Culture Wars (DU front page today)

I know a lot of you don't read the articles on the DU front page, but do yourself a favor and read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/04/11/12_frankly.html

It's partly a review of "What's the Matter with Kansas?", which I have never had a chance to read but which sounds like a very important book for all of us; but the second half departs from some of its conclusions to advance a possible means of transforming the party into something that might actually, you know, work.

The basic point of the book, as these authors describe it--which is that the Republican media machine has managed to persuade people living in economically depressed rural areas to direct their anger at the "cultural elite" rather than at the corporations and politicians who are actually responsible for the economic depression--is IMHO right on the money and very important; but, as they also point out, you have to also account for the very successful way in which that same media machine has persuaded the same people to blame African-Americans, Latinos, and other disadvantaged minorities for 'stealing' the economic gains that are rightfully theirs.

What makes me depressed about this analysis, though I pretty much agree with it, is the fact that so much of the plan for action depends on our being able to reinvent the party's image, which IMHO will be impossible as long as a) the DNC believes that what they really need to do is move farther to the right and b) we will never have equal access to the airwaves as long as we have a corporate-controlled mass media.

Still, food for thought. I got a really pretty angry email from someone last week in response to "Black Box" wanting to let me know that the real reason the Democrats are getting beat in "the real America" is that northeastern/West Coast liberals are so convinced that they're smarter, better, and more cultured than anyone else that it makes the rural voters so angry and hurt that they're willing to stick it to the "liberal elite" even if it means sticking it to themselves. Maybe this guy had read "What's the Matter with Kansas" too, but his email was also tinged with a really personal anger about this that I have been thinking about all week.

The personal is political; we all know that, but there are ways maybe in which we don't know what that really means for our specific political situation. I know how hurt I am by the way the gay marriage issue is used and how angy I am with the people who voted for an incompetent bastard who's going to torpedo the country just because of that one issue. At the same time, there are only 19 million evangelicals in this country, and if those were the *only* votes Bush could get, he wouldn't be headed toward a second term no matter how many voting machines he rigged. These issues are manipulating people who, otherwise, probably would be persuadable, but who, convinced as they are that nothing REAL is ever going to change about this country (and aren't we convinced of that too, in a lot of ways?) they can at least feel empowered by voting against Adam & Steve.

So if I want them to be able to get over their (to them, genuine, but in reality, manipulated) revulsion toward Adam & Steve in order to vote in their own best interest, then I have to be willing to think about how & why these people might be just as angry about my own culture as I am about theirs. It's not easy because it gets back to a lot of my painful memories about how people treated me in school when I was growing up. Because I have said before, and I believe it even more now, that one of the things that supports Dubya's popularity (all 51% of it) is that so many people, as they're growing up, learn to hate anyone who they believe to be smarter than they are. Now this is mainly because feeling dumber than someone else makes them feel bad, and so they go after what they think is the source of that feeling, which is that smarty-pants in the front row that the teacher is always fawning over. The smarty-pants, on the other hand, doesn't get that this is what's happening, and being hurt and terrified by the anger of his or her stronger and more numerous anti-smarty-pants peers, grabs onto that adult approval and redoubles the attempt to maintain it, which means being yet even more of a smarty-pants. Eventually, you develop a defensive response to the anti-smarty-pants anger, which is to write off everyone who's mad at you as an idiot thug who's incapable of understanding anything important and hates you just because you're better than him.

And by that time you may indeed be partly right about that; but he may also be partly right about your being a snob who looks down on other people just because they don't watch Masterpiece Theater. Because by that time you've both settled into the roles defined for you by the bear-baiting pit they call the high school cafeteria.

OK, that got longer than I meant it to get. Just go read the article, it's more useful.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

For a must-read book. Add "Don't Think of an Elephant!" and "Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think" and you have a basic Democratic Victory reading list, in my opinion.

Thanks.

And even though you recognize the problem, your article inflames the "anti-smarty-pants" crowd even more. They're now thinking "Plaid Adder" thinks I'm stupid for voting for Bush. I'm gonna show her!

Maybe these folks really do have to learn in the school of "Hard Knocks." Maybe they deserve what they get by voting for Bush.

Too bad for the rest of us. Be strong.

His view is a fascinating one. Well worth combing the cspan archives for.

We can reinvent ourselves all we want but until someone has the guts to put together a party that will come and talk to the people in the boonies, not just talk at them from the safety of the nearest big city, they will never even know they exist. You are right on with your points but it still means nothing to the guy in his tractor listening to Hannity and Rush all day. Democrat? Never met one.

IMHO we have to just write off the White House for a while and work on taking back state government, then the House and the Senate. Try to recruit people who are actually from these areas and can do some real grass roots organizing where there is actually some grass.

Maybe it would have to be done through a different party, so you wouldn't have the 'brand name' problem. THat's as big an issue as anything else. "Ew, I don't want the BLUE cereal!"

And of course you would have to be able to offer people something to replace the lost pleasures of hating gay people. Like, you know, a real platform that would restrict the growth of the mega-corporations and support labor, small farms, and local economies. Which our party leadership will never do because they're so dead set on getting redder and redder.

Ah well,

The Plaid Adder

that my state hates gay people. Fred Phelps has been the biggest help with that because he has caused us so much embarrassment and actually made people think. Our overwhelmingly Republican State Legislature did not pass the ban on gay marriage and it was not brought up in the last election. Now the pot is being stirred so I expect it may soon. Yes, we have to think of ways to do this from the bottom up and I am stumped but willing to try. Our party is really no help at all here, I have found it inbred and elitist myself. I have only begun to get into it but I find that my progressive nature is not appreciated and looked at as naivete rather than an actual point of view.

between indoctrination and education, it would help considerably.

one and the same in the boonies I am afraid.

But, your point is well taken.

First, push the nuttier Congress critters way hard to the right (create a wedge within the Republican Party, force the logical endpoints of their positions into the open)--ban on divorce, ban on birth control pills (back to barrier methods), ban in vitro fertilization. Sort of a hoist them on their own petard strategy. Better now when they will make the public (virtually all of the public) recoil than when the country has drifted further to the right.

Second, help towns in red states that have closed plants due to outsourcing (tie to Bible--loving your enemies)--great man bites dog publicity and reversing some of the vitriol that has been heaped on liberals for years (kind hard to malign someone who dug deep to help you out at your time of need). Reclaim the moral high ground.

Third, television ads that are mini soap operas/vignettes (appeal to emotion and/or fear--remember how everyone was talking about the ad with Bush and the girl who lost her mother in the WTC--reason and logical aren't going to cut it anymore) showing the consequences of Bush/conservative policies (remember Harry and Louise and Hillary's health care). I have a slew of possibilities already.

Let's use their methods, albeit not their dirty tricks, to sell our message.