In prior posts I've mentioned a bunch of reasons why typical Democratic and liberal strategies have failed. In this one I gather some of those together, and then in a further post will suggest some solutions whereby the Democrats (or any other party) can a) obtain power, and b) fix the long-term issues that have allowed the Republicans to dominate American politics for the past 20 years.
Okay, Democrat mistake #1: They believe that people normally behave in a rational and logical manner. That's a buncha monkey poop. Oh sure, we have the *ability* to behave in a rational and logical manner. However, that is a learned ability. Our base instincts are those of a monkey, programmed to follow the herd and fling poop at other monkey herds, not those of a rational thinking being. Without education, that instinct is what we fall back onto. And the Republicans have systematically dismantled our educational system over the past 30 years, replacing it, instead, with what is at its core an obedience training system that seems almost designed to reinforce those monkey instincts rather than teach people how to think and behave in a rational and logical manner.
Democrat mistake #2: They believe that most people act in their own best interests. That's a bunch of hoohah. The very fact that an enormous number of Americans are obese ought to destroy that one. Most people act in the way that their monkey instincts tell them to act, rather than using any rational or logical means to detirmine what is their own best interests. Thus the reason why Democrats prattling on about health care, education, etc. has not struck a chord with the electorate. Oh sure, those are great ideas on an *intellectual* basis and would be in the best interests of the majority of Americans, but the Republicans know that they're dealing with a buncha monkeys, and thus proceed to massage the monkey instincts of the electorate (i.e., sling poop, define away the Democrats as "other" and thus evil, etc.) and that's the end of that. You simply cannot make an intellectual argument to the American people. Due to the destruction of the American educational system, the vast majority of Americans simply are INCAPABLE OF GRASPING an intellectual argument.
Democrat mistake #3: They believe that, if they just prattle on long enough with enough reasoned and logical argumentation as to why policy X Y or Z of the Bush Administration is evil and counterproductive, they can convince the majority of Americans to give a shit. Once again, there is no instinct in the human animal to give a shit about anybody outside of immediate family and friends. Thus why the vast majority of Americans simply DO NOT GIVE A SHIT that people are being tortured in the American gulags. They're not our family or close personal friends, so there is no instinctual basis to give a shit. Oh sure, there's the *intellectual* capability to give a shit, but that relies on education, which, as I noted earlier, is no longer provided to Americans, who instead are now subjected to standardized-tested obedience training in their "schools". I hate to agree with Alan Bloom of the "Closing of the American Mind" fame, but while his prescription for overcoming the ills of what passes for "education" in America today was simplistic and easily corrupted by those who hate education, his diagnosis of the ills of American "education" was spot-on.
Democrat mistake #4: They believe that they can engage Republicans via traditional political mechanisms. The problem is that those mechanisms were devised back when the majority of Americans either had an education or at least had not been subjected to 12 years of pure obedience training, and assume that the majority of Americans will behave in a rational manner upon seeing the Republicans abuse their powers. The Republicans, however, have no motivation to cooperate in traditional political processes. After 30 years of programming the American electorate to be a mass of uneducated monkeys who instinctually vote for Republicans because Republicans know how to address their monkey instincts, they have no reason to engage in the old politics that arose during an era when Americans were not sheeple.
Summary of Democrat mistakes: By assuming that the majority of the voting populance consists of rational creatures, they believe that by showing that a) their policies are better for the majority of the people, and b) Republican policies are evil and hurt the majority of the people, that they will obtain votes and thus power. Tragically, the base assumption they're using (that the majority of the voting populance consists of rational creatures) is *wrong*.
Next up: Republican strategies -- how the Republicans pander to the base instincts of the human animal in order to obtain and keep power, and what the Democrats (or any opposition party that arises in place of the Democratic Party, since the Democratic Party seems doomed to irrelevancy) will have to do in order to counter these strategies in the short term.
-- Badtux the Sociologist Penguin
I think you're on to something when you say that the Republicans succeed by aiming so much of their propaganda at the mammal (ie primate) portion of our brains. So much of their policy (esp. foreign policy) does consist of nothing more than puffing out their chests, howling, and throwing feces.
ReplyDeleteBut the truly frightening part is that a good chunk of their rhetoric aims even lower than that, to the lizard portion of the brain. It preys on the most primitive, terror-induced, fight-or-flight responses in our psyches.
That's why it cracks me up that the rabid, hate-filled minions at Little Green Footballs proudly call themselves "Lizards" and "Lizardoids." They have no idea how right they are...and I'm sure that, were this ironic fact pointed out to them, they would react in true lizard fashion.