Somehow I ended up on a left wing mailing list of Move On. This is an email re how the left wing progressives feel about the debate:
Dear MoveOn member,
That was infuriating.
During last night’s presidential debate, Mitt Romney smirked his way through dozens of mischaracterizations, distortions, and outright lies. The moderator, Jim Lehrer, never cut him off. And now the mainstream media is saying that Mitt won the debate.
We can’t let Romney “win” the debate on a boatload of lies.
He lied about his tax plan, his deficit plan, and Medicare. He lied about what “Obamacare” would do. He lied, baldly and convincingly, about Obama’s entire presidency.1
We need to move quickly to set the record straight. Our online team worked overnight preparing a media blitz—including online ads targeted at swing-state voters—correcting the worst lies in an easy-to-share format.
Chip in $5 to get the truth out—countering Mitt’s lies.
If we don’t fight back now with the truth, some of those lies will stick, and Romney could pull ahead.
Already, Romney and his Super PAC friends have spent millions on blatantly false ads attacking President Obama for gutting work requirements for welfare and cutting $700 million from Medicare.
Last night was more of the same.
And research shows that when lies get repeated enough times people will believe them—no matter how outlandish they might seem. The only way to keep Romney honest is to make sure the facts get corrected on the spot.
We’re now in the moment when millions of undecided voters who don’t usually pay attention to politics start to focus.
This is it. This is what MoveOn’s massive online network is for. Let’s use it.
Please chip in $5.
Thanks for all you do.
–Angie, Mark, Lenore, Tate, and the rest of the team
1. “Presidential Debate Fact-Check and Updates,” The New York Times, October 3, 2012
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=281980&id=53824-21930683-_smjiTx&t=4
Want to support our work? MoveOn Civic Action is entirely funded by our 7 million members—no corporate contributions, no big checks from
Playing by the handbook again, I see:
The rules
RULE 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.” Power is derived from 2 main sources – money and people. “Have-Nots” must build power from flesh and blood.
RULE 2: “Never go outside the expertise of your people.” It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
RULE 3: “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.” Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
RULE 6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” Don’t become old news.
RULE 8: “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
RULE 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.” Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
RULE 10: “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
RULE 11: “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.” Never let the enemy score points because you’re caught without a solution to the problem.
RULE 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.
_______________________________
Jefferson, Adams and others of the Founders believed that there was no substitute for an educated and moral citizenry. In the interest of education, here are a couple of examples of the kinds of things that should trigger a “fraud alert” in your brain.
The first is an appeal to the emotions. The left does this with ads such as a barely-disguised stand-in for Paul Ryan literally throwing granny in a wheelchair over a cliff. The surprise ending of the commercial and the violence of the act cause you to react emotionally. If you listen to the message without the images, or stop to consider the message for even a moment, it seems overblown, fantastic, and surreal. It is. Those peddling the message don’t want you to think, they want you to feel.
When you know the facts, you know that it is the current administration that has cut $700 billion from Medicare to fund Obamacare, and that Ryan’s proposal changes nothing for people over 55. You might even know that the Ryan proposal hasn’t been adopted as a policy proposal by the Romney campaign or the Republican Party.
The second method is to accuse the opposition of exactly what you’re doing. This has two effects: The first is that the opposition may spend time defending a nonsensical charge and get thrown off message. The left knows if they can control the debate, they win. The second effect is that when the opposition accuses you (correctly) of the same thing, people are by now skeptical. You get a pass.