People, let's face facts. We did not loose this election because of anything we did. Indeed, as an economic conservative, I thought the Democrats were exactly where they needed to be in terms of fiscal responsibility. We don't need to move further right economically.
And moving right on the social issues would be an utter disaster. We would loose our moral base, and not gain anything for it.
Here's why:
This abandoned fool of a Bush voter isn't going to be swayed by "Fundie-Lite". Come on. Get real.
So how DO we change the equation?
There is an answer. Learn from the opposition.
Thirty years ago the GOP was in the exact same position we are in today, if not worse. They were the permanent minority party, who could barely get a president elected - usually only when the Democrats screwed up. So what did they do? They DEMONIZED Democrats. They attacked and attacked and attacked. Everything bad that happened was on account of one thing: "liberals". In place of reasonable argument, they called names: unAmerican, vile, unpatriotic, pansy, etc, etc. And while there were a few independents who saw this tactic for what it was, most Americans fell right into the same habit. Liberal = evil. Liberal = nasty. Liberal = unAmerican. Why you... you... you... LIBERAL!
In short, it worked.
Already, of course, sites like the Democratic Underground have come to understand this tactic. And selectively - with humor - they have started to emulate it. At least partially: our attacks are fundamentally different than theirs, because ours are
TRUE. They're backed up with FACTS.
And we've largely been successful, too. People, we
won the Independents in the Presidential election -
by nearly 20%. In any other year, that would be a landslide.
But we missed one important battleground, the one where truth and facts don't matter: religion. For too long, we've allowed the right to attack us on our strongest point - the Democrats who day after day do God's work - have been attacked as somehow not adhering to faith. And, outside of a little sarcasm from sites like
Betty Bowers, we've never fought back.
It's time we do.
Here's how. Again, we tell the truth. We start by not ceding word "Christian" to the right.
DEMOCRATS are the Christians. Republican Televangelists are
THE AMERICAN PHARISEES.Remember that phrase:
American Pharisees. The Pharisees were the "religious right" of biblical times. They went to church. They read the Bible. They believed it. More than that, they idolized it, the words, the rules, the authority they felt it gave them to send the people they disliked to hell, substituting their judgment for God's. And by those rules, and their interpretations (which they refused to acknowledge as interpretations), they killed Christ.
"American Pharisee" and
"Unchristian Right" needs to become part of our standard lexicon. Never
NEVER allow anyone to refer to right wing churchgoers as "Christians" without correcting them. There
ARE NO Christians on the right. If Christ showed up on your doorstep today, the very next morning he'd be organizing a peace march. If he said things like he said in the Bible in "Red" Pharisee states, there'd soon be good-ol-boy redneck riot police surrounding him preparing to go on a police riot. He'd be lucky to get out alive. Or not. Some things never change.
But people do. When that abandoned pregnant wife described in the DailyKos sees her new baby suffering under GOP policies, somebody needs to tell her about the Pharisees. Somebody needs to point out what Fundie churches really are. Then, and only then, she will begin to see the truth. Only then will her vote change.
This message needs to get out. And it needs to start today.
- C.D.
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