House of Eratosthenes

Rather fascinating thing that’s going on here, we’ve got these famous and high-profile people using the word “Republican” to describe themselves when they don’t believe in any Republican things. I’m thinking of Meghan McCain and Ron Paul, each one of whom in fact is very passionate about some singular favorite issue, and their position on the favorite issue is *opposed* to the Republican position but, although they don’t care much about any other issue, they nevertheless repeatedly call themselves Republicans…

What is this? Is it a false flag attack? Or maybe the GOP has failed to brand itself properly and safeguard its trademark, effectively leaving an asset lying around in the dirt, unsecured, and now the unscrupulous are doing what the unscrupulous do, which is take it…

If they want to win 2012, the GOP needs to fix this. I say “democrat” and you IMMEDIATELY know what I mean…you use the word “democrat” and everyone IMMEDIATELY knows what you mean…it means to make hard work and good decision-making futile. There, just a few words [capture] it all. The democrats have this, it is definitely an advantage since people vote for things reliably only if they understand them. Republicans need to get this [back?].

Yeah, what-up with that? I keep hearing how the ranks of the independents are swelling right now because Republicans and democrats both have bad names. But does that tell the whole story, if the Republican party is suffering from the pestilence of people pretending to be among their members, when they really aren’t?

Followed up with…

When you think about it, MM&RP are doing exactly the same thing to the Republican party that Barack Obama is doing to the United States, which is to say: I love you, I’m one of you, and because I have so much love for you and you are in error, I must change you so you are picked up & put where you need to be. And for those who are studious about it, it isn’t hard to see this is a destructive effort…one feels a hint of embarrassment stooping to the level of actually pointing it out, it should be obvious…

The issue is one of trademark dilution. This is why Miss America winners are dismissed and replaced when they pose for Playboy. Your girlfriend can’t get a job at Hooters and then wear her uniform as a Halloween costume. Aristotle’s Law of Identity, A is A and all that. To violate this fundamental law of thought is a wrenchingly destructive thing for any brand name that means anything. It causes a loss of that meaning, through dilution.

What am I saying about the problem with our public debt if I vote Republican? There are a lot of people with strong opinions about this who call themselves Republicans…I think most of them would give an answer pretty close to what a Tea Party guy would say about it, that it’s out of control, our spending has to be brought back into something sane and that means cut, cut, cut — military last. That’s a good answer, it’s my answer, I agree with it. The problem is though, that there’s too much chaff in the wheat. And most of the problem of contamination comes from Republicans who are elected to Congress to do this cutting, instead doing the opposite.

But then you have these “Republicans” like Congressman Paul, who bloviates to such excess about what the military should not be doing, that it’s difficult to nail down what he thinks it should, in fact, be doing. I don’t know why, or if, he thinks we should have one. And when he calls himself a Republican and gets away with it, it doesn’t say good things for the party. It says they are tolerant and inclusive to a fault, which some people might like…I suppose…but what good is that. It does a lot of damage, because it means when I say what I think about the debt situation or the military situation, even if the legacy of the Republican party is to agree with my statements, I end up really just speaking for myself. It’s no longer a done-deal that this is the Republican position. You can’t really be accepting of much of anything, if you don’t reject anything.

The practical observation is this: This situation does not inspire anyone to go vote. It does not rouse people out of bed early on a rainy November morning to go to some public school annex building on their way to work, and stand in line.

Now the democrat party has managed to work the same situation to their advantage. I said up above that their mission is to make hard work a futility, and that is true, but they have all these voters who don’t believe in that, are actually very hard workers, and yet will vote for them anyway. So that party, too, has a problem with trademark dilution, except it doesn’t do them any harm at all, in fact it tends to work to their benefit. Now why is that?

I think what’s happening here is, obviously the two parties are pushing different ideas, and the ideas being supported by the Republican party rely on clarity for their persuasive power whereas the ideas being supported by the democrats, do not. You say, we’re gonna take that rich guy down a peg or two…if I’m of a mind to support a mission such as that, I’m not likely to jump off the bandwagon just because a new question has been created about whether or not I will be a beneficiary of this. In fact, if yet more questions arise about whether or not I’m sufficiently comfortable that maybe I should be made a target, I’m still not likely to become antagonized toward the movement even as it seeks my destruction. It’s a fascinating trait of human behavior. The democrat voter hollers himself hoarse about “I’m smart because I’m voting my interest”…his guy wins, and a new tax plan is created to do the righteous damage against those evil rich people…the tax brackets creep downward, over time, and he finds his own taxes going up because it turns out he’s one of the bad guys. His fidelity is not disrupted or disturbed even a tiny bit. A casual shrug, and some cliched recycled remark about “Oh well, we are to be judged by how we treat the least among us” or some such. (And judged by who?)

I don’t know how to explain this because I don’t understand it. In Year One, there’s all this me-against-the-world, Occupy Wall Street antipathy toward — someone or something. I’m getting slighted! In Year Two, it’s easily and breezily replaced by guilt, the emotion polar-opposite from what was there before. So the faithfulness to the party remains absolute, because it’s never really tested.

This is an enigma, since it doesn’t work that way for the Republicans. It seems anyone who challenges Ron Paul’s Republican credentials instantly receives this predictable rhetorical beat-down for insisting on “purity tests” or “lock-step loyalty” (I see it’s happening in the Facebook thread now). Well, I’m not asking for a purity test; I’m just asking that things be a little bit definable. It shouldn’t involve any sort of conflict, it seems to me everyone ought to be on my side on this thing, because I perceive there’s a widespread frustration — especially on the Republican side — with the difficulty involved in sending clear and simple messages to the cirlces of power where meaningful decisions get made, through the process of our elections.

I think there are two interrelated phenomena here.

First: the media, being both terribly biased and not very bright, like nice, easy, simple distinctions and storylines. Especially ones that are damaging to conservatives. Both Meghan McCain and Ron Paul are easy to understand (she’s every high school’s fat cheerleader; he’s Ron Paul), so calling them “Republicans” makes for an easy distinction, both in their minds and in their readers’. Ron Paul and Meghan McCain are also both mouth-breathing idiots, so that’s a nice bonus.

The second is the media-educational complex’s creation of near-perfect identity between “being a good person” and “being a liberal,” and between “being a liberal” and “voting Democrat.” It’s the flip side of What’s Wrong with Kansas — people continue to vote for sticking it to “the rich” even when Democratic policies make them “the rich” because voting for Democrats makes them certified Good People, and that’s what’s really important.

In other words: they’re loyal to liberalism — i.e. their own conception of themselves as Good People — not the Democratic Party. This is why they continue to support OWS even though Obama took more money from Wall Street than any president in history, or why a Democrat who did what Mitt did at Bain Capital would be a visionary business leader instead of a pirate in a necktie. “Voting Democrat” is still the accepted social signal for “I’m a liberal,” which is the universal social signal for “I’m better than you.”

That’s the brand identity the GOP should focus on breaking. I think “Don’t be a Sanctimonious Douchebag, Vote Republican” would be a great bumper sticker.

[PS I’m deliberately ignoring the “purity test” angle because it’s an obvious red herring from the Luap Nor campaign– Paultards were very vocal in their contempt for the Republican Party up to the second before he announced his presidential bid, and will go right back to calling Republicans lapdogs and sheeple the minute he drops out of the race].
- Severian | 01/29/2012 @ 11:35

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On Party MembershipSunday, January 29th, 2012

On Party Membership
Sunday, January 29th, 2012