Chasing Glenn Beck

There have been a handful of truly great discoveries throughout history, monumental moments where any attempt to describe what really happened quickly gets lost in the morass of language and imagery, eventually reduced to trivial words like “epiphany” or “miracle” or “genius.”

We got the microscope from Zaccharias and Hans Janssen in 1590 and calculus from Newton (and/or Leibniz) in 1687. The transistor (Shockley, 1947) came along a bit later and then, shortly after that, the now ubiquitous computer chip (Kilby and Noyce, 1961). There was also (or will be, since you can use it for time travel) the warp drive (Cochrane, 2063). And, of course, fire (Malgik, 358,197 B.C.).

But never before has a discovery been so monumental, so earth-changing, as the one I’ve just made. You see, I’ve discovered how to end all political polarization, how to bring us together in a never-ending sequence of kumbaya moments that will make a 1960’s Hare Krishna love fest seem like little more than a tear-gas-infused riot.

We just have to get rid of Rachel, that bitch from cardholder services.

You know her: she’s the one with that great deal who keeps calling over and over just to tell you that this is your very last chance to lower the interest rate on your credit card. Forget that you carry no balance, or that you can do it on your own, or that you don’t even have a credit card.  Rachel’s pretty sure you want to talk to her. Again. And again. (It’s a brilliant business model, really; apparently the owner or owners or investors or scam artists who run the show over at Cardholder Services have decided that paying fines for ignoring the no-call lists is more lucrative for them than abiding by the law or—God forbid—caring about customers.)

So here’s my theory.  We are all now in a constant state of tension, day and night, because we never know whether or not, when the phone rings, it might be Rachel from Cardholder Services. Oh, yeah: we have Caller ID, but Rachel’s clever. Sometimes it’s an 800 number, but other times it’s a real number with a real area code, often from someplace where you might actually know people. Plus, ringing phones interrupt whatever TV program you might be watching (maybe even with your kids, and they can get really ornery). And sometimes Rachel leaves a message that you have to bother clearing from your voicemail sooner or later.

And if you decide to actually answer the phone and press “1” to speak to a counselor or consultant or whatever they call these poor people who, quite frankly, just want to make a few bucks to feed their family and probably feel really, really awful about constantly pissing you off, they still won’t take you off the list. Trust me: I’ve tried. I’ve yelled. I’ve been really nice. I’ve asked to talk to a supervisor. I even once played stupid, asking them if they were going to take my card away from me and then pretending to cry on the phone. (That was, at least, a bit of fun….)

So imagine: every moment of every day there’s Rachel, stalking you. You’re tense and nervous. You’re not sleeping well. So naturally whenever anybody says anything about politics you might even slightly disagree with, you go off the deep end. You yell and scream. You call them a teabagger or a right-wing-nut-job or a moonbat or a socialist. That politician who called Obama a liar? That nut at the Town Hall meeting who wouldn’t let the speaker get a word in edgewise? That radio host who screams at callers and then hangs up? Check their phone records.  I’ll bet every single one of ‘em had just received a call from our friend Rachel.

But just think what it would be like if there were no Rachel, no Cardholder Services. Think how calm you would be, how you could sit through an entire episode of America’s Got Talent or House Hunters in peace.  Your heart rate would slow and your breath would still. Then you could have all kinds of gentle conversations. With all kinds of people. On all kinds of topics.  What a great, great world it would be.

So you best be looking over your shoulder, Rachel. We’re coming for you….

I’m beginning to (finally) learn an important lesson: if you hear the words “conventional wisdom,” run screaming.

Yesterday, in the cities and cornfields of Nebraska, an interesting GOP Senate primary ended with the unlikeliest of victories for dark-horse candidate Deb Fischer, currently a member of the Nebraska State Senate. In winning she upset not one, but two candidates, both of whom were outpolling her until quite recently.

The “conventional wisdom” was that the race would be fought between the “establishment” candidate (which, I suppose, meant the one funded by the GOP party machinery), Jon Bruner and the exceptionally conservative Don Stenberg, who had the backing of no less that Jim DeMint, the Tea Party poster boy. But Fischer picked up endorsements from Sarah Palin (a big deal in Tea Party circles) and her husband Todd (who cares?) and that, apparently, carried enough clout to change the balance. That, and the fact that Jon and Don were busy battling each other (and Dem incumbent Bob Kerrey) rather than Fischer.

When the votes were counted Fischer had a 5-point victory over Bruning (erasing a sixteen-point deficit in less than ten days), with Stenberg a distant third. So much for the “conventional wisdom.”

What happened to the script? That's what I want to know. I fully expected a consistent Tea Party message backing one candidate, attempting, in all fervor, to unseat someone more or less moderate (at least relatively speaking). That's sort of what happened, I suppose, only not really.

So here’s what I’m thinking: maybe the “conventional wisdom” that defines the Tea Party is wrong. Really wrong. That narrative has two simple tracks, one for the right and one for the left. The one on the right tells the story of a nearly Libertarian view of government where no tax is a good tax, ever. The one on the left tells the story of a bunch of racist and misogynistic misfits who believe we’re on a collision course with Soviet style socialism/fascism. Those narratives are comforting, simple and, apparently, wrong (or, at least, terribly incomplete).

What Nebraska's results say to me is that what the Tea Party is really about—underneath those narratives—may just be something different. It may be more about that old chestnut “by the people and for the people” than it is about anything else. It may be more about getting rid of the clichés: the old boy’s club; the lifetime Senators, the business-as-usual backroom dealings. The results are quite assuredly unpredictable—it means at least some clearly unqualified people might end up getting the nod somewhere along the way.  And those other narratives are still there; as with any movement, crazies abound.  But if the Tea Party is really something different, something with a solid core beneath its hazily constructed narrative veneers, then I’ve got news for the Democrats and liberals out there.

You’re in serious trouble.

Why? Because you have no equivalent. If the Tea Party is truly about insiders and outsiders then, well, you’ve got no outsiders. You’ve got the usual suspects with the usual stories. Some of those stories may be good ones—that’s a different posting for a different day—but if the Tea Party is about—wait for it—hope and change, then it’s a whole new ballgame.

Or, as in the case of Nebraska, a whole new cornfield.

Okay: have I got your attention? Good. That’s what a respectable incendiary headline is supposed to do. It brings you in, but, more than that, it hits you in the gut, creates an emotional framework for what’s to come. How do you feel about Nazis, anyway?  Don’t like ‘em? That’s what I’m hoping for. You’ll be negatively predisposed to whatever I say next.

Incendiary headlines are one of the many Nazi-inspired techniques the less-than-humble Rush Limbaugh likes to use. Here’s one I found on his website recently:

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Passes Law Allowing Husbands to Have Sex with Dead Wives Up to Six Hours After Death

Check it out. I can barely count all the emotional triggers in there.  There’s “sex” and “death,” of course, the obvious ones. But there’s also the whole necrophilia thing cropping up, sure to disgust, along with more subtle words like “brotherhood” (Is that ever good except when it refers to a Showtime series?) and Muslim, which didn’t used to be a trigger but is today thanks to (in a recursive bit of irony) Rush and his ilk.

It’s not just the headlines that Rush has perfected. There are a slew of Nazi-inspired propaganda techniques he uses. A recent academic paper I ran across recently* covers the topic quite well.  The first requirement, the argument goes, is to establish positive “us” and negative “them” group identities.  When Rush says, for example, that "the purpose of liberalism is to tell liberals they are good people" he is clearly speaking to his conservative fans about what he thinks of liberals, effectively creating the “us” and “them” dividing line. And he does it in an a way that isn’t couched in opinion, even though opinion it clearly is.

And wait: there’s more.  Let’s just go down the Nazi propaganda checklist, shall we?  You’ll see what I mean. Herr Limbaugh is as good as Goebbels (though he actually looks a bit more like Sergeant Shultz).

• Polarity in tone, in which one talks politely to the enemy when faced with them directly, but embraces a snark-filled vocal style when they’re gone and you’re once again talking to your own side. Does Rush do this? Check.**
• Poisoning the well, in which one trivializes any comparable media efforts from the other side while at the same time lauding you and yours.  Rush, of course, lambasts the “mainstream media” while reminding us that he has his “talent on loan from God,” is “America’s truth detector,” and is regularly “meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis." Check.
• Promoting ideology over information, in which truth is defined through the language of opinion, generally supported by out-of-context or cherry-picked “facts,” with a nearly 100% concentration on political persuasion.   Take, for example, a typical Rush-pinion.  "The world's biggest problem,” he says, “is the unequal distribution of capitalism. If there were capitalism everywhere, you wouldn't have food shortages." Opinion as fact, promoting ideology. Check.
• Scapegoating, during which the propagandist spends time talking with those of similar beliefs, and uses that time to further belittle “them” in ways that make it obvious*** that “they” are the cause of the problems and only “we” can see it. Take this little tidbit, from a conversation Rush had back in 1995 with a like-minded caller: “That’s the basic problem. You [the caller] and I have morals, we have ethics, we have honesty.” Liberals, conversely, must not.  Check.
• Stereotyping, in which entire classes of people are painted in broad brush strokes with increasingly negative terms. Rush repeatedly uses characterizing epithets like “arrogant,” “morally bankrupt,” “feminazi” (irony, anyone?), and, more recently, “prostitute” and “slut.”  Here’s one of my favorites, in which he stereotypes liberals as thieves: “Their [liberals] idea of sacrifice is taking from people they don't like.” Check.
• Manipulating key moral concepts so that what used to be positive is now negative, or vice-versa. These are often cast as oxymorons, as when Rush calls liberals “compassionate fascists,” thereby negating the value (or authenticity) of compassion. In a similar vein, he has said that “compassion is no substitute for justice,” implying that liberals are so married to the idea of compassion that they would violate the rule of law in order to force compassion on others. Check.
• And, finally, the imagery of dehumanization, used to inspire revulsion and to make it easier to hate. The Nazis famously dehumanized an entire people until millions thought them no more than animals, fit to be slaughtered. And now, years later, here’s Rush describing those “maggot-infested” liberals who “exert a poisonous influence on American life.” Sound familiar? Check.

So there you have it: proof positive that Rush Limbaugh embraces hated Nazi techniques.  What does that say about him?

More importantly, what does it say about a country in which he thrives?

*   “Liberal Parasites and Other Creepers: Rush Limbaugh, Ken Hamblin, and the Discursive Construction of Group Identies,” by Kathryn Ruud, in At War With Words, edited by Dedaic and Nelson, 2003

**  I can’t actually create his tone of voice in print, but give a listen on any given day and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

*** To the “us” side, of course.

Yesterday I watched a few minutes of a clip in which Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin tag-teamed an inordinately civil Juan Williams over the subject of Occupy Wall Street. The Hannity-Malkin strategy, apparently, was to distort, deprecate, and interrupt as much as humanly possible.

I realize, of course, that this wasn’t meant to be news in any acceptable definition of the term. It’s entertainment, an amygdala-driven ratings ploy meant largely for the already convinced.  Still, it pissed me off, and the reason was simple: Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin are Fake Republicans.

It came to me in a split second, this revelation. It isn’t that they’re annoying and rude, relying on polished but logic-less rhetoric (though they are), nor that they seem so smug while they’re doing it.  It’s that they’re actually pretending to be Republicans and obviously have no idea what it means to be one.

So here I am, in a moment of self-righteousness (I admit it; I’m not proud) offering up this simple primer for all of you out there who might have difficulty spotting the Fake Republican.  I’ll understand if you do; they’ve carefully infiltrated our spaces over the last generation, so much so that it can be very difficult to tell them apart from the Real Republicans—at least, of course, until they choose to speak.

Here are the five (plus one) simple clues you need; follow these and you, too, can be a first-class Fake Republican spotter.

1. A Fake Republican babbles on and on about free markets and the evils of regulation as if he knows what he’s talking about.  He doesn’t realize that if markets were truly free, the top ten prime time shows would all be porn, little Jimmy down the street would own a bazooka, and the most popular fast food would be Soylent Green.  What we need are free and fair markets; smart regulation is meant to get as close to that ideal as possible.
2. A Fake Republican doesn’t understand the difference between having a nation of Christians and being a Christian nation. The former is largely factual (78.4% is the actual factual, according to Pew), while the latter is a theocratic statement similar to ones that Ayatollahs and the Taliban use.  If you think the comparison facile, check out this site, the proponents of which have drafted a Constitutional Amendment declaring the United States a Christian Nation.
3. A Fake Republican stands tall in the face of the clear hypocrisy filling the idea that a smaller and more efficient government should spend at least some of its time in your bedroom, keeping an eye on your behavior in order to impose morality on you while at the same time ignoring the blatant immorality inherent in the way they currently deal with these (truly Christian) issues of poverty, health and equality.
4. A Fake Republican prattles on and on about a strong United States yet completely ignores the value of education in protecting our way of life. He is instead worried about schools making more liberals instead of realizing that schools make thinkers, and that thinking is a good thing. He assumes that liberals are in education in order to indoctrinate, rather than wondering whether the free market of ideas might actually encourage liberal thinking.
5. And, finally, a Fake Republican doesn’t recognize that liberal views—particular social liberal views—are part and parcel of the Republican history going all the way back to the formation of the party in the 1850s.  A Real Republican gets this, recognizing that the job is to assess, evaluate and (above all) go slowly forward in a thoughtful and responsible way. The Fake Republican doesn’t want progress at all; he just wants power.

There you go: simple tips.  I’m sure I could come up with a dozen more, but these will do.  Now go! Be a Fake Republican spotter! Help the country and your party find their way. 

(Oh: and here’s a bonus tip:  6.  A Fake Republican might have a chalkboard....)

Back in January I wrote a blog posting about what I thought Jon Huntsman needed to do if he wanted any chance at all in the GOP primaries.  He didn’t follow any of my advice, and he quickly became what the Star Trek universe refers to as a “red shirt,” the member of the away team that, though brave, is sadly never heard from again.

Now I’m not saying that things would have been different if Governor Huntsman had followed my advice, but, hey, you never know…. So here goes. Mitt? Are you listening?

First, let me point out that I know there’s a Mitt Romney in there that people will want to vote for, one who can put the crazies off to the right (the far right, as it were) and re-engage the center.  That’s the guy who used to be Governor of Massachusetts, the guy of whom I once turned to my wife and said, “I like that Romney fella!  I hope he runs for President some day!”

But the Romney on the campaign trail today needs to change things up a bit if he wants to win. You can’t just count on a crappy economy. (The trend is up and, regardless of how strong that trend is or isn’t, incumbents benefit from “up.”)  You also can’t count on a strong base turning out for you, nor staying home for him.  You need the middle, the center, what Linda Killian calls The Swing Vote and what I call the Consiberal Vote.

Here are four things you can do to get it:

1. Embrace your wealth.  We all know you have it, and the phony self-deprecation (Pink Slip? Seriously?) ain’t playin’ in Peoria. Talk about what wealth can do—charity, jobs, education, opportunity. Remind us that wealth is what we ALL aspire to, and that it’s achievable.
2. Distance yourself from the crazies.  I’m sorry, but every time you accept an endorsement from a Donald Trump or a Ted Nugent, you just slip a little bit closer to Nutsville, USA.  You don’t need them and you don’t want them.  Trust me: I—and the majority of America that embraces the word “moderate”—would rather see a man of integrity take a step toward reason and away from conspiracy and antiquated metal music.  (Quick quiz, Mitt. Can you name one Nugent song other than “Cat Scratch Fever?”  I didn’t think so….)
3. Show some respect for the President. One of the things I continually find abominable from both sides is the disrespect shown to the man and the office.  He’s the friggin’ President, okay? You don’t have to respect his policies—I don’t (at least mostly)—but you and I both know that he’s not a Socialist, nor a Marxist, nor a Fascist, nor a Communist, nor a Muslim. And as far as any talk about dogs?  Well, that’s just so off the table.  There are real, true distinctions between you and him.  That’s what the center wants to know about.
4. And finally, settle on a personality.  It’s hard to find one, and when you do roll one out, it seems forced, as if you’re donning one of those masques from a Greek play.  Relax a little (something it seems no politician does anymore).  Tell us stories we can relate to about people we can relate to. Chat with us a bit and let us see Mitt Romney, not the Mitt-Of-The-Day.

That’s it.  It’s pretty simple, really, though I don’t expect your handlers will agree.  But think about it.  And remember one very important thing: When a Republican loses a primary battle, they eventually get another shot (as you did.)  But when they lose a Presidential election… well… it’s pretty much over….