Who wants to submit themselves to Russian, I mean GOP, disinformation slander?
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Itâs like Beauregard Sessions would say, âAhh do declareâ
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Ok, seriously, their problem started when they were forced to move from just repeal to repeal and replace. Once enough people realized that Obamacare wasnât as bad as it had been painted and ok, kill it but give me as good or better at a cheaper cost, the Rs had nothing.
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âThe Republicans are the party that says big government doesnât work, then they get elected and prove it.â - PJ OâRourke
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Heâs been too busy finding those 3-4 million illegal voters. And leakers in the IC.
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TarbabyâŚ
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Oh, you mean like writing âBecause they are morons who need to hurt people. Duh!â? That kind of âknown and obvious?â
And your last sentence is just silly since anyone familiar with campaign tactics will tell you that hammering home a simple message is a very effective tactic.
I did love your reply to rickjones (who made a similar observation) when you wrote, âSorry, but this is insight, answering the lead question: learn to read.â That is some seriously, and hilariously, delusional shit. Better to be thought a fool than to continue to post here and prove it.
Edited to add that your posts on this thread are off-topic and inappropriate. If youâre looking for a timeout, just keep it up.
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At the risk of repeating myself, the problem we have in this country is the inability of the two parties to distinguish between PR, marketing and advertising and policy, albeit from different sides.
Republicans, being basically private-sector oriented, understand marketing, PR and advertising at both a gut level and with a very high degree of sophistication and mastery of the details of how it works in practice. Democrats being basically public-sector oriented understand public policy at both a gut level and with a very high degree of sophistication and mastery of the details of how it works in practice.
And the problem we have as a country is that both parties think these two very different things are the same thing.
Republicans use, and have access to, the very best flacks, madmen and marketing executives, people who circulate from the private sector to the political sector and back again. People who can use imagery and two words to get people to drink more milk. People who can devise commercials where an actress pretending to be a concerned mother can walk toward a camera spouting phrases that are semantically null, have precisely zero substance, and yet begin eroding the number of Democratic incumbents simply by subtly creating negative associations between âhealth careâ and âlaw.â They can devise actiony word lists and simple slogans that motivate enough voters to flip control of Congress and, once in a while, the presidency. They can fix public attention on particular issues and surround them with anger and fear, the great motivators of the indifferent voter, without anyone knowing why theyâre mad or what they fear. They can spin up great, noxious clouds of patently untrue narratives.
And then they come into power and proceed to try to turn all the empty slogans and try to turn all of that mind pollution into policy and theyâre like people running full tilt into brick walls because they believe their own nonsense and, in any case, have to deliver on promises that are illogical, grounded in falsehood and, more often than not, contrary to the laws of nature, economics and physics. And the durpstorm that was the Bush Administration, that we see in this Congress and that we see in Kansas is the usual result. And so, unless their durp sweeps them into office in a redistricting year when they can rig the election game, electoral disaster ensues.
Democrats, by contrast, think good policy sells itself. They think all they have to do is do good policy, policy that benefits many more people than it harms, policy that pokes the rich and powerful in their pocketbooks, policy that is logical and reasonable on its face and seeks to accomplish wholesome ends, and the votes will follow. They think good policy is the same thing as marketing and PR. They are oblivious to the reality that good public policy never pleases everyone and that every person who loses is an anecdote waiting to be turned into a commercial and a black PR campaign that will, in the public mind, symbolize the policy and Democrats generally. And so they get crushed in the next election and stand there sputtering âbut, but, but, we had the best policies!â
It doesnât help that Democrats are held to a different standard and are not permitted to engage in kinds of messaging dishonesty that Republicans can. (Like, for example, having a description of a plan to privatize and blockgrant Medicare as a plan to abolish Medicare, which, of course, âthe Lie of the Yearâ because Republicans called their privatized diminishing blockgrant swindle âMedicare.â) But that means we need to be better, much, much betterâat PR and marketing than the Republicans and, instead, it becomes an excuse to be worse.
But this is what weâre seeing now: Republicans spent seven years being rewarded for spewing durp about the ACA. Now theyâre trying to turn their durp into a bill affecting a fifth of the national economy and realityâeconomic and politicalâkeeps smacking them back. But, as usual, Democrats are unable to fully take advantage of the opportunity because they think bad policy is the same thing as negative PR and marketing and that the ads will write themselves.
They donât know how to take the details of the durp and the madness and both tie it into a theme that resonates and, above all, make people feel like voting for their own personal self-interest is the right, patriotic thing to do.
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Careful. If you say anything that the OP doesnât like, heâll start PMing you with vulgar suggestions.
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Yes. This. Between racism and 'bortion, you will have their vote every time. And Iâm NOT interested in talking to them. I see them every day at work, and they will NEVER vote for anyone who doesnât do those dog whistles.
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Maybe for some. But for most Rs itâs more elemental than that. Itâs about hate of liberals and the need to strike at something liberals did, especially since theyâve been crowing about killing it for years. The animating force of Republicanism is simply the hatred of liberals, full stop, which is the product theyâve been fed systematically by right-wing media for decades now at this point. Any policy consequences are secondary, unless there is a direct, tangible impact on their lives. Thatâs why they keep backing off when they touch the stoveâŚand why they keep going back.
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At this rate theyâre just going to forgo the wall, infrastructure, and the military just to fund tax cuts.
Yes it is all blah, blah, blah. Itâs either cut taxes or raise taxes (Reagan called them revenue enhancements). Raising taxes is out - even as conversation. But thatâs where all the money is. Effective corporate tax rates are down in the low teens. And of course the wealthy can absorb a tax increase âhitâ. Problem solved. We could even reduce those exploding deficits the Freedom Caucus freaks out about all the time. But for some reason all they see are Medicare âentitlementsâ, HC subsidies and Medicaid giveaways to recipients gaming the system as the reasons for our revenue shortfalls. All of which makes America less safe and unable to compete in the 21st century. Sacrifices have to be made - and weâll determine whoâs to make them.
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LOL⌠Is that really the best you can do? You donât have an answer because you know damn well you got caught in a rather foolish exercise of blatant hypocrisy, not to mention the fact that your response to michaelryerson was wildly inappropriate. And youâve been digging that hole deeper and deeper ever since rather than accepting that you were an idiot., apologizing, and moving on.
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Not sure why they call it healthcare, when the Republicans clearly donât care about the health of anyone.
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They care for the âhealthâ of all that money?
Right there with you. I was a Poli Sci major in the late 70s. and I love beer and pizza!!!
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So thatâs why theyâre so intent on building a wall. I didnât look at it that way. Itâs all so clear, now.
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Which is a big part of the problem here.
The other issue is the method they have usedâŚâObamacare is horrible, vote for us so we can take back the House and stop it!ââŚâOh, waitâŚwe need the Senate too, canât do anything with just the House, sorryââŚâOk, this time we mean it, give us the White House and both houses of Congress and we will get rid of ObamacareââŚis far too reminiscent of the line they have been using about Roe v. Wade for decades. And their voters, animated to no small degree by Trump, are more willing to call Bullshit these days on that tactic.
The deeper problem for them, is that they have already lost this battle. Most Americans, including a significant portion of their own voters, now believe that government should play a role in providing healthcare. To repeal Obamacare, they have to re-engage in a decades long battle to turn that back the other way. And that ainât happening in a few short months.
This is very key, IMO. Because even if they pursue the symbolic battle of repealing Obamacare and replacing it with essentially nothing workable, they will end up ceding even MORE ground on this once Dems are back in power. If the GOP doesnât actually want some form of single payer, the best thing they could do is take their electoral lumps, and leave Obamacare firmly in place.
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