It appears that the victimization instinct is hereditary. When Bristol Palin used her recent national television presence to verbally flip the bird to all her mother's "attackers," she was not only playing the skilled student of her mother's teaching, she was advancing a strategy that has undermined our ability as a society to have serious discussions about truly daunting and complicated national challenges.
Both before and certainly since the midterm elections, Democrats have been wringing their hands over our apparent inability to get "our message" right. I have firsthand experience with the problem. In the spring of 2009, Nancy Pelosi asked me to coordinate our message on health care reform. I was flattered, but after a short time I realized that she was assigning me to mission impossible. Naïve about the futility I was about to find, I dutifully tried to put out some simple guidelines about themes we House Democrats should employ as we developed what at that point was an unformed proposal.
I said we should talk about the need for reform and the cost of doing nothing, and then the benefits of reform for the people who already had coverage. I figured everyone in our caucus could use those themes, because they did not commit anyone to any specific plan.
Needless to say, virtually no one delivered the message. Many members were already freaked out by the public reaction to other major legislative initiatives we had pursued. And since we were internally divided over concepts like the "public option" that dominated media discussion, the "message" got away from us early on, never to be recaptured.
I know I am burying the lead, but I experienced an epiphany after only a few months, and it relates to the Palins. As I subsequently told a meeting of our caucus, the problem was not our message; the problem was that no one believed us. In short, it doesn't matter what your message is if people won't listen to (don't believe) you.
The American people don't believe politicians. They don't believe business leaders, or Hollywood celebrities, or athletes or other supposed role models. And they certainly don't believe the news media. We have a dangerous dearth of credibility in the United States these days, and when no one has the confidence of a majority of Americans, there is fertile ground for con artists and demagogues.
Sarah Palin understands this. Every time she refers to the "lamestream media" -- which is virtually every time she speaks publicly -- she is engaged in the only tactic that gives her credibility with any audience: she lowers the bar for her ideas (or more accurately, for her rhetoric). Rush Limbaugh understands it as well. If you destroy the credibility of those people or institutions that could undermine your own, you create an opportunity for your voice, however irresponsible or misleading it may be, to gain traction.
And not incidentally, in today's American society, even a small plurality audience can be a ticket to fame and fortune.
The "lamestream media" strategy would be laughable if it weren't so effective. Just what media are Sarah Palin and others talking about? Is she talking about NBC, ABC and CBS, but not FOX? All are owned by large corporations whose interests are not aligned with Palin's political opponents. Is she talking about the New York Times and the Washington Post, or even the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by her FOX News boss? Of course it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that people who are attracted to Palin and Limbaugh understand that any media disagreeing with them are lame.
When your voice contradicts reality and truth, the only way to create space for it is to discredit reality and truth. Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.
And now, arguably the most serious challenge facing our country is figuring out how to have those discussions.
Jeremy Holden: Glenn Beck's Policies Would Be a Disaster for Wilmington, Ohio
What else do you AMERICANS need?
Australians warned us not to allow Rupert Murdoch infiltrate our free press standards
England warned us not to allow Rupert Murdoch infiltrate our free press standards
Sir Richard Branson : "if we let him, Murdoch will destroy democracy".
We ignored Australia and England- look at the dumb down we got!
WSJ- Dumb it Down President!
Wall Street Journal- Once the most trustworthy news in the WORLD
Pitiful and shameful
WSJ: Dumb it Down Mr. President!
Once again-
Sir Richard Branson: "if we let him, Murdoch will destroy democracy".
6 weeks after Obama took office- Murdoch held first GOP TEA PARTY ! http://bit.ly/4RKdQM
"When your voice contradicts reality and truth, the only way to create space for it is to discredit reality and truth. Palin, Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others have made an art form of convincing far too many Americans to suspend their disbelief, and they have severely damaged the ability of our country to have serious discussions about serious challenges.
And now, arguably the most serious challenge facing our country is figuring out how to have those discussions.
We could start by revoking News Corp. special waiver. I am sure there must be an ample supply of reasons by now.
She has a history of arriving Johnny-come-lately with an entourage of the media with which she has such a promiscuous relationship.
She arrived on a personal tour of 2 western Alaska villages in late February 2009 -- 6 weeks after a call for emergency state help as sent out from literally starving, freezing villagers, during which a series of ridiculous excuses were issued from her state agencies.
Six weeks of private food, fuel, and monetary donations from bloggers worldwide preceded Palin's visit, which was to the wrong villages (not as remote as the affected ones) with just a plate of cookies and a private-jet-full of supplies from her friend Franklin Graham's charity. Just like the upcoming Haiti visit.
The only difference being that I and others like me rely on fact-checked, fact-linked references to bolster our position, and what you see from Sarah Palin are links to poorly written articles by right wing bloggers who cherrypick statistics and rely on polls to make their points -- for example, the boneheaded article by Scott Whitlock at Newbusters, who lamely derides a 36% change in proposed estate tax increase (currently proposed as 35% rather than 55%) as falling short of a "slashing".
http://twitter.com/#!/newsbusters/status/12997470799794176
Sadly, Palin's bashing is helping to dumb down our country. What are your suggestions for overcoming her meme?
However, I am seriously interested in working on the message and how to deliver it. I think one of the biggest problems we face is that the Democratic Party doesn't know the public - especially their supporters. If you have a group working on this, I would love to be involved.
Conversely, the Republicans, with their "unity" are simply in lock-step to beat the Democrats and Obama, and appease the "Citizens United", those corporate interests that financed this past landslide, and will finance the next election, provided they get what they want: a larger cut of the money-pie, deregulation, and a systematic control of the message.
Palin has proven brilliant in controlling the message. Her "death panel" screed effectively killed the public option. Rep. Yarmuth, it didn't matter how you framed it - she touched that fear nerve in seniors, and it was all downhill from there. Not only did that lie kill the public option, it gave real grass roots to the AstroTurf Teaparty movement. The seniors started flooding the town halls, and rest was history.
What's truly shocking is the groundswell of middle and lower class people in the Teaparty movement who are fighting tooth and nail for their own destruction. The message has been so cleverly crafted that Palin looks like the perfect leader, and the rich deserve to destroy the middle class. Historians will marvel in years to come.
Thank you for a perfect, insightful article.