How the Democrats should respond to the Republicans
Republicans lie, exaggerate, and sow fear. By the time their arguments are proven unfounded, no one is interested anymore or people are too embarrassed to admit they were duped. Democrats need to do the same thing. The reasonable and rational ways of the Democratic leaders are simply not right for current era. No one is interested in a boring story. No one wants to hear that the Iran agreement is the best we can get. No one wants to hear that Obamacare was a compromise. No one wants to hear that climate change is based on good science. What people year for is the sensational story. They want an adrenaline rush. That's what the Republicans offer.
I think the Democrat message needs to something like this:
- If we don't get a treaty with Iran, Iran will manufacture nuclear weapons and sell them to terrorists.
- If we try to kick out the 11 million immigrants, the price of food will double and if you work for or own a small business, you are likely to go bankrupt.
- Republican policies on gun control are causing riots in our cities, the deaths of policemen, and the wanton murder of innocent children across the nation.
- If we don't address climate change, oceanfront homes will be washed away, rural farms will be deserts, and millions of Americans will starve to death.
- If we don't raise taxes on the wealthy, our debt will become so great that we will have to eliminate Medicare and your taxes will go up by 50%.
- If we get rid of Obamacare, your insurance rates will go up by 100% and thousands of hospitals will be forced to close.
- Republicans wanted us to close our borders because of Ebola; if we had taken their advice, it would have plunged our nation into a recession that would have left millions of people without jobs.
- Republicans want us to send troops back into the Middle East, we will create an even bigger mess than Iraq and up to 60,000 troops will die, some horrible deaths at the hands of ISIS.
In other words, what the American people want is bullshit. The Republicans have offered that for years, and it's been increasingly effective. The advantage of bullshit is that it's brief -- it does not require long sentences or even paragraphs; it does not require abstract thinking; it does not require a person to be informed. The Democrats need to get with the game. People don't want facts or information. They want to be told what to feel, and if you tell them to be scared, it gets their attention. If you tell them to be scared of the other side, they will be scared.
(This post was inspired by this poll that shows Americans by a 2-1 margin disapprove of the Iran treaty: http://www.people-press.org/2015/09/08/support-for-iran-nuclear-agreement-falls/)
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