Well, the combination of Petraeus’s unpredictable wang and Nate Silver’s extremely predictable awesomeness bought us about a week or so, and now we’re right back to Daniel Henninger and your regular Wall Street Journal dosage of “Obama supporters are a cult of personality, and you know who ELSE ran a country and had a cult…”
It is always useful for Republicans to revisit their “message model” to single white women and the various Americans designated as minorities. Should the GOP kowtow to the Buffett Tax and conform to Roe v. Wade? But before the party reinvents the wheel, it should have a clearer understanding of the implications of the methods Barack Obama used to deliver his own message.
The Obama “turnout machine” wasn’t faceless. It was real people living full-time, some much of the past four years, in battleground states such as Ohio, Iowa and Virginia. They attended full-time to targeted racial, ethnic and labor constituencies, as the campaign did in 2008. Obama adviser David Plouffe calls them “the persuasion army.” I would call it a skilled propaganda machine.
Actually Daniel, you would call them much worse. And hey, you do a couple graphs down.
For the Obama campaign, the future was irrelevant. What mattered was the “product” of the president’s first term. It’s clear why Barack Obama was willing to turn former Wall Street Democrats and contributors like J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon into furious critics of the president with his seemingly compulsive scapegoating of bankers, millionaires and “the wealthiest.” Or why at the last minute of the 2011 deficit negotiations he demanded a tax increase that wrecked any possible deal and would have blown up the GOP. Once past ObamaCare, the president spent his first term creating these wedge issues and wedge people for his re-election.
Simultaneously, his field operations were driving these wedges into the heads of the Obama base of minorities, single women and campus voters. Using national politics in this way is known as agitprop.
Gotta love this combination of “how pathetic that Obama only won because he used his relentless hate speech to forge a dangerous army of thugs” and “the awful blaggart ni-CLANG and his horde of welfare cheats are coming for your bodily fluids!” and stuff. Takes skill to juggle those particular flaming clubs at the same time without setting the tent on fire.
Hell, we’re only a week and change in and Obama voters are already Godwin: The Darkening. Can you imagine where things will be like, three weeks from now? This is a hell of an acceleration curve these guys are burning through. Actual baby eating! Mass confiscation of personal mobility scooters! Eating the last slice of cake! The soul shivers at the prospect!
MariedeGournay
If it’s carrot cake, they can have it.
redshirt
I just want to note, for the record, how absolutely happy I still am with the election results last week. Incredible!
Thanks America!
Time to get back to work, though.
ding dong
Fock these people. GOP projection much?
BGinCHI
Shorter right wing pundit idiots:
No fair! Obama ran for President and people voted for him!
Rick Massimo
Shorter Daniel Henninger: Goddamn ni-CLANG! wins one little election and he thinks he’s, like, in charge or something Doesn’t even have the decency to apologize for being President. And actually telling people they should vote for him AGAIN! When will this boy learn his place?!
J
Also gotta love the idea of Jamie Dimon and his ilk as the ultimate martyrs and victims of persecution. Nothing in history holds a candle to the suffering through which they have passed and are still passing–Daniel in the Lions’ den, Christian martyrs, the middle passage, nothing remotely touches their expeience.
For a sense of conservative ‘entitlement’ see this amazing piece via Digby
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/scott-desjarlais-abortion_n_2139110.html
Jon
@BGinCHI
Even shorter right wing punit idiots:
No fair! Blacks, women, and Messikins can vote
Odie Hugh Manatee
The cake is a lie!
I don’t think the ‘honeymoon’ post-election bliss is over for us quite yet. The crazy have been driven over the edge to insanity over Obama and the Democrats cleaning their clocks in the last election. They HAVE to find something to blame it on because they are never going to admit that the major failure of theirs is that they are being rejected by much of the country.
In Conservative Land conservatives never fail, everyone else does.
aimai
One of the blue collar guys I was talking to before the election (he was actually going to vote for Obama, I think) began running through the kinds of things he was hearing on Fox news and from the other blue collar guys in his social circle. The big reveal was going to be that Obama had planned the bailout to appeal to voters in Michigan and Ohio! He profferred this shocking news to me–and told me that Mitt and his handlers were going to hammer at this blatantly awful act of partisanship–like I would fall over in shock and probably vow never to vote for such a scalawag again. I just burst out laughing “Uh–on what planet does any politician do anything that is going to piss off his voters? That’s the whole fucking point of politics: to do things to make your voters and most of the citizenry happy. Why else would you be in power? What makes the citizenry happy is going to be good for your career, and probably good for the country.”
What I didn’t realize is that the Republican party was going to insist that all good politicians insist that everyone else’s voters eat their spinach and like it.
aimai
Dr.BDH
“Compulsive scapegoating of bankers,” but nary a one in jail, you’ll note. If Obama didn’t pursue criminal charges against Dimon, et al, to avoid criticism, he once again proved that moderation in search of approval is no virtue.
Jon
Please, get my servants to carry out my fainting couch. Obama used WEDGE ISSUES! He ran a campaign where people decided things on issues that mattered to them instead of just giving that uppity blahh his comeuppance!
Bah! Benghazi! Reparations! Skewed polls! Kenya! Socialist! dssgsdfsdffhaht….
Baud
I guess the GOP should have accepted the Grand Bargain and foiled Obama’s evil plan.
Jay
The article to which Zandar linked was today tweeted out by Jamie Kirchick, so you know, right there, that Henninger is useless.
Yutsano
You left off human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, and mass hysteria.
They just cannot stand that they lost to THAT ONE again. I really fear for the President’s life. Someone is gonna try something and get too close for comfort.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This is what happens when Jesse Owens and Hitler mate and have gay babies. They are unstoppable! Run and hide conservatives, while you still can. We are coming for you.
Felonius Monk
On the other hand it is interesting to note that the Repug train is leaving the station and they don’t want Romney on board.
Jon
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Agreed. I am shocked at the resilience of my appetite for schadenfreude. I think in 2008 I was just so glad that the Reign of Terror was over I was exhausted and partly had reality yet to set in.
This time I just get to sit back and enjoy the nutters’ heads asplodin’!
Bort
Agitprop? Seriously? Maybe he should throw some old George Kennan quotes in there. Isn’t that what youngsters are reading these days?
jl
If Obama delivers on good policies, and does not fold, then I say let them go with this nonsense. Most people will find the GOPers ‘ha ha funny, like a clown’.
maya
Give him a break. Daniel’s got to eat. Can’t expect him to make any career change just yet. He did manage to get some new knee pads, I hope.
ABL
“Coming for your bodily fluids” made me snort out loud.
celticdragonchick
Daniel should also be told that repeatedly sticking his reproductive organ into poultry orifices is known as “fucking that chicken”.
Baud
@Jon:
GOTV in 2014
GOTV in 2016
Keep the schadenfreude alive.
dmsilev
@Felonius Monk: I’m pretty sure the GOP will turn Romney into an unperson even faster than they disappeared George W. “Who?” Bush. Strange how John McCain was the only person to run for President as a Republican in the last 12 years. Guess that’s why he’s on the Sunday talk shows so often.
Spaghetti Lee
In WSJ-land, no one ever votes for a Democrat of because they think it’s the right choice. They’re always duped into it-or better yet, bribed. Of course, millionaires who vote for people who promise to cut taxes on millionaires aren’t “looking for gifts”-they’re making the responsible choice. Spit.
But hey, there’s some good news here: The Republicans seem ready to dismiss the very concept of organized and professional GOTV teams as a commie-Hitler dirty trick. Don’t let me stop you, boys!
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@aimai:
Well, bankers, vulture capitalists, and our social betters who live on their investment income must be given goodies and tax cuts all the time, otherwise their feelings will be all hurty because they’ll have to settle for a new Jaguar this year (god, that’s almost like having to buy a Kia) instead of a Bentley. And they’ll stop trickling down their money and go Galt and oh noes.
However, for people living paycheck-to-paycheck, everyone knows *those* folks work hardest when they’re perpetually in fear of losing their job and home or at risk of going bankrupt from medical bills.
Don’t you guys know any economics?
Redshift
But wait! Every Republican alive spent the entire campaign telling us that Obama couldn’t run on his failed record, so he had nothing but attacks. Now you’re saying that he ignored the future and only talked about his record?
I do wish we could attach a generator to all this spinning and produce something useful from it.
TheMightyTrowel
@ABL: thus freeing some of those bodily fluid for evil democratic body-fluid-collection teams. See they’re right! #TinfoilHat
trollhattan
@J:
Heh, that link led me to this piece of TBogg-nip.
daverave
The comments on that Henninger article are… are… well, words escape me.
ETA: here’s a classic example… “What’s next? Legions of young people clad in fatigues with red armbands holding up little books of Obama’s Speeches, rampaging around the country and dragging their parents out of their houses for public scorn?”
LD50
Sure is a bunch of loser talk, when you get right down to it.
I don’t see how this kind of rhetoric does the GOP any good. Republicans have been comparing Obama to Hitler and Stalin for 4 years now, and it didn’t help Romney any.
blingee
Also (gasp!), Obama got more votes than the other guy. Such a pathetic ugly way to win.
some guy
how soon some of our wingnuts forget our old friend, Medicare Part D.
kdaug
@aimai:
Close, but not quite – and there’s the R/D disconnect.
Depends on your definition of “citizenry”, see.
I, for one, am waiting for my “gifts” of no-bid contracts, drilling rights, and privatized social services (do you have any idea how much money there is in that Social Security trust fund? 5% off the top, babe…)
You peons can keep your free birth control, I want the big pot.
Heliopause
His use of the term “propaganda” would be perfectly appropriate if he was using it appropriately. Sadly, he is not. But “agitprop” is a huge stretch, it’s hard to think of anything the Obama team does that qualifies.
Reasonable 4ce
I guess the GOP’s post-election “rethinking” an “atoning for our rash stoopidity” phase is over. That was quick.
Just Some Fuckhead
We’re talking about a President who is too lazy to do anything except tirelessly advance a socialist agenda.
gogol's wife
@redshirt:
Me too. Every time I start to get myself worked up into a rage, I remember that Obama is starting his second term, and I turn into a purring kitty.
arguingwithsignposts
I realize it’s all schadenfreude and village bashing all the time here, but two whole days and nothing on Israel from an FPer? Is that topic off-limits now?
Bill in Section 147
Certainly I voted for Obama because I hate whites. I don’t work. I collect government subsidies. I want more free stuff. I like the cut of his jib. I also hate freedom, liberty and capitalism.
This all makes sense to Republicans because the Obama in their world is a Kenyan Socialist Muslim Fundamentalist neo-Nazi Communist.
Pretty soon to convince me to vote for their side they will accuse me of being a child-raping sociopath and nun murderer. Also too I should eat shit and die in a fire.
It makes me wonder. But then I remember that Republicans are liars who only actually care about those with power staying in power. And whatever it takes to keep things the way they ought to be is Conservatism.
Commenting at Balloon Juice Since 1937
Reaganism is NOT a cult of personality.
PurpleGirl
Yeah, wasn’t it George W. who said “kinda have to catapult the propaganda…”?
Matt
The level of “NO U” bubbling up from the collective RW id is remarkable. So creating “wedge issues” is *bad* now?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Jon:
Since the election I’ve been rubbernecking the accident scenes formerly known as conservative web sites. I’ve seriously considered registering at some of them just so I could take a few shots at the pinata of stupid that they have made of themselves. I decided that it’s too much of a hassle and they are being entertaining enough without my assistance. The wingnut tears are collecting into deep pools of despair.
Properly heated, they make a perfect hot tub for liberals since they are self-agitating!
FlipYrWhig
Every election, the Republicans’ keystone promise is lower taxes. That’s another way to say… free money. I don’t know what they have themselves convinced that they run on.
ABL
@arguingwithsignposts: oh, I’ll put up Emily Hauser’s post.
Mike G
This ‘cult’ talk comes from the party of the Reagan Legacy Project, which seeks to place a monument or name a major feature after St. Alzheimer’s in all 3000+ counties in the US.
Also from the party of “GW Bush was chosen by God to lead America during 9/11.” Too bad Murkan Jeebus didn’t pick someone who wasn’t asleep at the switch, who might have stopped it from happening.
Spaghetti Lee
@daverave:
Oh crap, he figured it out!
FlipYrWhig
BTW, this figure of speech
in proximity to the idea of brainwashing, suggests lobotomy.
Walker
Sitting at dinner at a posh place and hearing some “Obama gave free stuff” memes from the older wing nuts in the restaurant. Fine by me. That meme will crush their outreach attempts and make them irrelevant that much faster.
redshirt
@gogol’s wife: I have a gift for you all. Herewith I present comments from Free Republic the night of the election, just around when Ohio was called. Enjoy – sorry for the long post!
+++++++++
Behold the wingnut hive mind in uproarious confusion.
C/O Tars Tarkas, Something Awful. Nice work.
Suffern ACE
@some guy: this. Oh, I’m sure they think that was earned by their hard won retiree sweat. Oh and it was magically paid for by not raising a single tax. What we up to on that? 700 billion in unfunded senior pork?
Turgidson
@LD50:
They villified Obama for so long that they came to believe even the cartoonish stuff about him. So they have to believe the only reason he won was becuase he had an army of brainwashed drones eating the brains of 51% of voters and giving them gifts so that they’d stay loyal to the Kenyan Usurper. Something like this just HAD to happen. Because they beeeeeliieeeeeeeve it so much.
Chris T.
Uh:
Yeah, how DARE he actually encourage STATE RESIDENTS to VOTE IN THE STATE IN WHICH THEY RESIDE! Damn that Community Organizer for organizing communities!
Litlebritdifrnt
Sorry if this has already been mentioned (I have not read all the comments), but what Obama did was mobilize an army of folks who were not going to stand by and have their vote stolen from them by Republican fuck wads who were doing their level best to take their right to vote from them. They stood up and said “no fucking way” and were willing to wait in line for 4 hours or more to exercise their right to vote. They stood up and said “no fucking way” were they going to allow the shitstain that is Mitt Romney become the president of the United States. They looked at Romney and saw in his soul what the rest of us saw, that he is a miserable excuse for a human being (a fact that he proved yet again today with his “gift” remarks) and voted to put the best man for the job back in office. Fuck those people who voted for Romney. They deserve every miserable thought that they have. I hope they rot in the hell that they believe in.
redshirt
@Litlebritdifrnt: Fuck Yeah!
Awesome rant!
Birthmarker
It’s like the beer commercial–“Great taste, less filling. ”
He’s Hitler, no he’s Stalin!
Didn’t I see a headline the other day that O isn’t a good politician? Didn’t read it…
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Yes, there’s a whole lotta head-asplodin’ to enjoy now and for the next for years, but for me the cherry on top will be when Sheldon Adelson gets his due from the DOJ.
What’s the over/under on him fleeing to an expedition-treaty-free country before he gets frog-marched?
@Heliopause:
You musta missed the street puppet-theater shows they were putting on at every major urban intersection.
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: That is crying funny.
Birthmarker
@Litlebritdifrnt: I wish I had a “like” button…
Ash Can
While it’s fun to throw horse apples and rotten produce at these morons and kick their asses down the street and back, I have to say I like what I’m hearing from them. There’s no talk of compromising, there’s no talk of adopting a few more moderate policies to make their overall message appeal to a larger number of voters, there’s no discussion of comprehensive strategies or examination of what (actually) went right with the Obama campaign and wrong with the Romney campaign with the objective of learning for the future. Nope — these geniuses still don’t have a clue. And that’s just fine. As long as they cling to policies that do nothing but make them and their friends wealthy and crash the rest of the country, I hope they keep wandering in the dark.
Chris
@Bill in Section 147:
Put ‘er there, partner.
I also kick puppies in my free time.
imonlylurking
The use of agitprop isn’t by accident:
ag·it·prop
[aj-it-prop]
noun
1. agitation and propaganda, especially for the cause of communism.
gelfling545
@Spaghetti Lee: But those millionaires don’t really want the tax breaks. Heavens, no. They are just willing to take the so they can trickle them down to the rest of us. Just their patriotic duty, as you might say.
El Cid
If Obama appreciated the principles of democracy, he’d have had his campaign send people out into neighborhoods to find voters and potential voters and then suggest to them that they (the campaign volunteers) weren’t sure who they should vote for, and maybe Obama sucked, and Mitt Romney seemed pretty good.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
@Ash Can: Yesterday, Jindal live-tested the “Warmer, Fuzzier Republican” mode I think he’s hoping to run in for ‘016 when he called out Romney on his “Fuck the 99%” remarks, and Bobby had a few moderate voices to back him up.
I can maybe see the Republicans continue to run on their “We Hate Everyone” platform for the midterms, but if that winds up a dud (the improving economy should have fewer voters makinng their decisions based on fear, which is never good for their side), I think we see the moderates get scrappy and try to change the tune. (I still think the White House is the Dems’ to keep in ‘016 provided we put a good candidate up.)
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Schadenfreude in a can.
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: No, it’s seriously funny. A couple of ’em have to be plants, fucking with the rest of ’em.
Triassic Sands
@ding dong:
It’s always great to hear a Democrat talk back to the Right Wing noise machine and on NPR today I heard a great example.
It was at the Benghazi hearings and the Wingers were condemning Obama for not protecting American diplomatic personnel. I didn’t hear his name, but the person being questioned really let the Republicans have it, by pointing out that if there was too little protection for Americans it was because the Republicans refused to fully fund the administration requests. Oops!
It’s always amazing to hear Republicans whining out of one side of their mouths about the size and waste of government and then out of the other side about how a Democratic administration isn’t doing an adequate job.
Republicans don’t know how to govern, or fight wars, or provide a safety net or virtually anything else that government is supposed to do, but, damn, when it comes to hypocrisy, no one can compete with the GOP. No one. Period.
fuckwit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I
JPL
@Ash Can: Some of us find his veep sexy, also, too. That veep btw is going to be on Parks and Recreation tonight. .
S. Holland
@gogol’s wife: Amen amen amen…..I’m loving loving the expression Second Term!!
S. Holland
@gogol’s wife: Amen amen amen…..I’m loving loving the expression Second Term!!
Helen Bedd
Must admit I’ve never heard the term “wedge people” before…
Wedge People = Non White Male Voters, apparently….
If on the other hand “wedge people” are those who give wedgies, Henninger certainly deserves one…
Persia
@aimai: Also: Those auto industry jobs are not all in Detroit and Ohio. Way back when, the plant my then-husband worked at in Vermont went to a standstill during the auto workers’ strike. All those parts come from somewhere, and it’s not all China or Mexico.
trollhattan
@redshirt:
Huh. IIUC there are some bargain
housescompounds & doublewides flooding the market, car repair places suddenly got busy and…AMMO.If only they’d follow through.
Villago Delenda Est
Daniel Henninger obviously missed his calling, working the projection room at the Hell’s Mall octoplex.
Dr. Loveless
@redshirt:
Why are they stocking up on ham???
Odie Hugh Manatee
OT:
Wingnut Weather Forecast: Forecast for December 14th, 2012 is for a deluge of wingnut tears across the nation as some Republican governors institute healthcare exchanges to comply with new health care regulations. Wingnut tears in states led by Republican governors and having high concentrations of wingnuts, notably the south, are expected to be heavy enough to cause flash flooding in many areas.
During this deluge, visibility may be reduced to as little as 10 feet due to the air being filled with shredded clothing from the rending of garments.
WARNING: Wingnut tears are not potable and should not be consumed, even with distillation. Bathing and swimming in wingnut tears is safe but it it recommended that the tears be heated prior to bathing or swimming as they are quite cold.
Suffern ACE
@Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn: his performance during the first debate can now be explained by confusion over whether to use the glitterbomb in his pocket on Romney or Lehrer.
danielx
Yes, in point of fact that is a pretty fair description of Faux News. Projection, much, Henninger?
These guys really hate getting beaten. Actually, I could stop at ‘these guys really hate’. If I got angry/outraged at every fling-shit-at-a-wall piece I’ve read by asshole Republican apologists over, say, the last twenty years, the top of my head would be past Jupiter about now.
redshirt
@Dr. Loveless: HAM radios, so they can continue Free Republic after Obama seizes the Internet (True story!).
mclaren
Fascinating. Haven’t heard the term “agitprop” since the 1960s. What next? “Pinkos”? “Comsymps”?
This is really antique language. I doubt anyone under the age of 40 even knows what these terms mean.
Capt. Seaweed
@redshirt:
Huhwut? Hams first, guns later.
mapaghimagsik
Hahaha “get on the ham” = “keep fucking that pig”
Actually, ham radio – great to use in a disaster, and a refuge for gun traders in right wing nut jobs when there is not a disaster
TG Chicago
The WSJ piece refers to Obama’s “seemingly compulsive scapegoating of bankers, millionaires and ‘the wealthiest.’”
What exactly are they referring to?
A conservative friend of mine complained about Obama’s “class warfare”. I pointed out that the worst class warfare comment came from Romney (ie, 47%) and asked what Obama said that was comparable. He had nothing.
I know Obama said the dreaded word “fatcats” at one point, but other than that, what did he say that was so bad? I know he called for higher tax rates on the wealthy, but did he ever actually demonize the rich? I don’t recall that.
JustAnotherBob
@TG Chicago: PBO always includes himself in the group of people who need to be paying more taxes.
Self-demonizing?
Grover Gardner
It’s just amazing watching these people practically setting themselves on fire.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Felonius Monk: Well, here’s a bit of schadenfreude I hadn’t expected. Nobody’s gonna hold the train for Romney? AMF, dude.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@redshirt: So, Lee wants guns, ammo, food, water, and ham radio.
Lucky for him he can get a license without learning Morse any more. Maybe he’s just buying a rig without a license? Uh-oh. What happens when the FCC shuts him down?
Wolverines!
..- — .-.. …- . .-. .. -. . …!
(I think, it’s been a while)
Jay in Oregon
@TG Chicago:
If you’re not slobbering all over the “job creators” then it’s the same as demonizing them in wingnut land.
The Daily Show had a good example of showing the proper deference to the “job creators” re: the Jamie Dimon appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-14-2012/bank-yankers
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-june-14-2012/bank-yankers—jamie-dimon-on-capitol-hill
Bulworth
Shorter Wingnut: We thought our own propaganda on Fox would save us from having to reach out to any actual voters with any meaningful policies.