John H. Richardson at Esquire dissects some of Dinesh D’Souza’s other recent lies, those of D’Souza’s fellow Republicans, and the possible reasoning behind them, in a post titled “The Stink of Desperation: Why Republicans Lie“:
… What I don’t understand is this: What’s the point of writing such obvious lies? No thoughtful person of either party will ever have any real respect for you, and you’re certainly not going to convince anyone who is in real doubt. All you can possibly do is whip up the enthusiasm of the base and sway the more brainless independents.
[…] __
I have two theories about this. One is that the conservative intelligentsia is deliberately training the Republican base to be irrational. I can almost see them chortling: “If we can get them to believe the earth is only 6,000 years old, we can get them to believe anything!”
__
But while this theory provides a little consolation, I don’t actually think it’s true. Far more likely is theory No. 2 — that Republicans have lost all confidence in their ability to convince the American people with honest arguments. Their triumphalism about November conceals a stink of desperation.
__
Consider the big picture: Conservatives have lost the culture war so completely. They can’t even keep military gays in the closet anymore. Their most celebrated evangelical politician — Sarah Palin — admits to premarital sex without a blush or an apology and nobody even notices. Their one useful idea is the old fiscal conservative ideal, which has become so tarnished by their own abuse that they have to tart it up in silly cries of “socialism.” (I respect those who would add abortion, but oddly enough that is no longer a Republican preoccupation.) And they’re doubling down on hatred of outsiders like Mexicans and Muslims, an ominous sign that is always a sign of weakness.
__
I don’t think the American people are going to fall for it. Sure, Republicans will probably pick up a lot of seats in November. But when they get to Washington, they will either compromise in order to run the country or live up to their rhetoric and wreak havoc, thus revealing themselves as either hypocrites or irresponsible extremists. There are no other choices. And opportunistic liars like D’Souza, the cheerleaders of this episode of madness, will bear much of the blame.
cleek
the base loves it, and the base donates. don’t forget, there’s much more to politics than just the votes; there are entire industries based on milking cash from politically-active simpletons. PACs, magazines, book sales, think tanks, etc. all depend on agitated and frenzied rabble who think the only thing that can prevent the country from FALLING INTO THE ABYSS (!) is their $50 donation. political TV and radio shows need the base to stay freaked-out and hungry for more. Fox and RightNetwork need people to hate liberals so they can sell ad time on shows about hating liberals.
plus, when the base gets active and goes a-marching, the party leaders show footage of this HUGE GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT!
the downside to lying is that you piss off people who pay close attention to politics who probably weren’t going to vote for you anyway. BFD.
JGabriel
John H. Richardson:
If the Republicans win seats, won’t they have proven themselves at least partly right?
.
Sentient Puddle
…and right there, the question is answered.
Breezeblock
Oooh, I double-clicked and went to Mark Warren challenging the He-man D-man to a fight! Granted, from 2007, but me like!
http://www.esquire.com/fiction/book-review/ESQ0107deathtoamerica
Jamie
I fear you may be overly optimistic about the sanity of the American public.
Zifnab
From fucking who? The Washington punditry will keep inviting him to their jerk off cocktail parties. Corporate funded “think tanks” will shower him with money and gifts. And we’ll just get a bigger, louder, more cynical round of “This is all Obama’s fault!” after the Fall.
When Democrats cave to Republican obstruction, it’s the Democrats’ fault. When Republicans run up the deficit and lose a couple of wars in Asia, it’s the Democrats’ fault. When a Republican committee chairman texts sexually suggestive messages to an underaged staffer, it’s the Democrats’ fault.
It is ALWAYS the Democrats’ fault. The Republican punditry is the absolute last group in line to take any blame.
NonyNony
@cleek: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
The industry you’re talking about is only concentrating on the “some of the people” that you can fool “all of the time”. And it’s a profitable demographic for a con artist. So why not?
I’m less concerned about the grifters (Limbaugh, Palin, Beck, Gingrich among others) than I am about the ideologues who stay out of the public eye but funnel money to the grifters. The grifters can come and go, but those guys are using the con-artists to build something ugly. That’s the real problem. And, frankly, I suspect that Richardson is wrong about one thing. I think that for those guys:
Might actually be a legitimate battle plan.
El Cid
The American right has always had a huge base of irrational, anti-modernist, medievalist, racist people and organizations and ideologies.
How different is today’s TeaTard revanchists from Liberty Leaguers, or Birchites, or hard core segregationists, or Lost Causers, or 90’s militia nuts [or 1990s billionaire-funded rags and videos alleging that Hillary killed Vince Foster or Clinton was killing kids with trains to hide his narco-trafficking], or Reagan’s “World Anti-Communist League” fascist murderer friends? Or a million other comparisons?
The difference between now and then is that those forces previously were more (not entirely) akin to attack dogs, whereas now they are running the party.
These types are not any more nuts or racist or irrational than their predecessors. They’re just more influential now versus the relatively sane prior leadership.
gypsy howell
See, there we go with that “both parties are the same/ both sides do it” trope again.
Is he suggesting that there are thoughtful people in the republican/conservative/teatard party? That train left the station for good when McCain inflicted Sarah Palin on us.
Why do they lie? Because they can. And they do. And they get away with it. And it works. Make no mistake, the “wreaking havoc” part is a feature, not a bug. These people represent interests who frankly have no interest in what happens to America. Did you notice the obscenely wealthy are getting obscenely wealthier? That’s what it’s all about. D’Souza is just being paid to lead the marching band. Hey, it’s a paycheck.
New Yorker
@cleek:
Exactly. This is a money-making opportunity for the D’Souzas (and Palins, and Limbaughs, and Becks, and Levins, and Hannitys and..zzzz……). Telling the truth and having a shred of nuance to one’s writings don’t get the people who buy your books up in a foaming-at-the-mouth rage.
liberty60
Well, in my more optimistic moments, I recall that the conservatives won me in the 1970’s with reasoned arguments about the overreach of the power of the state, and lost me in the 90’s with the hysterical fixation on Clinton scandals, while ignoring the economic malaise of the middle class.
Whipping up the base with rabid nonsense is like negative campaigning and dirty tricks- they do work for a while, but it becomes a narcotic of ever shrinking returns.
The GOP’s ace in the hole right now is white fear and resentment, but that is also their biggest weakness- they can’t embrace ethnic minorities for fear of losing the base, and the white base is shrinking and splintering- so rather than kick the narcotic of dog whistles and tribalism, they just keep begging for more and more powerful fixes.
Sentient Puddle
OK, after reading the entire article, I take what I said back. It assumed that D’Souza was actually smart. But no, it’s clear that he’s another one of those morons who doesn’t see the contradiction in calling someone both a socialist and a fascist.
MattF
I (mostly) agree with Richardson. I worry that the wingers will have the last word because they are single-minded in their pursuit of power. It’s gonna be ugly.
JohnR
uh-huh. and? it certainly doesn’t seem to have hurt them a great deal so far – the press still loves them and treats them as Serious People, so why should this matter?
Urza
@Zifnab: I respectfully wish to add an exception to your thoughts that its always the Democrats fault. You forget there’s also the Republican hand wringing saying that so and so wasn’t conservative enough is why people stopped liking them. Otherwise you are correct.
The Fool
There is a very simple reason why the Republicans lie — they HAVE to. And they have to for two reasons:
1) The overriding goal of all Repulican policies is to further enrich the rich. Since its a zero-sum game that means enriching the rich at the expense of the vast majority. That, if understood, is very unpopular among the vast majority. Hence the Republicans have to lie about their policy goals and distract with social issues.
2) Their coalition consists of the rich and the religiously insane. The leaders have to lie to everyone for the reason outlined in 1). Also for the reason outlined in 1) they have to distract people from their lies by whipping up a lot of religion-based social nonsense. This means they have to keep on lying to the religious goofballs so they will think its really about them. But for many in the Republican coalition it has nothing to do with religious bullshit — its all about the money.
El Cid
@liberty60:
El Cid
By the way, the violent racists like the Klan in the Reconstruction era were led & financed by the white supremacist super-rich, who organized and stirred up and sent out the shock troops to do the dirty work.
On the other hand, I don’t know if anyone mentioned the Boston Tea Party when they were violently overthrowing the government of Wilmington NC and forcing the elected black officials into exile.
But I’m pretty sure they didn’t arrive on buses with bloody handprints, because I think they would have found that a bit too crude for would-be saviors of democracy.
Bob
This comment is in no way a slight to the Esquire piece. From the portion quoted it appears to be on the money. But it also appears to be a continuation, elaboration, of the “epistemic closure” argument offered by Julian Sanchez and the “managed ignorance” argument offered by Jason Kuznicki at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.
Regardless, this Republican big lie bullshit needs to be called out often.
However, I’m not sanguine that the American people will see through this BS anytime soon.
Kiril
Their is no price to be paid for lying and it works. In a year and a half, look for the phrase “Obama fatigue” to be bandied about.
Guster
That’s marvelously naive. ‘Run the country?’
They believe that government is the enemy. They hate and fear the government of the United States. They don’t want it to ‘run the country.’ They want it to fail as spectacularly as possible; that’s why lies don’t matter, why policies and facts don’t matter.
You don’t need an architect to operate a wrecking ball.
Boudica
Just as liberals/progressives/Dems have been denigrated for the last 40 years as DFHs, tree-hugging, granola-eating, free lovin’, long-haired crazy people, perhaps the tea partiers will be the cartoony negative stereotype of Repubs/conservatives for the next 40 years as they pull so far to the right and drive off sane people.
Aaronsmiles
One thing I would like to note about his conclusion:
“But when they get to Washington, they will either compromise in order to run the country or live up to their rhetoric and wreak havoc, thus revealing themselves as either hypocrites or irresponsible extremists.”
This strikes me as correct, but one thing I believe we overlook when we discuss this fact, is that though they may reveal themselves to be hypocrites should be be elected, do we believe the right-wing base will actually call them out on it? Think of the Bush years. Nary a peep was ever heard from them when what the Bush administration was doing should have upset them considerably. The only time I recall a true reaction against the Bush admin was when Harriet Miers was nominated and quickly disposed. But that was from an evangelical standpoint, which has always been a great motivation for them.
The only thing different this time, and I hope I’m right about this, is that they have created the Tea Party. The tea party is like the purist branch of a faith, and any deviation means you are excommunicated. There is some joy in the belief that the GOP won’t be able to become hypocrites without being called out, but I still don’t know if I believe they will actually call them out unless it is during an election. Until recently, many of the GOP congressfolk should have been considered safe from primary, but now ….
Just food for thought.
cleek
@Guster:
They believe that government run by Democrats is the enemy.
there will be no complaining about “the government” during the GOP administration.
Alwhite
@Zifnab:
THIS! I was going to point out that the blame will fall as harshly against them as it has against those who mindlessly cheer led us into Iraq.
They will have been wrong but for the right reasons while those who were right all along will have been so for the wrong reasons and can safely be ignored.
ricky
A sign which is small consolation to vicitms of genocide everywhere, doncha think?
Brachiator
This is simpleminded elitism. There are fundies who have always believed that the world is only 6,000 years old. They have never needed the GOP to lead them into delusion.
This kind of thing also ignores the degree to which Obama’s election has upset all manner of wingnuts. The tea party crowd are not simply the Republican base, but an overlap and spinoff which tries to ignore the existence of a black president by creating its own alternative universe.
The sad fact is that the GOP is plugging into a group of people who desperately need to believe lies. Republicans learned how to shamelessly exploit this vein of stupidity during the “Terry Schiavo Lives!” nonsense.
There are conservatives who can easily accept the foibles of a white person they like if it is validated by a country music song lyric. Premarital sex and adultery are explainable, acceptable, pardonable.
Now, if we can just get a country musician to do a song about hot gay sex …
ricky
While your prediction is one I agree with, that is a sign of a press corps too lazy to think and not clever enough to lie.
binzinerator
@NonyNony:
I think Rove proved that all they have to do is fool enough of the people enough of the time. That is all that matters.
merrinc
How quickly we forget! They aren’t lying, they’re creating their own reality.
Guster
@cleek: Well, I think they believe that a responsive and effective small-d democratic government is the enemy, because that completely demolishes their first Article of Faith. An effective government by the people and for the people is a stake through the heart of their ideology.
They don’t find the government run by Republicans a threat because it doesn’t ‘run the country’ in any meaningful way. It just serves certain interests.
Even the utter incompetence and waste of the Bush years is in many ways a net benefit to the right. It supports the conservative world-view: ‘the government always sucks.’
And of course this works v. well. I’ve got liberal-minded friends who are almost completely divorced from politics because the government is so screwed that they’ve lost all faith. And they can rattle off a hundred cases (as could either of us) where they’re perfectly right. The fact that the right created those problems for the express purpose of alienating them doesn’t make the problems any less problematic.
cleek
@Kiril:
currently, “Obama fatigue” gives 25,000 hits on Google.
merrinc
@cleek:
Exactly. More to the point, any complaining about the govt when the Republicans are in charge will be referred to as treason, giving aid and comfort to our enemies, hating America, etc.
ricky
@Brachiator:
“Now, if we can just get a country musician to do a song about hot gay sex …”
So Folsom Prison Blues was really about the train?
El Cid
@binzinerator:
All you need do is add 25% or thereabouts to the voters to the 28% of super-crazies.
gex
The simplest and most obvious explanation for why the obvious lies is that the people who tell them profit from them. From there, the find some rationalization for these “opinions”.
El Cid
The Liberty Leaguers and John Birch Society loonies were mostly downplayed by mainstream right wing politicians and pundits as being (1) crazy extremists and (2) dangerous to the interests of the Republican party.
That’s not the case any more.
R. Porrofatto
In my opinion, while the lies may be ostensibly red meat for the base, I think they are also aimed at the majority of the populace for whom politics is peripheral to their lives at best. Most of these people probably couldn’t tell you a thing about the healthcare bill, but I bet most of them have heard that it contains death panels. That’s the point of all the lies — keep enough of them coming and repeat them as often as possible and they will be “out there” — more “out there” than the truth. By making outrageous statements, D’Souza will be invited on the talk shows, his writing will be discussed in the media and on blogs (as it currently is), and to those not paying attention the mere existence of this discussion and its seeming ubiquity will give an aura of legitimacy to his lies. It’s a standard formula.
One more advantage of this, it keeps their narrative foremost in the media, smothering even what’s tolerated from the opposition, and distracts from their own agenda. You can look over the past year or so and see one insane right-wing outrage after another, dominating the entire discourse.
Linda Featheringill
“Triumphalism”? I had to look that one up.
But he is right. A resounding victory in November would validate their philosophy. They could tell themselves that they were right and that God is on their side.
HOWEVER, it has been my experience that celebrating a victory before it has been won results my putting forth a diminished effort to gain that victory. It has always worked better for me to withhold the reward until after the deed is done.
I think the Republicans are making a tactical mistake in proclaiming their lead so far before the election.
[and I hope they are]
gex
We live in an era where people who loudly proclaim they want to return to how the Founding Fathers did things also condemn anti-colonialism.
ricky
Why can’t that nice Mr. D’Souzah write something uplifting, like surviving in a lifeboat with a tiger?
Steven
The idea that government can do things that benefit all the people can not be allowed to survive loose in the public sphere. Republicans are terrified that if they let that happen, the Koch brothers will have their nuts.
ricky
In the midst of this post on the “Stink of Desperation: Why Republicans Lie” is an ad that reads:
SHARRON ANGLE
will fight for
EVERY JOB
I think I will go find a wall sized for my head.
Linda Featheringill
@Breezeblock:
I went to Esquire to check out the review.
They actually put that on the blurb?! Damn!
Maybe we should put together “The Protocols of the Conservative Extremists.”
I have never read Protocols because I only have one brain and didn’t want to stain it beyond all repair. But I do know what it is. And placing this reference on a book’s blurb could be considered a dog whistle for rabid Antisemitism and a not too subtle one at that. Who is he writing for? The Aryan Brotherhood?
debbie
It’s about time someone stated this stuff in as plain a statement as “Why Republicans Lie” and “Their triumphalism about November conceals a stink of desperation.”
I hope this gets linked all over the Internets.
Bruce Webb
Well history suggests another explanation.
Conservatives from Plato on have NEVER endorsed popular access to education, they have ALWAYS advocated keeping it a privilege for the privileged. Pick any century between the 4th BC and the 19th, higher education certainly but even literacy have been deliberately restricted to the upper class plus the clerks who directly served their interests. This is why the Catholic Church right to the 19th century and in some respects to Vatican II, sought to limit access to the Bible to those who knew Latin, and access to Universities (with the partial exception of Law Schools) to Clerics.
Education is not good for the masses. It might get them thinking about such things as economic inequality and social justice and reading the more inconvenient (for the wealthy) parts of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
American Conservatives never made a serious attempt to convince the masses, Buckley’s TV show Firing Line was shown only on PBS at a time when mostly only the upper classes ever tuned in, nor did he attempt to make the National Review into a popular publication, instead Conservatives used the time old and tested strategy of giving the people Circuses, while reserving theory for the Philosopher-Kings (Leo Strauss and the neo-Cons spring to mind here).
So the entire premise is wrong, Conservative ‘thought’ ALWAYS ran on two tracks. It is just that with the emergence of Fox News and the conversion of the National Review into the cartoonish NRO the serious track has merged with the circus track with the result that the train is now being driven by people who formerly would have been assigned to drive the clown car.
There was a time when Reader’s Digest was maybe the most popular publication in the country, and its modus operandi was pretty simple, take articles from publications whose full versions were directed at the educated conservatives and boil out the complexities until you had the sound-bite version for everyone else, information was simply run through a screen to filter out the complexities. Conservatives haven’t abandoned that model, they just adapted it for the TV Age via CNN and Fox.
ricky
@Boudica:
Should we categorize your comment in “false equivalency” or “reality based community.”
Karen
Here are the major factors as to why this time IS different:
A black man is now the President
The knowledge that white people will be a minority very soon.
A viable ultra right wing third party who has taken over the GOP just by existing. And they’re armed.
More media owned by less people who have a right wing pov.
An unstable economy that has made the same people who own more media richer and the middle class poorer.
Rupert Murdoch killed the need for facts. News is now what the media says it is which is what the GOP says it is.
Journalism doesn’t exist anymore which means more propaganda without any investigation to prove anything.
September 11.
September 11.
September 11.
Rinse and repeat.
PTirebiter
Ulysses Everett McGill
Mark S.
True, they’ve been very quiet about the court ruling in California, a lot more quiet than I expected.
I guess racism polls better than homophobia. And while I don’t agree with everything this guy says, I do agree that this is a sign of weakness. When you rely on appealing to the most base instinct, racism, you don’t have much confidence on any of the positive aspects of your agenda.
Sentient Puddle
@Bruce Webb: On this note, Sully linked a writer from Reason (or at least I think it was Reason) who argued that there’s no country in the world that suffers from under-education, as each country spends as much as they do on education because that’s precisely the amount they value it, and so they’re clearly getting as much as they want. The libertarian view on education, folks.
(And just to be clear, Sully linked it so as to facepalm at it.)
binzinerator
@El Cid:
Yes but not even that. All they need is 50% + 1 vote. But in reality it is even less as there’s always some that vote for a third party runner, or for Lizard People or some other protest vote. (This always works to gooper advantage as the super-crazy know where the crazy is nurtured and fed, and for the ordinary fools and the clueless it is difficult to peel them away from the GOP as out-bullshitting and out-fearmongering the GOP is very difficult.)
So it’s more like 48% + 1. Goopers got a lock on the 28% super-crazy. All they need to is another 20%.
[edit: blockquote fail]
FormerSwingVoter
The thing is, people do believe this shit. We know it to be lies because we look into it, but most people don’t. They assume that their media overlords make at least a passing attempt to fact-check, when they never ever ever do.
These lies aren’t obvious to most people. The Republicans will take power and either be revealed as hypocrites or run the country into the ground. After that, they will be voted out. But then, two fucking years later, everyone will forget how incompetent they are and vote them back into office.
We are watching this happen right now, and it will continue happening. The entire Bush administration was based on blatant lies and sheer incompetence, and we’re awarding them the House based on “they haven’t broken anything in exactly two years”.
noncarborundum
@cleek:
But “tea party fatigue” gives 241,000.
Emerald
@merrinc:
Bingo.
And it’s worse: they believe their own reality.
I ran across an interesting discussion about cognitive dissonance, in which it was posited that Bush wasn’t lying to us, he was lying to himself. Over and over again, advisors who told him things he didn’t want to hear were dismissed.
That’s the crux of it: they’re creating their own reality, and they themselves believe it. Any evidence to the contrary that might be staring them in the face is simply swatted away. It doesn’t exist.
My only consolation is that “real reality” actually does bite, and it will bite the Republicans hard sometime in the future. My fear is that it will bite us all, because they certainly can take over this country.
ET
When you lived in a closed off world with a very narrow world view that you have defined, it is very hard to see the lies. They dismiss facts and evidence that run counter to their view because these facts and evidence were made up and can be ignored.
They have spent so much time constructing this universe based on the evidence they deem true that they can’t admit they are wrong and can use the alternate construct they created to point to as evidence they are right. All quite circular and parasitical. Cheney did a version of this when interviewed about Iraq and WMD and cited a NY Times article that Judy Miller had written (I think) that they gave her info she used to write the article.
Sure there are likely to be a number of them that are lying and they know it, but I do wonder if they just think this a little white lie because their alternative universe has so altered their perspective.
Any way you look at it, it does seem so incredibly pathological that I would feel sorry for them if they weren’t lying to baldly to people (which people were then believing) and all that lying was have a seriously bad influence on some very important things.
Stefan
In my opinion, while the lies may be ostensibly red meat for the base, I think they are also aimed at the majority of the populace for whom politics is peripheral to their lives at best. Most of these people probably couldn’t tell you a thing about the healthcare bill, but I bet most of them have heard that it contains death panels. That’s the point of all the lies—keep enough of them coming and repeat them as often as possible and they will be “out there”—more “out there” than the truth.
This. As an example, have any of you ever had a conversation with your non-politically engaged friends and family about, say, Social Security, or Medicare? The amount of sheer misinformation that’s out there is astonishing. (Did you know that Social Security is broke this year? No, it’s true!). And where do they get this nonsense? Because they hear it in the background, in the TVs on at bars and waiting rooms, in talk shows, in their neighbors’ conversations. To even have any kind of substantive conversation you first have to spend ten minutes correcting the lies that have gottened fastened inside their heads.
JAHILL10
@Linda Featheringill: I think the 24 hour news machine will quickly devour this meme. They have already declared the Dems losers and done premortems on election results that haven’t been counted yet, what are they going to feed the beast, fill all those empty news hours with for the next seven weeks? I give it two more weeks and suddenly you are going to start seeing stories about how the Dems are “showing signs of life,” etc.
Jbird
Dinesh D’Souza has been playing the Ann Coulter game forever. He’s a “respected writer” insofar as he occasionally writes things so farcical and offensive that the media are forced to reproduce his ideas or risk losing a tabloid story worth 30,000,000 page-hit-sure-‘nough Internet dollars per piece.
El Cid
@binzinerator: I think it should be fairly clear that that’s what I was saying. The reason I hedged on the “25%” is because it’s not always perfectly 28%. Sometimes it could be a little bit more or a little bit smaller. And the idea was that this would add up to the amount needed for a plurality or majority victory.