media which has its own uses for such entertaining spectacles and expends a great deal of energy promoting these shaming exercises for commercial purposes.

The political cost to progressives and liberals for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton’s behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad — and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large.

Ritual defamation and humiliation are designed to make the group feel contempt for the victim and over time it’s extremely hard to resist feeling it when the victims fail to stand up for themselves.

There is the possibility that the Republicans will overplay this particular gambit. Their exposure over the past few years for incompetence, immorality and corruption, both personal and institutional, makes them extremely imperfect messengers for sanctimony, faux or otherwise. But they are still effectively wielding the flag, (or at least the Democratic congress is allowing them to) and until liberals and progressives find a way to thwart this successful tactic, it will continue. At this point the conservatives have little else.

What do you suppose today’s enforcers of proper decorum would say to this?

Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place – the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. — Mark Twain

++++

By the way, Trump commonly uses the term “heads on pikes.” And he’s said it before in the exact context that was reported:

This indicates it was Trump himself who said it.

Of course it was. Everyone knows it . And the hissy fit that followed over Schiff bringing it up is 100% bullshit.

Hissy Fit Redux

by digby

In the hearing yesterday, Professor Pam Karlan was talking about the history of the constitution and the founders and she said, “the president can name his son Baron but he can’ make him a baron” and the right wing fever swamp rose up in a collective primal scream.

A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously biased public pandering, and using a child to do it.

— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) December 4, 2019

It was, of course, completely bogus, the comment was anything but insulting or demeaning toward the kid.  But Karlan ended up having to apologize anyway just to stop the incessant screeching.

This is a patented right wing hissy fit.  I wrote about this a long time ago:

The Art of the Hissy Fit

By Digby , TomPaine.com
Posted on October 25, 2007

I first noticed the right’s successful use of sanctimony and faux outrage back in the 90’s when well-known conservative players like Gingrich and Livingston pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair and were repeatedly and tiresomely “upset” about fund-raising practices they all practiced themselves. The idea of these powerful and corrupt adulterers being personally upset by White House coffees and naughty sexual behavior was laughable.

But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.

In fact, they became so good at the tactic that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day. Perhaps the best example during the Bush years would be the completely cynical and over-the-top reaction to Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial rally in 2002 in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.

With the exception of the bizarre Jesse Ventura, those in attendance, including the Republicans, were non-plussed by the nature of the event at the time. It was not, as the chatterers insisted, a funeral, but rather more like an Irish wake for Wellstone supporters — a celebration of Wellstone’s life, which included, naturally, politics. (He died campaigning, after all.) But Vin Weber, one of the Republican party’s most sophisticated operatives, immediately saw the opportunity for a faux outrage fest that was more successful than even he could have ever dreamed.

By the time they were through, the Democrats were prostrating themselves at the feet of anyone who would listen, begging for forgiveness for something they didn’t do, just to stop the shrieking. The Republicans could barely keep the smirks off their faces as they sternly lectured the Democrats on how to properly honor the dead — the same Republicans who had relentlessly tortured poor Vince Foster’s family for years.

It’s an excellent technique and one they continue to employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark “controversies.” (The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.)

But it’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation) as this well trafficked internet article defines it:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

The article goes on to lay out several defining characteristics of ritual defamation such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” Perhaps its most intriguing insight is this:

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people — and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric. The social order these fearsome conservative rituals pretend to “protect,” however, are not those of the nation at large, but rather the conservative political establishment which is perhaps best exemplified by this famous article about how Washington perceived the Lewinsky scandal. The “scandal” is moved into the national conversation through the political media which has its own uses for such entertaining spectacles and expends a great deal of energy promoting these shaming exercises for commercial purposes.

The political cost to progressives and liberals for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton’s behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad — and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large.

Ritual defamation and humiliation are designed to make the group feel contempt for the victim and over time it’s extremely hard to resist feeling it when the victims fail to stand up for themselves.

There is the possibility that the Republicans will overplay this particular gambit. Their exposure over the past few years for incompetence, immorality and corruption, both personal and institutional, makes them extremely imperfect messengers for sanctimony, faux or otherwise. But they are still effectively wielding the flag, (or at least the Democratic congress is allowing them to) and until liberals and progressives find a way to thwart this successful tactic, it will continue. At this point the conservatives have little else.

What do you suppose today’s enforcers of proper decorum would say to this?

Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place – the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. — Mark Twain

Under Trump these little rituals are much more ridiculous than they’ve ever been since their own Dear Leader is one of the crudest, most disgusting humans to ever appear on the public stage.  But it doesn’t stop them.

Neither does it stop the mainstream media from taking what they obviously see as a cheap way to curry favor with wingnuttia and pretend that “both sides” are equally crude and uncivilized:

Pandering to fatuous, bad faith right wingers is why we can’t have nice things. https://t.co/zS5waSqlMJ

— digby (@digby56) December 4, 2019

This one was particularly fatuous but the point was to portray Democrats as a coastal elitist witches. That gets the cult very, very excited:

Kellyanne Conway w/absurd attacks on Professor Karlan on Fox & Friends: “If you went to work today to manicure nails, to manicure lawn, if you went to work with a jackhammer or a welding machine … that woman yesterday looks her nose down on you … who the hell are you, lady?” pic.twitter.com/iq1gpGCAGE

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 5, 2019

Professor Karlan’s non-apology (the what-about-the-president-not-apologizing part) just dug the hole deeper, igniting a third, fourth and fifth round of scrutiny and guaranteeing her long career will be remembered for an outburst of metaphorically bared teeth and snarling eyes.

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) December 4, 2019

If you or someone you know is thinking about applying to law school, first consider that in order to graduate you’ll actually have to pay to listen to lectures by self-righteous snobs. pic.twitter.com/oj8ahE8uYj

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) December 4, 2019

They seem nice don’t they?

.

Their whining can’t drown out the voices of the majority

by digby

Michael Tomasky notes the right wing’s one true talent:

Modern conservatism, which has proven to us repeatedly that it can’t manage the economy effectively, prosecute a war successfully, or win the White House honestly any more, is very adept at one thing: Whining.

Conservatives are really good at it. They’re the Bobby Knight of political parties. They throw a lot of chairs. They know how to work the refs, i.e. the media, and get them to buy into a narrative they create not quite out of whole cloth, but out of very little.

Are you old enough to remember the first Al Gore-George Bush debate in 2000? If so, you know what I mean. Gore let out an exasperated sigh a few times when Bush told obvious whoppers like that the vast majority of his tax cut would be going to the middle class. Yes, Gore came off as haughty, but in the immediate aftermath of the debate, it just wasn’t one of the major takeaways. A few days later, Gore’s “elitism” had become The Story of the debate. Insta-surveys showed that Gore won the debate as it happened, but by the time the right was done spinning it, Bush was the winner.

He goes on toe detail the absurdity of Paul Wellstone’s funeral.

I would add that they are doing it right now, saying that Trump’s crude assault on Christine Blasey Ford was what turned the tide for Senate Republicans, strengthening their resolve.

Total, 100% prime bullshit, of course. They were always going to confirm him (or as Mitch McConnell put it, “plow through”) they were just forced to win ugly, which they actually prefer.

I could fill five columns with examples, but you get the idea, so let’s cut to the chase. Republicans and conservatives are going to spend this week trying to drive home the narrative that the left’s opposition to Brett Kavanaugh was unhinged, un-American, and out of touch with the decent people of the heartland. They’ve already started, as you’ve probably noticed. “Progressive psychosis.” “Insane, disgusting.” And so on and so on.

Okay, here are two points I will concede. One, average people don’t like protesters. They never have, even when they agree with them. By mid-1968, a firm majority of Americans opposed the Vietnam War. But most of those Americans still didn’t like the protesters who marched against it. Dirty hippies. Get a job. Think public opinion backed Martin Luther King marching across that bridge? Think again. This obviously doesn’t mean people shouldn’t protest. It just means we should be aware of this reality.

Two, undoubtedly some protesters or commentators or Tweeters went too far. Impolite and plain nasty things have been said about Susan Collins since last Friday. And of course about Kavanaugh himself. People are angry, and angry people sometimes say inappropriate things.

But let’s be crystal clear about this: Liberals are not the ones who are out of touch. Conservatives are.

Virtually every poll I saw showed healthy pluralities and sometimes outright majorities opposing Kavanaugh’s confirmation. An NPR-PBS-Marist poll had it 52-40 against.

News reports didn’t often provide this context I’m about to give you, but this was astonishing. Historically, most people don’t pay close attention to Supreme Court nominations, and they just assume that if the president chooses someone, there must be a good reason. Strong pluralities continued to back Clarence Thomas in 1991 even after Anita Hill testified. It’s extremely unusual, and possibly unprecedented, for most Americans to oppose a Supreme Court nominee. But it’s the case here.

It is also a fact that more Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford than believed Kavanaugh. That same NPR-PBS poll had it at 45 percent believing Ford, and 32 percent Kavanaugh.

Republicans, not Democrats, are in the minority.

Yes, they do have a majority in the Senate, which is why this happened. And Kavanaugh passed by one vote. His 50 votes may have represented in this case the bare majority of the Senate, but the senators who voted to confirm him do not represent 50 percent of the country. It isn’t even close. Assigning half a state’s population to each voting senator and doing a little rounding produces the result: Senators who voted for Kavanaugh represent around 145 million Americans, while senators who voted against him represent 181 million. That’s 56 to 44 percent, with the will of the majority brazenly thwarted by the most unrepresentative legislative body in the democratic world.

And of course let’s not forget, and yes it’s fair and entirely relevant, that Kavanaugh was nominated in the first place by a president who lost the popular vote and of whom a minority of Americans approve.

Angry? You bet we are. But crazy? Out of touch? Absolutely not. We who oppose Kavanaugh are the majority. We are the decent people of the heartland.

This has been going on since the absurd impeachment of a popular and duly elected president over blowjobs back in the 90s. We’ve since had two elections where Republicans lost the popular vote but eked out dubious victories in the anachronistic electoral college, something that had happened only once before over a hundred years ago. They’ve broken the norms about redistricting outside the census years and have now welcomed foreign interference in the elections on their behalf.

It takes a massive effort on the part of the decent people to overcome their cheating. Democrats have to have a much larger margin to win than they do and they have to work twice as hard to get their people out to vote because the Republicans have put up as many barriers as possible to allow them to vote.

But it can be done. There are more Democrats than Republicans and more Independents who are freaked out by Trump and his minions than there are Independents who like him. They all have to vote.

.

Hey, remember when the Republicans had a fit over Kathy Griffin’s ill-thought out joke because poor Barron saw it and was upset? Well, I guess he’s over it because they’re using it in campaign ads now:

That ad reminds me of a post I wrote many moons ago.

The Art Of The Hissy Fit

By digby

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I first noticed the right’s successful use of  ostentatious handwringing, sanctimony and faux outrage back in the 90’s when well-known conservative players like Gingrich and Livingston pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair and were repeatedly and tiresomely “upset” about fund-raising practices they all practiced themselves. The idea of these powerful and corrupt adulterers being personally upset by White House coffees and naughty sexual behavior was laughable.

But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.

In fact, they became so good at the tactic that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day. Perhaps the best example during the Bush years would be the completely cynical and over-the-top reaction to Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial rally in 2002 in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.

With the exception of the bizarre Jesse Ventura, those in attendance, including the Republicans, were non-plussed by the nature of the event at the time. It was not, as the chatterers insisted, a funeral, but rather more like an Irish wake for Wellstone supporters — a celebration of Wellstone’s life, which included, naturally, politics. (He died campaigning, after all.) But Vin Weber, one of the Republican party’s most sophisticated operatives, immediately saw the opportunity for a faux outrage fest that was more successful than even he could have ever dreamed.

By the time they were through, the Democrats were prostrating themselves at the feet of anyone who would listen, begging for forgiveness for something they didn’t do, just to stop the shrieking. The Republicans could barely keep the smirks off their faces as they sternly lectured the Democrats on how to properly honor the dead — the same Republicans who had relentlessly tortured poor Vince Foster’s family for years.

It’s an excellent technique and one they continue to employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark “controversies.” (The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.)

But it’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation) as this well trafficked internet article defines it:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

The article goes on to lay out several defining characteristics of ritual defamation such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” Perhaps its most intriguing insight is this:

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people — and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric. The social order these fearsome conservative rituals pretend to “protect,” however, are not those of the nation at large, but rather the conservative political establishment which is perhaps best exemplified by this famous article about how Washington perceived the Lewinsky scandal. The “scandal” is moved into the national conversation through the political media which has its own uses for such entertaining spectacles and expends a great deal of energy promoting these shaming exercises for commercial purposes.

The political cost to progressives and liberals for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton’s behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad — and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large.

Ritual defamation and humiliation are designed to make the group feel contempt for the victim and over time it’s extremely hard to resist feeling it when the victims fail to stand up for themselves.

There is the possibility that the Republicans will overplay this particular gambit. Their exposure over the past few years for incompetence, immorality and corruption, both personal and institutional, makes them extremely imperfect messengers for sanctimony, faux or otherwise. But they are still effectively wielding the flag, (or at least the Democratic congress is allowing them to) and until liberals and progressives find a way to thwart this successful tactic, it will continue. At this point the conservatives have little else.

What do you suppose today’s enforcers of proper decorum would say to this?

Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place – the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. — Mark Twain

!

It’s a little bit disappointing to see this phony handwringing returning

Dissing Real Americans 

by digby

Clinton out with a statement re “deplorables.” Says she shouldn’t have generalized about ‘half’ of Trump supporters. pic.twitter.com/rnQfNR5PrV

— Tamara Keith (@tamarakeithNPR) September 10, 2016

Recall this piece of mine from 2007

I first noticed the right’s successful use of sanctimony and faux outrage back in the 90’s when well-known conservative players like Gingrich and Livingston pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair and were repeatedly and tiresomely “upset” about fund-raising practices they all practiced themselves. The idea of these powerful and corrupt adulterers being personally upset by White House coffees and naughty sexual behavior was laughable.

But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.

In fact, they became so good at the tactic that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day. Perhaps the best example during the Bush years would be the completely cynical and over-the-top reaction to Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial rally in 2002 in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.

With the exception of the bizarre Jesse Ventura, those in attendance, including the Republicans, were non-plussed by the nature of the event at the time. It was not, as the chatterers insisted, a funeral, but rather more like an Irish wake for Wellstone supporters — a celebration of Wellstone’s life, which included, naturally, politics. (He died campaigning, after all.) But Vin Weber, one of the Republican party’s most sophisticated operatives, immediately saw the opportunity for a faux outrage fest that was more successful than even he could have ever dreamed.

By the time they were through, the Democrats were prostrating themselves at the feet of anyone who would listen, begging for forgiveness for something they didn’t do, just to stop the shrieking. The Republicans could barely keep the smirks off their faces as they sternly lectured the Democrats on how to properly honor the dead — the same Republicans who had relentlessly tortured poor Vince Foster’s family for years.

It’s an excellent technique and one they continue to employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark “controversies.” (The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.)

But it’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation) as this well trafficked internet article defines it:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

The article goes on to lay out several defining characteristics of ritual defamation such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” Perhaps its most intriguing insight is this:

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people — and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric. The social order these fearsome conservative rituals pretend to “protect,” however, are not those of the nation at large, but rather the conservative political establishment which is perhaps best exemplified by this famous article about how Washington perceived the Lewinsky scandal. The “scandal” is moved into the national conversation through the political media which has its own uses for such entertaining spectacles and expends a great deal of energy promoting these shaming exercises for commercial purposes.

The political cost to progressives for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton’s behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad — and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others to insincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large.

Ritual defamation and humiliation are designed to make the group feel contempt for the victim and over time it’s extremely hard to resist feeling it when the victims fail to stand up for themselves.

There is the possibility that the Republicans will overplay this particular gambit. Their exposure over the past few years for incompetence, immorality and corruption, both personal and institutional, makes them extremely imperfect messengers for sanctimony, faux or otherwise. But they are still effectively wielding the flag, (or at least the Democratic congress is allowing them to) and until liberals and progressives find a way to thwart this successful tactic, it will continue. At this point the conservatives have little else. 

I post this because I can see a lot of Democrats on television insisting that Clinton has made a grave mistake in calling out the racist haters in the Trump coalition. If they keep up the drumbeat it’s highly likely she will be forced to do more than issue that statement. The race is close and she cannot allow this truth-telling to dominate the campaign going forward.

If it fades over the next few days she will have dodged a bullet.  But the immediate response of the Democratic pundits and surrogates to Clinton telling a simple and obvious truth about many of Trump’s voters (and frankly, all of them, since they are willingly voting for an authoritarian white nationalist ) tells me that they are looking for a reason to distance themselves from anyone making the observation she made. The people Clinton was talking about are white conservatives, and no matter how racist and xenophobic they are, the political establishment still considers them to be the only Real Americans.

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QOTW: Megyn Kelly

by digby

She’s very upset as usual:

Kelly: Kate’s murder has since exploded into a national debate on illegal immigrant, sanctuary cities in crime. With the White House ducking the issue of its own acquiescence in these city’s decision to flout the federal immigration laws which were duly enacted. When asked repeatedly this week to speak to this case, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest declined to weigh in other than to refer folks to the Department of Homeland Security. A stark contrast to what we saw after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. A man we now know was attacking a police officer at the time of his death. His funeral saw three Obama officials in attendance, his death drew comments from President Obama personally. And the administration also sent in the DOJ and 40 FBI agents dispatched to Missouri after Michael Brown was killed.

Where is the swarm of agents in San Francisco? Then there was Freddie Gray in Baltimore, a repeat drug offender who was killed in police custody. Here again his funeral was attended by three Obama administration officials and again the President spoke personally to Freddie Gray’s death. And again, sent the DOJ in to investigate. When Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, the President spoke to his death which was later ruled to be in self-defense. But Kate Steinle, nothing. No comments, no swarm of FBI agents, no DOJ investigation, nothing. Why?

[President Obama] picks and chooses the victims he wants to highlight and apparently this victim wasn’t deemed worthy.”

If Kelly thinks the president’s job is to go to the funeral of everyone who is gunned down in America he’s going to be very busy indeed. In fact, we will need a full time executive bureaucracy devoted to the task.

This is a line they’ve been using every since three obscure members of the administration attended Michael Brown’s funeral. At that point they were shrieking like hyenas that Obama was sending officials to the young thug’s funeral while ignoring the funeral of General Michael Green. That didn’t turn out so well:

On August 18, Washington Examiner editor and Fox News contributor Byron York described how claims that the Obama administration neglected to send a representative to pay respects to Greene began on right-wing blog Legal Insurrection and began to gain traction in the right-wing media. York apologized for personally pushing the story and pointed to coverage of Hagel’s attendance to set the record straight.

I was wrong. It turns out Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel did, in fact, attend the Greene funeral, a fact I should have known. Before sending out the tweet, I made a couple of perfunctory checks to see whether Hagel had attended, didn’t see him in the news coverage I read and passed on the information without further checking. If I had looked into it just a bit more, I would have seen, for example, a Stars & Stripes article that specifically mentioned Hagel’s presence. Once I saw that, I sent out two tweets correcting the mistake.

Right wingers spend an inordinate amount of time criticizing Democrats for their funeral habits. It’s a real thing with them.

Oh, and by the way, that Kelly commentary? Eric Wemple reminded us that Kelly insists, “I’m a straight-news anchor. I’m not one of the opinion hosts at Fox.”

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Holiday Fundraiser Greatest Hits: The Art of the Hissy Fit

by digby

10 years is a long time to be an independent blogger. You work pretty much 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year so it’s something like being a parent with a newborn — a newborn who never grows beyond two weeks old. It screams and howls and needs feeding every four hours. But you love it — it doesn’t seem like a burden. It’s a joy.

I’ve been lucky in that readers like you make it possible for me to keep doing it the way I like to do it, on my terms, which is a true gift.

If you have a couple of bucks to throw into the kitty to keep us up and running for another year, you can click on of the buttons or send something to the snail mail address on your left.

Meanwhile, let’s take another trip down memory lane shall we?

I wrote the following piece in reaction to the notorious Move-On General Betrayus ad back in 2007. The entire political establishment lost its head and turned what should have been a very transitory contretemps over an extremely minor matter of opinion into a full blown scandal, largely as a result of the right wing’s amazing ability to churn up just this sort of hysteria and distort the political system in the process.

The Art Of The Hissy Fit


By digby

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

I first noticed the right’s successful use of  ostentatious handwringing, sanctimony and faux outrage back in the 90’s when well-known conservative players like Gingrich and Livingston pretended to be offended at the president’s extramarital affair and were repeatedly and tiresomely “upset” about fund-raising practices they all practiced themselves. The idea of these powerful and corrupt adulterers being personally upset by White House coffees and naughty sexual behavior was laughable.

But they did it, oh how they did it, and it often succeeded in changing the dialogue and titillating the media into a frenzy of breathless tabloid coverage.

In fact, they became so good at the tactic that they now rely on it as their first choice to control the political dialogue when it becomes uncomfortable and put the Democrats on the defensive whenever they are winning the day. Perhaps the best example during the Bush years would be the completely cynical and over-the-top reaction to Senator Paul Wellstone’s memorial rally in 2002 in the last couple of weeks leading up to the election.

With the exception of the bizarre Jesse Ventura, those in attendance, including the Republicans, were non-plussed by the nature of the event at the time. It was not, as the chatterers insisted, a funeral, but rather more like an Irish wake for Wellstone supporters — a celebration of Wellstone’s life, which included, naturally, politics. (He died campaigning, after all.) But Vin Weber, one of the Republican party’s most sophisticated operatives, immediately saw the opportunity for a faux outrage fest that was more successful than even he could have ever dreamed.

By the time they were through, the Democrats were prostrating themselves at the feet of anyone who would listen, begging for forgiveness for something they didn’t do, just to stop the shrieking. The Republicans could barely keep the smirks off their faces as they sternly lectured the Democrats on how to properly honor the dead — the same Republicans who had relentlessly tortured poor Vince Foster’s family for years.

It’s an excellent technique and one they continue to employ with great success, most recently with the entirely fake Move-On and Pete Stark “controversies.” (The Democrats try their own versions but rarely achieve the kind of full blown hissy fit the Republicans can conjure with a mere blast fax to Drudge and their talk radio minions.)

But it’s about more than simple political distraction or savvy public relations. It’s actually a very well developed form of social control called Ritual Defamation (or Ritual Humiliation) as this well trafficked internet article defines it:

Defamation is the destruction or attempted destruction of the reputation, status, character or standing in the community of a person or group of persons by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. For the purposes of this essay, the central element is defamation in retaliation for the real or imagined attitudes, opinions or beliefs of the victim, with the intention of silencing or neutralizing his or her influence, and/or making an example of them so as to discourage similar independence and “insensitivity” or non-observance of taboos. It is different in nature and degree from simple criticism or disagreement in that it is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by an organization or representative of a special interest group, and in that it consists of several characteristic elements.

The article goes on to lay out several defining characteristics of ritual defamation such as “the method of attack in a ritual defamation is to assail the character of the victim, and never to offer more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.” Perhaps its most intriguing insight is this:

The power of ritual defamation lies entirely in its capacity to intimidate and terrorize. It embraces some elements of primitive superstitious belief, as in a “curse” or “hex.” It plays into the subconscious fear most people have of being abandoned or rejected by the tribe or by society and being cut off from social and psychological support systems.

In a political context this translates to a fear by liberal politicians that they will be rejected by the American people — and a subconscious dulling of passion and inspiration in the mistaken belief that they can spare themselves further humiliation if only they control their rhetoric. The social order these fearsome conservative rituals pretend to “protect,” however, are not those of the nation at large, but rather the conservative political establishment which is perhaps best exemplified by this famous article about how Washington perceived the Lewinsky scandal. The “scandal” is moved into the national conversation through the political media which has its own uses for such entertaining spectacles and expends a great deal of energy promoting these shaming exercises for commercial purposes.

The political cost to progressives and liberals for their inability to properly deal with this tactic is greater than they realize. Just as Newt Gingrich was not truly offended by Bill Clinton’s behavior (which mirrored his own) neither were conservative congressmen and Rush Limbaugh truly upset by the Move On ad — and everyone knew it, which was the point. It is a potent demonstration of pure power to force others toinsincerely condemn or apologize for something, particularly when the person who is forcing it is also insincerely outraged. For a political party that suffers from a reputation for weakness, it is extremely damaging to be so publicly cowed over and over again. It separates them from their most ardent supporters and makes them appear guilty and unprincipled to the public at large.

Ritual defamation and humiliation are designed to make the group feel contempt for the victim and over time it’s extremely hard to resist feeling it when the victims fail to stand up for themselves.

There is the possibility that the Republicans will overplay this particular gambit. Their exposure over the past few years for incompetence, immorality and corruption, both personal and institutional, makes them extremely imperfect messengers for sanctimony, faux or otherwise. But they are still effectively wielding the flag, (or at least the Democratic congress is allowing them to) and until liberals and progressives find a way to thwart this successful tactic, it will continue. At this point the conservatives have little else.

What do you suppose today’s enforcers of proper decorum would say to this?

Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place – the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. — Mark Twain

I have a feeling Mark Twain would be the subject of many a hissy fit were he alive today.

Keep your eye on Benghazi. They haven’t succeeded in turning this into a full blown hissy fit so far and I suspect that it’s only because there are just too many serious stories out there and it can’t get the oxygen. But judging from what I saw on the alternate Fox universe yesterday, even as Wayne LaPierre was doing his best Strangelove impression, Fox was flogging the “Benghazi report” as if Ken Starr had been called up to investigate Hillary’s panty drawer.

And they’re trying it out on Chuck Hagel too — which represents a new front, I think. I’ve never seen them do it to a Republican before.

Again, thanks for reading these scribbles all these years. David, Dennis, tristero and I are all very grateful that you keep coming back.

Cheers,

digby

I hear a lot of chatter about how the left needs to forget about electoral politics, stop talking and start organizing, go local and all the other stuff I’ve been hearing off and on for as long as I can remember. And there’s an element of truth in all of it.

Geller’s trip to the Ground Zero World Trade Center Memorial, where she preached against Islam and protested the building of Cordoba House, aka the Ground Zero Mosque, conveniently coincided with the New York City première of her “documentary,” The Ground Zero Mosque: The Second Wave of the 911 Attacks. Geller describes her (other?) group, American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which, along with her Stop Islamization of America group, also exists to curtail the First Amendment freedoms of Muslim-​Americans, as — get this! — a “human rights organization!”

To boot, Market Watch, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, actually last week printed a press release from Geller that falsely claims, “while White House guidelines forbid official 9/​11 ceremonies from mentioning who attacked the U.S. on that day or why, the 9/​11 Freedom Rally features more honest speakers,” and also falsely stated:

While clergy, 9/​11 first responders, and 9/​11 family members are barred and/​or not invited to the official ceremonies, all are welcome at the 9/​11 Freedom Rally.

Those groups were not “barred” from attending.

If these right wing bloggers are so sensitive about politics on 9/11 maybe they could clean up their own house first.

This controversy is utter nonsense. Even this breathless report admits that Krugman didn’t say anything that was actually wrong, only that politics are “inappropriate” on 9/11 — a rule that I don’t recall signing on for and neither did the rest of the country. I have no trouble with Geller or Krugman or anyone else expressing political thoughts on 9/11. Indeed, considering how repressive Islamic fundamentalism is, it may be the greatest tribute we can pay to the dead. 9/11 was a horrible day, but it wasn’t an act of God. It was the ultimate violent political act — terrorism. The last thing we need is to memorialize it as a sacred day above politics.

Giving Notes To Mourners

by digby

Jon Stewart takes on the Memorial critics:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
		The Daily Show on Facebook

We all remember the Wellstone hissy fit, but my personal favorite was the full blown meltdown over the behavior of the mourners at the Coretta Scott King funeral. It’s going to be hard for them to beat that one.

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