NYT, Paul Krugman: The Resentment Strategy; Angry Left? What about the Angry Right?

[DeepModem Mom]

The Resentment Strategy
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: September 4, 2008

Can the super-rich former governor of Massachusetts — the son of a Fortune 500 C.E.O. who made a vast fortune in the leveraged-buyout business — really keep a straight face while denouncing “Eastern elites”? Can the former mayor of New York City, a man who, as USA Today put it, “marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu” — that was between his second and third marriages — really get away with saying that Barack Obama doesn’t think small towns are sufficiently “cosmopolitan”?

Can the vice-presidential candidate of a party that has controlled the White House, Congress or both for 26 of the past 28 years, a party that, Borg-like, assimilated much of the D.C. lobbying industry into itself — until Congress changed hands, high-paying lobbying jobs were reserved for loyal Republicans — really portray herself as running against the “Washington elite”?

Yes, they can.

On Tuesday, He Who Must Not Be Named — Mitt Romney mentioned him just once, Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin not at all — gave a video address to the Republican National Convention. John McCain, promised President Bush, would stand up to the “angry left.” That’s no doubt true. But don’t be fooled either by Mr. McCain’s long-ago reputation as a maverick or by Ms. Palin’s appealing persona: the Republican Party, now more than ever, is firmly in the hands of the angry right, which has always been much bigger, much more influential and much angrier than its counterpart on the other side.

What’s the source of all that anger?

Some of it, of course, is driven by cultural and religious conflict: fundamentalist Christians are sincerely dismayed by Roe v. Wade and evolution in the curriculum. What struck me as I watched the convention speeches, however, is how much of the anger on the right is based not on the claim that Democrats have done bad things, but on the perception — generally based on no evidence whatsoever — that Democrats look down their noses at regular people....What the G.O.P. is selling, in other words, is the pure politics of resentment; you’re supposed to vote Republican to stick it to an elite that thinks it’s better than you....

***

Can Mr. McCain and Ms. Palin really ride Nixonian resentment into an upset election victory in what should be an overwhelmingly Democratic year? The answer is a definite maybe.

By selecting Barack Obama as their nominee, the Democrats may have given Republicans an opening: the very qualities that inspire many fervent Obama supporters — the candidate’s high-flown eloquence, his coolness factor — have also laid him open to a Nixonian backlash. Unlike many observers, I wasn’t surprised at the effectiveness of the McCain “celebrity” ad. It didn’t make much sense intellectually, but it skillfully exploited the resentment some voters feel toward Mr. Obama’s star quality....

(T)he Democrats can’t afford to be complacent. Resentment, no matter how contrived, is a powerful force, and it’s one that Republicans are very, very good at exploiting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/opinion/05krugman.html?hp

[TwilightZone]

1. No kidding. Palin gave the most vitriolic speech in recent memory.

The media fawned over it like a bunch of idiots.

[opihimoimoi]

4. Ye shall look upon their deeds for Final Judgment...the GOP has Failed America

miserably...they own Failure and wanna blame the Dems for their probs..its sickening

[Homer12]

2. It Should be Hatefilled

It really should be hatefilled right.

[NC_Nurse]

3. So true, and yet so ridiculous! It's so amusing that the audience looks like

mostly rich white guys, but Dems are cast as "elitist".

No evidence, but they continue to listen to this shit. Unbelievable.

[scarletwoman]

5. Good article, but shouldn't your subject line say NYT, not WP? (nt)

[DeepModem Mom]

8. THANK YOU! I must have brain-glitched for a sec, and typed the wrong source.

Thanks to you, I've corrected the subject line.

[scarletwoman]

9. You're very welcome. I totally get the "brain glitch" thing, that's what I figured happened.

:)

[TwilightGardener]

6. The GOP is the Angry Party. Angry because we're still here, getting

in their way, preventing a complete cleanout of the government pantry and the teaching of Christian creationist fantasy in schools and the destruction of even more countries, among many other things, even after 8 years of conservative rule. Angry that we dared even field a candidate, let alone one so talented. "Liberal" is a dirty word only because it's used with such forceful sneering anger and contempt from the right, not because of its actual definition. They are just hateful people.

[msongs]

7. democrats play nice, republicans play to win - truth is irrelevant to emotion nt

[bread_and_roses]

10. "truth is irrelevant to emotion" - I wish more took that seriously

I don't think that the Ds should or should have to lie, like the Rs do so routinely. But we sure as hell need a more compelling narrative if we are going to take this election with authority, or maybe take it at all.

It doesn't matter what "the truth" is when the R's are giving a name and a face and a sound bite to the raging emotions out there. I sometimes think that too many here forget that the entire culture has been telling the Republican tale for years and years: "personal responsibility,the business of America is business, entrepreneurship is the only virtue, government is inefficient, the private sector can do anything better, the 'liberal' is 'elitist', the great society was a failure, all good things flow from investors (not labor), bigger is better, profit is god".

And since the entire culture has been telling that tale for years and years, it is easy to hang their sound bites on that framework. The Democrats, alas, have been complicit for years in telling much the same tale, making "change" a harder sale. And so far, from my perspective, the campaign has not found a story that tells another tale compellingly enough. It makes me very fearful. The race is far closer than it should be after these long years of R rule.

Far too close, because if we want real change, Obama needs a "mandate." He has to overwhelmingly secure the popular vote, he needs down-ticket Ds to win, we need a significant majority in the Senate. Otherwise, he'll start off under the cloud of a "divided electorate" and we can forget substantive change.
(edit for extra word)