Progressives (Liberals)

@Finn dAbuzz,

Extreme animus is a pretty good motivator too and indicators are that Dems are extremely pissed off. Ive rooead analyses that TX GOP leaders are worried. Good.

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

Given that they are in the minority in terms of registered voters, they should be. If they were obnoxiously confident, I would be worried.

I don't know that Texas Dems and the liberal Texas media can do more than they did with O'Rourke and they failed, so I'm not very worried.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Thanks. Things do seem so hard to pinpoint. So many erratically moving parts these days.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Any predictions I make could be 180 degrees off.

0 Replies

Hmmm

Quote:

During Trump’s presidency, Hannity has mentioned his 2016 opponent on 86% of his episodes

MM

And why would Hannity be doing this - still?

Because
1) he's really honest
2) he wants what is best for the Democratic Party
3) Hillary is a current candidate for public office and she's on the teevee like all the time, thus she's really relevant
4) ideologically, his preference is for real progressives

Or perhaps not. What he is actually doing (along with many others at Fox and elsewhere) is continuing to capitalize on decades of slime from rightwing media and politicos that quite effectively colored the impressions of many Americans about Hillary. No other figure on the left has been as demonized as her. "Lock her up".

In marketing, this technique is called "positioning" - the attempt to convince people that X is intimately tied to Y. Buying a Mustang will get you in bed with hot women. Ex Lax = Niagara Falls. Coca Cola leads to world harmony. Palmolive dish soap will make your hands softer and prettier. Etc etc.

Those are positive examples. But the same technique is used to encourage people to think poorly of something or someone. Take pretty much any Fox or Trump comment on immigrants from south or central america - drug mules, cantaloupe thighs, murderous, terrorists, thugs, etc. Or the famous "daisy ad" of '64 that damaged Goldwater's run. Etc.

Because the right wing base (and others) were so effectively propagandized on the topic of Hillary, she still has great utility for people like Hannity who are out to keep the Trump base angry and stupid.

Edit: ps... I ought to have noted that this is pretty much the same playbook that the right is using against AOC. They have been, and will continue to, demonize her because she represents an electoral danger for them up the road.

2 Replies

@blatham,

Correction - She is on the left only in your imagination.

1 Reply

https://66.media.tumblr.com/3709f682a81c4bb7fab0e64d41790751/tumblr_pn5y2jPJVL1r01e42_1280.jpg?fbclid=IwAR0U2tsBp90ALQMXN6-6MwoRCJL1PQZtebKeK0gX-CEnAYf7EaRxvuy5zF0

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Quote:

She is on the left only in your imagination.

And so how has it come to be that the right spent two plus decades working diligently to prevent her from being thought well of and gaining power? Because she's really one of them? Provide an explanation for Hannity's concentration on her.

2 Replies

@blatham,

Because she ran as a Democrat, which the blatant right despises anyway.
edit
It's a tribal thing.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

Partly, sure. But it really doesn't explain the concentrated and decades-long attacks on her specifically. And it really doesn't explain what Hannity is up to in the present.

0 Replies

If all you are interested in is restoring the status quo, which is "make it the way it was when Obama was pres," you might as well give up politics and flow with the tide. We are in the greatest struggle in human history, to determine once and for all who will control this planet. People of the ilk of Biden, Harris, and Warren will take you to 2011, or the most restorable version of it. In the meantime, the far-right agenda will continue to consolidate the world over. In a lot less time than most imagine, we will be as serfs, with a lot less say about our lives than historical serfs employed and the destructive acts of fossil fuel companies, military and enterprises like big pharma continue unchecked. Bernie Sanders is but the tip of a sword. Without a general awakening of enough people, the 2024 election likely will be a mere formality, even if Sanders gets elected in 2020. In my view, we get measurably nearer extinction by the day.

0 Replies

Narrow loss in NC by a Democrat who caved to GOP racism and bigotry so as to win alleged moderate Republicans -- who voted for the hard right Republican candidate -- but in making that play he lost because by doing what he did he reduced the black vote.

https://scontent.fhou1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/70876081_10217936252151268_158571712986742784_n.jpg?_nc_cat=108&_nc_eui2=AeEIWx6fF1Cgx1yHLoum4AsPf_1Wa4Yxi5rM8w7cLFkodkMxV9Zo5A4JNL0zvKDnsu6wCKha8gHknx-nl6ZwJhIsa-DqfTk8E37_Annt1KYPhg&_nc_oc=AQn5uh9ASLpk-Cr9U8_bs3COAoIXARCeGIAYPgb3nA-7l5sM9uah7YNeicnQKbXcny0JWE6I86QVVYiG-ZT9N4CB&_nc_ht=scontent.fhou1-2.fna&oh=0694d0c5ce1a709d28f6724424a9d270&oe=5E132D7B

0 Replies

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
She is on the left only in your imagination.
And so how has it come to be that the right spent two plus decades working diligently to prevent her from being thought well of and gaining power? Because she's really one of them? Provide an explanation for Hannity's concentration on her.

The fact is that large segments of the Democrat establishment spent those same decades diligently working to make Hillary Clinton the Political leader of the Democrat Party and their "inevitable" candidate for the 2016 election. The notion that there is necessarily some dark conspiracy behind the natural opposition of the opposing party to those efforts is rather obviously of a fantasy your own invention, and your rather strange dedication to the notion of a dark "Movement Conservatism" conspiracy to take over the world.

Politics can indeed be a rough sport - on both sides, and in a democracy such as ours, with a long-term track record of shifting domination by the contending parties, vigorous self-promotion and opposition to the competition is hardly proof of a dark conspiracy. Indeed it is the stuff of healthy competition.

I'll add that in recent years the comity and willingness to disagree and compromise among the contending parties has receded a bit from the not-particularly-high levels of previous decades, as the demonization of political opponents has increased on both sides of the political aisle. None I think illustrate that better than the emerging new "squads" of militant Democrat advocates of increasing government oversight and control of our society and economy.

1 Reply

@blatham,

Both sides demonize their opponents. What Trump has encountered is a perfect example of that. The Dems even tried to demonize Mitt Romney who may be one of the least demonic figures in US politics.

I don't know that continuously referring to HRC pumps up the base, but if it does...Great! It means she still has a chance to make a lasting contribution to the nation.

2 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Yeah I am sure you are glad Hillary's name still has the power to divide the left.

You are right that the right that the left is not exempt from demonizing opponents. We did not demonize Mitt Romney. We merely pointed out he was a hedge fund one percenter which was the truth. That is normal politics. Having crowds chant "lock her up" and telling excitable crowds to hit protesters and he would foot the bill (yeah, the check is in the mail) and telling citizens of the US to go back to where they come from is not politics as usual no matter if you, who seems to have to sunk down to Trump's level, try to equate it.

1 Reply

@revelette1,

revelette1 wrote:

Yeah I am sure you are glad Hillary's name still has the power to divide the left.

You are right that the right that the left is not exempt from demonizing opponents. We did not demonize Mitt Romney. We merely pointed out he was a hedge fund one percenter which was the truth. That is normal politics. Having crowds chant "lock her up" and telling excitable crowds to hit protesters and he would foot the bill (yeah, the check is in the mail) and telling citizens of the US to go back to where they come from is not politics as usual no matter if you, who seems to have to sunk down to Trump's level, try to equate it.

Does she divide the Left? BONUS!!!

"You" tried to say he was personally responsible for a woman's cancer. "You" lied about his not paying taxes. "You" tried to turn a perfectly reasonable comment about "binders" into something misogynist.

Please spare me your piety and condemnation. You should know by now that I don't care one whit how you judge me.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

The fact is that large segments of the Democrat establishment spent those same decades diligently working to make Hillary Clinton the Political leader of the Democrat Party and their "inevitable" candidate for the 2016 election.

They began this project while the Clinton's were still in Arkansas? They moved into phase two when Bill won the presidency in '93? Then went to phase three when Bill's terms were done? To the extent that your paragraph hews anywhere near reality, it would be that Hillary's successful run for (and period in) the Senate was welcomed and supported by, probably, most senior Dems with an eye to the future. That is of course quite normal when a party sees a promising candidate. Would the Clintons have friends and allies in the Dem establishment? Well, yeah. Do and did the Cheney family or the Bush family have such allies and friends in the GOP? Well, yeah.

Quote:

The notion that there is necessarily some dark conspiracy behind the natural opposition of the opposing party to those efforts is rather obviously of a fantasy your own invention, and your rather strange dedication to the notion of a dark "Movement Conservatism" conspiracy to take over the world.

I wish you'd get off your comfortable ass and do some study on a range of issues related to the fairly recent past. I'll wager you know nothing at all about the Arkansas Project, for example; what it was, who funded it, etc.

As I noted a few days ago, Grover Norquist self-identified what he was up to and associated with was "the conservative movement". And I've given countless prior examples of such usage previously. Protest away but at least admit to yourself that you have no intention whatsoever of actually looking in that direction. What is it these people are talking about, george, when they speak and write using that term?

But again, as with Edgar, you make no address to just why it would be the case that Hannity has brought up Hillary in 86% of his broadcasts since Trump was elected (which isn't even to mention how commonly Limbaugh or Fox have done the same). She's not a candidate. She's without power. She's almost never on political or news shows. She is now quite irrelevant as a political figure. Got a rational explanation?

2 Replies

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Both sides demonize their opponents.

Certainly true.

Quote:

What Trump has encountered is a perfect example of that.

True but only in the most superficial manner. If we acknowledge that parties will attempt to demonize the competition, that's intellectually honest and proper. However it leaves totally unaddressed issues of honesty/dishonesty in the content of the attacks and whether such attacks are merely political in motivation. In the case of Trump, we have a very unusual situation and that is evidenced by the number and duration of the deep criticisms of him by senior conservative figures who feared and continue to fear his influence on the nation.

Quote:

The Dems even tried to demonize Mitt Romney who may be one of the least demonic figures in US politics.

It is not at all a bad example. Compared to Trump or Cruz, sociopaths both, Mitt looks pretty benign (even Dubya looks benign in that context).

Quote:

I don't know that continuously referring to HRC pumps up the base, but if it does...Great!

Though you and I would disagree on how that has come about, no other explanation makes sense.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Let us also not forget how Harry Reid stood on the floor of the Senate and lied about Mitt Romney not paying taxes. The left has a very short memory of the things they do to win elections. It doesn't help that the MSM provides cover for the left and their political aims.

1 Reply

@Baldimo,

And Reid smugly admitted later that he knew he was lying but...that it worked

0 Replies

Progressives (Liberals)

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know