Meme Watch

The Democrats nationwide are holding a pair of sevens with a king high.  In Minnesota, the DFL’s holding a couple of four and nothing much more.

As they say in law school (or so I’m told) if the facts are against you, argue the law.  If the law is against you, argue facts.  If both are against you, argue like hell.

The climate is against the Dems (suspect polling about “voters wanting centrism” notwithstanding).  They just lost big in one of the most epic two-year turnarounds in electoral history.  They stand, quite possibly (if the GOP doesn’t screw up) to lose the Senate in 2012, and maybe the Presidency to boot (although it’s way too early to even feel to optimistic yet; we have a ways to go). They are gathered behind a very weak president whose primary platform has been “I’m not George W. Bush”, yet whose only successful policies were cribbed from his predecessor.

The facts – the electorate – are against them.  The “law” – time, really, in the form of the a huge number of Senators coming up for re-election in 2012 – is against them.

So they’re going to argue like hell.

And at this, the Dems have some huge advantages; a compliant and in-the-bag media, a huge public class, and masses of voters, especially in big cities, who are dependent on government either as employees or clients.

My prediction:  Look for the Dems, nationwide and in Minnesota, to start pushing a series of memes – I’ve been calling them “chanting points” on this blog, and having a lot of fun with it – to try to give the media and their sound-bite-addled acolytes something to chant.

Here are my predictions:

“Tea Baggers Are Teh Crazee”:  That one’s already started; Jerry Nadler’s outburst yesterday (accompanied by some too-perfectly-timed media appearances by the likes of Dahlia Lithwick) on the “Fetishization of the Constitution” is a part of this; trying to frame constitutional originalism as some form of snake handling.  Watch for this meme to work its way down through Media Matters and the leftyblogs (pardon the redundancy), through Jon Stewart and the lefty chattering classes (ibid), and countless editorial pages.  Because actually showing that originalism actually is a pseudo-religious fetish isn’t important; creating the impression is.

“Disagreement Equals Disintegration”: Look for any disagreement among the conservative bloc – which is not a bloc, but a coalition of social and fiscal conservatives and newly-minted libertarians – to be portrayed as “the disintegration of the Tea Party”.  Look for rumors of the disintegration of the Tea Party to crash ashore about Wednesday of every news week.   Because the disintegration isn’t important; creating the impression that it is, is.

“There Is a Huge, Throbbing Center Out there”:  We saw a dress rehearsal of this in Minnesota, where the media set up Tom Horner as a viable “centrist Republican”, notwithstanding the fact that his policies fit in better as a moderate DFLer.  All through the summer, the DFL and media (PTR) tried to put purple lipstick on the blue pig.  Did Horner take 8,000 votes away from Emmer?  We will never know – but the tactic is the important part.  We’re seeing this already; the very days the new US House and Minnesota Legislature were sworn in, the media trumpeted polls of dubious geneology claiming the American People were begging for more centrism.  And you know how polls work these days.

More?

Discuss.

14 thoughts on “Meme Watch

  1. The obvious one is “why isn’t this fixed yet” meme. There have already been articles about how the Republicans in the House are failing because they haven’t resolved what to do about raising the debt ceiling. The new Congress has been in session for what, a day now?

  2. There comes a point when a whining child will be ignored and/or sent to bed. Will the caterwauling of the Left gain them attention or simply make them wet their pants? Stay tuned.

  3. The GOP’s reading of the Constitution today was pure genius. It set the stage for how this session will be run, and forced the stinking Democrat party to put it’s inherent hatred for it on public display.

    Check it out (from today’s Stri’ckle):

    “Republicans in charge of the chamber rattled it off with missionary zeal, as if in a school civics class. Democrats pitched in, but with seemingly less ardor.”

    Heh.

    Can’t you just see Pelosi spitting it out through curled lips? That was worth the price of admission alone.

    And, of course, the dim-witted lefty echo chamber is setting fire to their own houses by mocking those that hold the Constitution up as the blue print for Democracy.

    Good luck with that, pin-heads.

  4. “The Constitution is an ancient document protecting privileged white men.”
    The journolister Ezra Kline showed his hand on this one already. The Constitution empowered slaveholders and worked well for the founders but not so well for most of society. Rather than continuing to enshrine those ancient privileges, we already have updated Constitutional law from current judges that reflect the best thinking of wise Latinas and others. Translation: The Constitution is what we say it is.

    “The Gingrich who stole Christmas is back.” They’re taking us back to 1994 when those who hate government attempted to shut it down, throw people out of work and advance their extremist cause.
    (It worked in 1994, Gingrich blinked, and the rest is history. Why won’t it work again?)

    “They want to kill children, old people and (fill in your favorite).” There’s a maxim that “hard cases make bad law.” To update to 2011, “parade in the hard cases in front of the camera before they amend the bad law.”

  5. Wait a minute Tony. What if we do want to kill children and old people (everyone’s fill-in favorite)…

  6. Also, don’t forget the Democrats attempt to legislate by antidotal stories.

    “My grandmother had to wait for healthcare, and died as a result. Therefore, we need gov’t run healthcare.”

  7. The Democrats nationwide are holding a pair of sevens with a king high.

    You mean a king “kicker.”

    As for the article, it’s pretty brave of you to predict that the democrats will attempt to paint a less-than-flattering picture of the republican party. Really going out on a limb.

  8. I think that nationally it has been said that we “have” to raise the debt ceiling in April or something, the question is what do we hold it “hostage” for. And if we don’t raise it would it be financial armegeddon like some say? Seriously I don’t know.

  9. Diarrhea Stool’s pals at MPD take the Democrat hatred of the US Constitution to the streets and puts them into action every day.

    You should offer him a spot, Mitch….he could provide some insight.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.