Sam Smith
News that NSA staffers are suffering in morale was both
cheering and instructive. Cheering because it’s nice to see a bunch that has
been running America’s most prolific crime operation (at least in terms of
victims per capita) lose some speed. Instructive because it suggests a better
way of dealing with pathological narcissists on the right than is the current
practice in the liberal media.
Listening to MSNBC, for example, one is inundated with
fervent denunciations of conservatives. While much of what is being said is
true, the way it is being said might suggest to some that the accusers are a
bit disoriented from reality as well. Listening to Chris Matthews or Rachel
Maddow can make one feel like an eight year old kid being scolded by his
parents for having a worthless friend whom one must immediately stop seeing but who isn’t his friend anyway.
Unfortunately, in such instances, the merits of the argument
get can get lost in its cacophony.
The NSA story, however, was laid down a non-hyperbolic and
fact filled way in which the unstated message was: here are the facts, what are
we going to do about them?
And the killer moment was that the facts eventually included
evidence that perhaps your own phone was being spied upon or that someone was
looking at you through your computer’s camera. You don’t have to scream to get
this across.
In other words, this national story became quite personal. .
.
The false sanctity that shielded NSA from inquiry has
collapsed. And politics aside, its staff now looks like a pretty lousy crowd. High security with
low regard.
For
liberal commentators taking on a Ted Cruz or Steve
Stockman, the complaints often concentrate on issues like gays or
abortion that,
while virtuous on their own, lack a strong personal connection to the
average American. Or they take on an issue like guns, that implicitly
vilifies perhaps a
third of the people they are trying to reach.
Ironically, this sort of approach can have the exact
opposite effect of what is desired. For example, how many Americans now see
Steve Stockman or Ted Cruz as major figures on the political scene thanks in
part to the rants of liberal commentators who have elevated them in the public
mind?
Instead of being seen as incompetent or bizarre outliers of
no real achievement, they are raised to the status of the evil beast coming
down from the mountain to slay us all.
And those on the right, seeing this, say to themselves, “Hey
we’ve got ourselves a new icon. Let’s go with it.”
This liberal tendency to create fearsome monsters out of
mundane jerks is another manifestation of a movement that basically has no
place else to go. It has no real causes, few real leaders, and no real
alternative to the dialogue the right creates.
The key to changing this is returning to an emphasis on
economic issues that once characterized liberalism but has faded dramatically
in the post Reagan era. There issues are not only sound on their own merits but
they reach out to the very people liberals need but now dismiss, diss or ignore.
A politics based on economic matters – jobs, pensions,
worker rights, housing and social services – changes the political game. Yes,
some of the people one recruits will oppose gays and abortion, but they’re far
more likely to change their views in an atmosphere of improved economic
conditions then simply because Al Sharpton is screaming at them.
For example among the potential members of a new coalition
is the young white male. In 1980 these males were making in 2012 dollars about
$20 an hour. Today they’re earning about $16 an hour. Young white females are
still a bit below that but over the same past their story has been one of
improvement not slippage and thus have far less potential for mindless anger.
Neither party has raised a significant finger to help these
young white males. They’ve sent them to Iraq and Afghanistan but even the
veterans of these misbegotten conflicts are treated worse than in an earlier era.
How does this affect how one handles a Cruz or a Stockman?
One good possibility would be to describe them not as racists or sexists but as
anti-worker. And not with rhetoric but with facts.
Like the NSA story this would bring it home in a way that
far more would appreciate and understand.
The trick is to undermine, not reinforce, their self image. In
the words of Samuel Goldwyn it is often best to “not even ignore them.”
As things stand now, liberal commentators are unconsciously
building up the status of these characters. It would be far better if we could
handle them in a way that the Stockmans and Cruz suffer a loss in morale
because no one outside their little political sheds really takes them
seriously.
