Dems need to hate the Koch Brothers
It’s all about turning out the base.
Ed Rogers points out that the majority of the American public couldn’t care less about the Kochs.
And yet the activist liberals and left keep hammering away at the brothers. Why?:
…Democratic campaign managers are not crazy; there is no chance they really believe an anti-Koch message drives votes. But perhaps there is a method to their madness. There are two lines of thinking that might be driving their strange Koch brother-focused messaging. First is that the Democrats have nothing affirmative to talk about…
And second, it is possible Democrats are defaming the Kochs in hopes it will intimidate other possible Republican donors.
Of the two, the second is most important, IMHO. The revelations about the persecution of conservative groups by the IRS underscore how useful and vital the technique of intimidation is to the Democrats. Anything that slows down or discourages conservative fund-raising, organization, and communication with the public is golden.
But there’s a third—and I think very large—reason for the Koch demonization.
Rogers has written “there is no chance they really believe an anti-Koch message drives votes,” but that’s only true if you look at the votes of moderates or Republicans. It most definitely could help drive votes on the left.
Winning elections is not just about getting moderates to vote for you, or even about undermining the voting drive of your opposition. It is also very much about energizing your own base to get out and vote.
The Democratic base nowadays—the left—is motivated in no small part by a combination of self-righteousness and hateful rage. Anything that drives one or both of those emotions is a plus for the party.
Stoking Koch-hatred performs that function.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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Comments
Raw anger is one of the worst motivators of people. If the Democrats want this tactic to work, they had better hope that millions of their faithful suffer from borderline personality disorder and are looking for an excuse to be angry.
Everybody needs a “Emmanuel Goldstein” for their “Two Minutes Hate.”
If you doubt me, contact the Ministry of Truth.
There is a difference between ‘Anger’ and ‘Hate.’
I dont hate anyone. I do have a lot of justified anger and it motivates me to push back on the power of professional leftist purveyors of hate & their human repeaters.
That anger has motivated me for over 5 years and it still works well. Modulating anger with nuance is a clever method of turning anger-motivation into calmer effective methods of activism. I study the opposition’s spectrum of methods and leverage those methods.
i can agree except for one sticky little thing . I really really ‘Hate’ the Beltway politician . Specially it’s leader . We all good now bye bye
Oh, I just thought it was because Harry Reid is nuts.
They need an Emmanuel Goldstein. Next comes the mandatory Two-Minute-Hate, followed by Hate Week. While the rest of the world sees Orwell’s 1984 as a dystopian nightmare, the Democrats see it as guidebook.
This is not rocket science. The Left’s demonization of Palin in 2008 was a top-down calculated political war cry to the several hundred thousand loudmouth leftist activists to focus a rage-movement.
Conservatives had nothing like it in 2008. The birth of the Tea Party changed the playing field and it scared the crap out of elites on the left and right, to which Obama, Feinstein & three recalled Colorado state lawmakers can confirm by their failed Federal gun control war on the AR15.
The failure of the left’s Wisconsin recalls is another testament to that fact.
The pushback of the Left’s hate movement against self-defense using the bogus Trayvon Martin race card was another bitter left-wing failure.
The defunct Left-Wing top-down efforts to create the Coffee Party was another testament to their now overwhelmed hate squads.
Today, Conservative activists exceed those few hundred thousand leftists activist hate spreaders & their clueless friends on collage campuses.
The public rallying behind the NRA and Conservative activists as a result of Obama’s directed full on assault on the 2nd Amendment has, and had, very very serious clout.
This is not 2008 and the Left-Wing elites no longer enjoys an unopposed political activist field of play. They & their RINO friends tried to quash Conservative activism and it not only failed, it backfired, in my view.
Democrats should have dug themselves two graves before embarking on this hate quest
Yeah, because there is no one else at the very top of this country in DC to hate on for many many many great reasons!
Snark Snark.
http://fellowshipofminds.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/income-gap.png
America more economically unequal after 5+ years of Obama
Obama said that when he met with Pope Francis last week for nearly an hour, they spoke about “their shared commitment to fighting poverty and income inequality.”
Indeed, like all Democrats, Obama tells voters they must elect him because he fights for the poor and the middle class. Blah, blah, blah.
So why is it that after more than FIVE years of the POS’s presidency, America is MORE economically unequal than ever before?
http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/04/02/america-economically-unequal-5-years-obama/
All this hate directed at the Koch brothers is wasted on the Democratic base. Most of that base is made up of uneducated, ignorant, low information voters. Those members of the base who actually struggle to the polls will, when asked about the Koch brothers, reply: “Who?”
It is rarely a single motivator. Demonizing the Kochs serves three motives, to varying degrees: (1) energize the base (2) distract from Obamacare (3) make potential GOP donors think twice.