How Not to Fight Information Wars

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Clarissa

May 27, 2015

There is an article in the NYTimes arguing that the Democratic Party has moved to the Left. And now every Leftie blogger is having fits trying to explain why this isn’t true. As if being to the Left of Bill Clinton were somehow shameful or a bad thing. Or as if being more radical or extreme in one’s beliefs were something negative.

I don’t get these people. A major newspaper presents as a fait accompli something they keep saying they wish for. Whether it’s true or not right now is completely irrelevant because the way to make it true is to present it as a fact everybody knows. People hear it from a source they trust, believe it, and it turns into reality.

This NYTIMES article is a gift to any Democrat who is to the Left of Bill Clinton (and today that’s pretty much every Democrat).

Rule #11 of information wars: getting your enemy to declare that your hopes and dreams have already come true constitutes a huge win.

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7 responses to “How Not to Fight Information Wars”

Shakti

May 27, 2015

And now every Leftie blogger is having fits trying to explain why this isn’t true. As if being to the Left of Bill Clinton were somehow shameful or a bad thing. Or as if being more radical or extreme in one’s beliefs were something negative.

This is conventional wisdom among presidential horse racers because people have an allergy to the labels “radical”, “extreme” or “leftist”. Eh. Enacting a health care reform bill that was not designed to exclude large numbers of people from the get-go is a leftist achievement. Otherwise why would every single conservative make a big deal about concerted efforts to destroy, dismantle or water it down?

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JE

May 27, 2015

True, but he presents it as evidence that the democratic party should not move so far left. In my experience saying that the sky being blue proves your position will reliably result in your opponents insisting the sky isnt’ blue at all.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 27, 2015
  
  So the Liberals allow themselves to get manipulated in this really childish way? That gives us all hope. . . 🙂
  
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  1. JE
    
    May 27, 2015
    
    My experience is that almost everyone does.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      May 27, 2015
      
      “My experience is that almost everyone does.”
      
      So true.
      
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n8chz

May 30, 2015

Ronald Reagan was by far the most electorally successful national-level politician of my lifetime, and he ran against his own party’s moderate faction. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why someone like Chuck Todd thinks American public opinion is “center right nation” and so one party can get away with that and the other can’t. But for Democratic (or progressive, left, populist etc.) activists to frame things that way is beyond self-defeating.

I think it is a mistake to believe that the “pragmatism mongers” among likely Democratic voters are people who feel the way I do about politics but just happen to have a better sense of political feasibility. Among people I know, virtually all the ones who were early boarder of the “ready for Hillary” bandwagon are at about the doctor/lawyer level of professional status.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 30, 2015
  
  I support Bernie Sanders in this election. And I could care less if he has or hasn’t got a chance. At least, he is kind of refreshing.
  
  Weirdly, the only actual Democrat candidates are elderly. I’m wondering where the young generation is. Or if there actually is one.
  
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