I have been reading BruinKid's recommended diary on Bill Maher's New Rule. I agree with the point that the left is nowhere near as insanely rabid as the right. There are no politicians on the left that are remotely as destructive and partisan as the ones on the right. It is indeed insulting for anyone to make equal comparisons between the left and the right. Except...
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert just may have a point. A point we should examine and then use for the advantage of this country's future. I made this comment in BruinKid's diary
I agree with your points
but I also think that the TDS/CR rally was a first step for the people who don't want to identify with either side. I also think the majority of those people will or do vote Dem. The right has successfully branded the left as weak, wimpy, flower child enablers. Stewart's work is a good way to step away from that image and begin anew. If we are smart we will embrace this and brand a new group of Democratic voters as reasonable citizens willing to help the country move forward and resolve the massive problems we face. Or we can sit around and bitch that we are not like the right and don't you dare say we are! This is an opening we should take and run with. Where are our marketing people?!!
One of my concerns for the future of politics in this country is the branding the left has received from the right. Using brilliant strategy and implementation, Carl Rove and the people before him going back to Nixon, have managed to take sanity and made it look ridiculous. This has infuriated me for the whole of my voting life. I want to punch people on the right who spout that I am an enabler of lazy people. I want to scream at non-political types who argued with me that Bush was a strong and needed leader. Why can't they see what an incompetent doofus he was? Because the branding was so ingrained that reality is skewed to them. These people look at the right as competent and despite actual evidence like their paycheck, their bills and their retirement fund, they can only see competence. Arguing the opposite only makes them think that the other side truly is delusional and weak. Opposition makes the brand stronger!
Stewart and Colbert have offered us an opening to wipe out this travesty once and for all. It must be jumped on quickly and handled correctly. There is a whole middle that is being ignored. Not the usual independants or moderate voters we are always polling and trying desperately to corral but the younger, may have never voted, group. These are the TDS/CR watchers who don't want a part of either side. Maybe they understand the issues but hate the process so they stay out of the fray. Maybe they hate everything about politics because it is so venomous and stressful to watch. I see them and talk to them. They are my 20 something kid's friends. They like to talk issues but the voting...not so much. None of the fighting makes sense to them. They have learned that politicians say one thing and do another. Getting in there and fighting for nothing makes no sense to them. We will lose these potential voters to the right if we don't stop the branding. We need to brand this group as rational, intelligent and competent. We need to get them into the fold. We must phase out the old liberal and make a new one. Many of us will have to change our approach and our rhetoric. We need marketing and we need it now.
This is a chance for the people not involved to change their future, get a hold of it and take control away from those who would rather have them demarginalized. This is their time. We should gladly help them regain what we have lost. A strong political stand and a vision that makes sense to them. If only both groups can see it and capitalize on it. This is a chance to get underneath the right, lift them up and throw them off. Let's take it!