As Glenn Greenwald points out , there's been a dramatic sea-change in the rules of effective political rhetoric. Glenn cites three examples over the course of one week's time--GOP Rep. Robin Hayes, VP nominee Sarah Palin, and GOP Rep. Michelle Bachmann--all attacking Democrats' patriotism, then denying it, turning tail and running away.
There's clearly something interesting -- and different -- happening here. It's not that right-wing politicians are accusing liberals and Democrats of being unpatriotic, anti-American subversives. There's nothing new about that. To the contrary, that McCarthyite accusation has virtually been a central plank -- one could say the defining plank -- in the GOP platform for the last three decades, at least.
What's different -- markedly so -- is that once they do it, they feel compelled to backtrack, deny they said it or meant it, rescind it, and -- in the case of Palin -- actually "apologize" for it.
There's no doubt about it, as Glenn's book, Great American Hypocrites documents, demonizing liberals while buildging up phony conservative heros has been central to the GOP's political strategy for decades now, and the fact that it's falling apart so dramatically is big news indeed. How big? Well, Glenn goes on to quote Zogby saying,
If Obama wins like this we can be talking not only victory but realignment.
And there's damn good reason for that....
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| The essence of the New Deal realignment of 1932 was a collective gathering together-from the bottom on up-- on the basis of a shared economic fate. The essence of the Nixonian dealignment of 1968 was a return to the us/them cultural divides that had predominated before 1932, with race as the central fulcrum, and "character" as the cover story. Now economics is back-big time, as America's #2 war criminal would say. And the cover story is crumbling to dust, along with its whole narrative superstructure. In addition to the main arch Glenn identified, he's a quick look at several others in tatters from the last few days and weeks:
Revenge of the $400 Haircut
Although the hard-core alien/traitor narrative is the central trope of Nixonian politics, it's simply too strong to be used undiluted on a regular basis, which is why we have such a wide range of satellite variations-from the "stooges" and "useful idtiots" to the "pinkos and weirdos" to the "girlie men," DFHs, and, of course, the "French."
This election cycle, arguably the most consequential example was the dismissal of John Edwards' populist appeal on the basis of him getting a couple of $400 haircuts. Now comes celebrated "hockey mom" Sarah Palin, and news of her $150k wardrobe makeover. For the mathematically challenged, that's enough money to get one $400 haircut every day for a year, and still have $4,400 left over for bubblegum, or whatever.
Although the two stories were wildly incompatible, in the old media & political universe this wouldn't have made the least bit of difference. Now, though, things have changed. Part of what often occurs-or reaches a critical mass-during a relignment is the emergence of new means of political communicaiton, starting with newspapers like the Philadelphia Aurora in the election of 1800. So, in like manner, thanks to YouTube, Media Matters and the blogosphere, we can have things like the following, put together by Jed L at DKos:
Of course, the M$M still buried the much more consequential Troopergate Report, and Palin's bald-faced lying about it. But there's a certain poetic justice in the "live-by-the-image/die-by-the-image" way this is all playing out.
Sarah Palin STILL Doesn't Know What The Vice President Does-But She THINKS She Does!
The first time tape surfaced where Palin expressed uncertainty about the VP's job, I said it was a bad line of attack. If you listened to what Palin actually said, it seemed quite likely she was simply saying that she'd want to know what McCain would have in mind for her role to be-and, of course, because there's so little for a VP to do under the Constitution, what the President has in mind is an overwhelming determinant in what the VP does. Yes, she expressed herself a bit awkwardly, but there was so much more of real substance that was deeply problematic, it simply seemed wrong-headed to attack her on that.
Now, however, we have her making delusional claims that the VP runs the Senate!
Remember when her utter cluelessness was sacred, and anyone who questioned it was an elitist snob? Nowadays, not so much, as Chris Matthews-of all people!-just wouldn't let go:
And, over at TPM, Josh commented:
In an interview on Monday afternoon, when asked what the vice president does, Palin said (emphasis added) ...
A vice president has a really great job, because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president, but also they're in charge of the United States Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it's a great job and I look forward to having that job.
Now as you can see from the question, and as the McCain campaign has been pushing aggressively, the interviewer had read a question from a third grader. So the argument is that she wasn't giving a serious or exact answer since the question itself was from a child. I flag this point because I want to be fair and give their argument. But I don't think that adds up. A vice presidential candidate doesn't invent extra-constitutional powers in a tv interview to humor a child she hasn't even met. An interview is an interviewer. I think she's just out of it.
But, of course, the sort of nonsensical "explanation" that Josh rips through has been entirely standard for decades now. GOP explanations don't have to stand up, they just have to be accepted as valid at face value. Next question. Only now the wheels have come off.
[Not] Joe the [Not] Plumber
So much has been written about "Joe the Plumber", what can I say? Only that a typical bogus "Reagan Democrat" narrative got shot down so fast that while I was driving to the store on Monday morning, I just happened to have my radio tuned to a commercial rock station that segued between songs something like: "This string of uninterrupted songs is as unliscened as Joe the Plumber."
Forget Leno, everyone in America who's even heard of a funnybone is making jokes about him. Like I just said, the wheels have come off.
That's what a realignment is all about. The old narratives lose their power. For many, it's not even necessary to refute them. You can just laugh. Most times, like now, there's a good deal of pain involved, so the laughs are often bitter ones. But they resonate more deeply than arguments do. For no one is yet certain of what comes next. We only know that-contra Faulkner-this time the past really is the past, and it isn't coming back.
The punditalkcrazy still doesn't get it. They are still warning Obama that "it's a center-right country, and he better not forget it!" Its a favorite trope of the bipartisan narrative, particularly right now, as the wignut narrative goes down in flames. The wignut narrative and the bipartisan narrative are not the same, merely symbiotic.They conspire together to exclude the reality-based DFHs who inhabit the blogosphere, as well as ever-increasing patches of georgraphy in both the "real" and "fake" parts of America.
Just because the wignut narrative is falling apart, we should not make any assumptions about the bipartisan narrative, particularls since Obama himself is a fequent-though not constant-enthusiast of it. But if one narrative can fall from grace to guffaws so quickly, so can another one. |
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