Some Friendly Advice

Words are cheap, folks. I think if you want a serious sense of how Democrats and others will respond, Atrios's response on Eschaton is pricelessly to the point. There's a strong disconnect between what strong language Republicans would like to paint Democrats with, and the actual effects of their heated rhetoric.

Atrios is one of the more sarcastic and caustic of the Liberal Bloggers, so I wouldn't blame conservatives for ignoring his perspective, but I would say that for all this snark, he's probably reflecting the opinion that most moderates and liberals in this county would have of the Republican's drive to officially take a stance of calling the Democrats names.

But I'm going to offer some friendly advice, because I enjoy friendly competition: The Republicans efforts at Rebranding are just another failure in the making, one way or another. Even it succeeds, the Republicans won't have had to re-earn their prominence, and that will only set them up for a repetition of what happened with Bush.

I can understand: you don't want to admit liberalism won, after years of successful demonization. But it did. But why? In no small part, Republicans succeeded through bad policy choices and strident rhetoric in making Conservatism radioactive. In my previous post, I essentially stated that the Republicans want to essentially strange-loop their unpopular policies and decisions back into popularity, using rhetoric to redefine the argument, and thereby win with a failed argument by changing the forum it's received in. The trouble is, though Conservatives are certainly eager to see this rationalization succeed, it won't do much good with others beyond the Far Right.

The fact of the matter is, much of the punditry in the conservative media is aimed at cultivating and keeping Republicans and folks on the right supporters of the politicians and their policies. For decades, it's been working to discourage alternative positions, departures from orthodoxy, and encourage loyalty to Republican politicians and other leaders. It's worked spectacularly, and it works even now, as it drags the party further away from the mainstream of American opinion.

The problem is, beyond it's radicalizing influence, is that generations of Republicans have become well-adapted to arguing points between themselves, to each other, on grounds that work for Republicans. This adds the hazard of the party becoming increasingly asymmetric with the rest of the country regarding what they consider good rhetoric, good arguments, and good politics.

The Bush Presidency can be seen through this lens: The GOP so strongly radicalized itself and held itself aloof from the judgment of the rest of the country on its policy and politics, even while it committed grave errors, that the majority of Americans could no longer agree with either on their merits.

They can talk about this reflecting the truth of the Democratic Party, expressing a sentiment and having people agree are two different things, and persuasion is not merely a matter of finding the right words. You have to have an actual good point. Rhetoric might persuade people temporarily of false or shaky propositions, but dishonest rhetoric tends, even if successful, to trap one in the headache of having to be continually inventive to preserve one's credibility. Even worse, people might not buy your bull anymore, except for your loyal few followers, who you then have to maintain these BS arguments for their sake.

Calling the Democrat's names did not work in the last election to discourage people. Too many people either don't remember the Cold War, and therefore have little reaction to accusations of somebody being a communist, or they do Remember the Cold War, and remember that we were much more liberal during it than after it, and we hardly called ourselves socialists or communists then.

Name-calling works best when people are already persuaded. When they're not, it's at best a neutral throwaway, and at worst, a detriment to the persuasiveness of an otherwise better argument. Which is why I tend to avoid it.

I believe that the best arguments rise up from premises that hold true across both sides of the argument, which are difficult to deny by those who you're communicating to, symmetric, if you will. Building from those, you reconstruct a pathway of inference which is made strong in its ability to support your conclusion by the nature of its factual support. People can say no, but it's something they got to do with the argument exerting considerable pull. If a person chooses to deny the argument on ideological grounds, I want it clear that my rival in the exchange is doing it mainly for those reasons.

The Republicans, though, have gotten used to supporting their politics on their politics, supporting their policies based on their own sense of what's right, rather than considering outside opinions or valuing practical experience which might rain on the ideological parade, or force difficult confrontations with fellow party members.

Unless and until Republicans recreate their party as an organization that has a pragmatic side to its policy making, until it starts recognizing that its policy and political arguments have to square with more than just the beliefs of its own membership, it won't be leaving the wilderness. It will remain a party of political esoterics, who dream up names to call their political counterparts, and congratulate themselves on their cleverness and brutal honesty.