First, why would I spend my time, and invite you to spend yours, on such a depressing exercise? Two reasons. To get it down on paper, so it stops rattling around in my head. So many times I post a comment to that effect, e.g., about the Electoral College, and my brain goes “plus money, and plus this other thing, and that other thing.” Herewith, my list of all those things, so I can get it down in one place and contemplate it with gloomy satisfaction.
Second reason. To implore our side to stop with the self-flagellation, the why-oh-why do Dems suck so bad, why do we never win? Which is all too often followed by, why of course, it’s because the Dems don’t adopt my platform of obviously superior ideas and now you mention it, I’m going to vote third party until the stupid Dems realize how right I am and how wrong they are.
With the deck so phenomenally stacked against us, we should give ourselves credit for the winning we do do, and resolve to stick tight together, to have any chance in this nasty war.
So without further ado, the list.
- The undemocratic structure of our government
Every level of federal government, and much of state government, is structurally stacked against the liberal side.
We’ve lost the White House twice now because of the undemocratic Electoral College. Every asshole in Wyoming gets 7 times more votes for president than I do, voting in California.
The Senate’s two senators-per-state means we have to win an overwhelming majority of votes to control the Senate. I believe the statistic there is, that asshole in Wyoming gets 70 times more voting power in the Senate than this Californian gets.
And gerrymandering tilts the House, and state legislatures as well. Isn’t the stat there that we need to win by 10% to have just a bare majority? We just got over 200,000 more votes in Virginia last election, and the Rs have the majority in the state legislature and are proceeding to rape and pillage at will.
2. RW Calvinball Rule #1: The Hastert Rule
The effect of the rightward tilt of the very structure of our government, No. 1 above, is then greatly exacerbated by the Hastert Rule. Where our policies could prevail in a coalition of Dems and non-frothing-at-the-mouth Rs, those policies aren’t allowed to come up for a vote due to the Hastert Rule. So, not only do R polices in general not enjoy majority support (and nonetheless prevail), but the very fringiest extremes of that party—representing at most 35% of the country—they have all the power. Sick.
3. Money
Duh, right? The party that represents the interests of the rich is rolling in campaign cash.
4. Their brains are different than ours—gullible, willfully gullible
R brains are different from D brains. R brains are far more gullible, far more ready to believe (i) what they want to believe and so long as you tell them what they want to believe, (ii) whatever else they are instructed to believe. They love and follow power.
Why are Rs so much better at messaging than Ds? Their market is markedly easier than ours. Their market are, simply, easy marks. The rise of the master conman in the WH has proven this out to a scary degree.
It’s a long list, this diary, so I don’t want to spend too much time on any one point, but I particularly like this one anecdote: in the 2016 election, one enterprising outfit produced Fake News for profit. He started out doing Fake News aimed at both sides, but quickly found that wingers eagerly bought it hook-line-and-sinker, lotsa clicks, very profitable, while the Ds quickly debunked the stuff aimed at them and moved on. He would go broke trying to sell Fake News to Ds.
5. Religion
What a convenient tool religion is in the service of evil. Tell someone what he wants to hear (God wants you to have a Mercedes, God hates fags), and that it comes straight from God so he doesn’t need to—doesn’t dare--question it, and he’ll buy the rest of what you’re selling: Obamacare is un-American, liberal education is the devil’s work, etc etc
80%--80%--of Christian Evangelicals think Trump is the bees’ knees.
6. Those issues: Abortion, gays, guns
This born-and-raised atheist thinks that god is trying to give Evil a leg up, wants the Forces of Good to have to work hard for their victory. So he gave the Forces of Evil three killer issues.
Abortion is the worst. No outrage, no crime, no embarrassment from the Rs or Trump is so bad that the average winger, especially the average religious winger, can’t justify continued support by saying that abortion trumps all.
Homophobia worked awesome for them for a long time (got W re-elected, famously), and will have a resurgence, mark my words. Gay sex is icky. Who can argue with that?
And guns. Penises. The Rs have fucking penises in their goody bag.
7. Racism/tribalism
That there is a winning issue so special, so powerful, it gets its own slot on the list.
LBJ said it best:
“If you can convince the lowest white man that he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
8. They are winners, Ds are losers
The guns/penises thing is a subset of this larger advantage. Rs are winners, Ds are losers. If you’re doing well or ok in life, how pleasing is it to believe it’s because you are a Winner (variation: because God recognizes and rewards you for being Righteous). Donald Trump is a Winner, an Alpha Male. If I wear a MAGA hat, that means I’m a Winner too.
How do you compete with that?
We bang our heads against the wall, how can these guys not see that the Ds are the party that is going to look out for them, be there with a safety net when things turn bad, it’s the Ds who want to even the playing field with education, health care, minimum wage, etc etc etc
Don’t you see the problem with that? If you are attracted to the D party because you need help, then obviously you’re a Loser. Even if you do need help, you will spite your own face to not identify as a Loser. And if you don’t, at the moment, need help or admit that you have fed at the social safety net trough, well fuck those losers amiright?
How do you fight that message?
9. Yes the media is biased
To keep this from being even longer, I’ll limit myself to one of many reasons for this indisputable phenomenon.
There’s no challenge or glory in pointing out how Rs lie, or are craven, or don’t represent any interest but the wealthy and powerful. They are so obvious and brazen about it, where’s the fun in that debunk? But, if you can find some indiscretion, some shadow in the Clinton Foundation or Hillary’s speeches, conjure up a conflict of interest, if you can catch a D in a half-truth—well now there, there’s professional satisfaction.
Somewhere in the 2016 election, I read some factchecker admitting that it was boring to fact-check Trump, the real challenge and thrill was to catch Hillary.
Now of course, there is also the whole phenomenon of the RW Noise Machine, the 1000s of talk radio shows, the Fox News, etc etc. That imo is a subset of two other rules outlined above: (i) they have buttloads of money and (ii) their target audience, the part of the electorate that has Fox on the TV 24/7, their brains are different.
10. Rs use their power to further increase their unfair advantages—voter suppression
Fill in your own list here
11. They play by Calvinball rules
Rs in power are shameless. The rules they wielded when in the minority, to stymie Obama (filibuster for SCOTUS, holds on judicial nominees, e.g.), they tossed out when they got a bare majority.
Then they nominate rabid ideologues to lifetime judgeships, where they can continue to make laws out of pure ideology, regardless of fairness, facts or precedent.
(Just one example will forever shine to prove that point, Bush v. Gore.)
They also use their power to undermine D legislation and rules, to make them fail. Obamacare, the obvious example: See, we told you it was a disaster.
12. Nothing succeeds like success
So they win all those races, and pass (or obstruct) all those laws. Not only does that make them Winners, it makes it appear that they must have something smart and valuable to say and offer. After all, so many people voted for them, they win all those fights, there must be something to their message.
It’s the whole crowd psychology thing, the reason that bots on social media are so devastatingly effective. The persuasive power of the sheer number and loudness of other voices
13. We suck at voting
And that one is all on us.
Okay then. I’m exhausted and depressed, but I got it off my chest.
Can we at least agree to be kinder and gentler with each other? This is not a fair fight. Let’s not beat each other up, we have a real enemy and a very tough battle.
And now—any on your personal list, that you want to offer up?