Ambassadors to Washington warn that the GOP-Democratic divide is endangering America’s national security.
When I asked the European ambassador to talk to me about America’s deepening partisan divide, I expected a polite brushoff at best. Foreign diplomats are usually loath to discuss domestic U.S. politics.
Instead, the ambassador unloaded for an hour, warning that America’s poisonous politics are hurting its security, its economy, its friends and its standing as a pillar of democracy and global stability.
The U.S. is a “fat buffalo trying to take a nap” as hungry wolves approach, the envoy mused. “I can hear those Champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day.”
As voters cast ballots in the Iowa caucuses Monday, many in the United States see this year’s presidential election as a test of American democracy. But, in a series of conversations with a dozen current and former diplomats, I sensed that to many of our friends abroad, the U.S. is already failing that test.
I always took it as a given that any American pol was in favor of the US being ‘leader of the Free World.’
On the other hand, I always thought that the American voter would turn away from a guy who constantly spoke ill of America’s veterans.
A core aspect of the fascist playbook is to undermine everyone’s trust in everything. By sowing chaos and distrust, you can create an environment sufficiently uncomfortable that people clamor for someone to come in and simplify things, at any cost.
It’s worked before, and it can again. Nothing stands in its way except us, and our ability to explain to people that might, possibly trust us and be reachable.
It’s funny how few people understand how fragile democracy really is, just because our American version has proven fairly robust. Education is a tool for preventing its decline, but treatment options once decline is established are far more limited, and rely on grassroots civic engagement.
Nazi Germany had agents working across Europe to undermine the will of the locals to fight.
MAGoos are doing it here for free.
I was thinking about this in terms of messaging, and one idea we can try is to take a page from the Ross Perot playbook. One weakness we tend to have as more humanities-trained thinkers is we don’t really try to communicate numerically.
Numbers and mathematics are harder to fudge than words, and that can work in our favor, for anyone involved with communicating to an actual audience. Particularly with regards to economic messaging though. It’s one thing to say companies are profiteering, it’s another to take the time to provide graphs, figures and historical data as evidence of your claims.
imho, it’s not about the presentation. The MAGoos saw Herman Cain and thousands of others die and they brushed it off.
Just convince people to vote Blue. At this point, it’s the only alternative. Voting for a 3rd Party is a vote for Trump.
I don’t think anything can crack a die hard MAGA repub. But different strategies can work on different subsets of on-the-fence repubs who might just be semi-bubbled, but not totally insulated.
Frankly, not everyone has a problem with fascism, and you can’t necessarily make them, either. Let’s not kid ourselves. An economic argument provided with evidence of corrupt behavior might convince some, and would be well worth trying in certain situations.
Trouble with an economic argument is that we have two different economies.
Right now, it’s almost impossible for a single income family to survive, but the stock market is booming.
Also, numbers can be manipulated. Back in the 1980s the USA was far ahead of the Soviets by almost any measure. The GOP invented a new category for missiles; throw weight, the size of the payload a missile could carry. Because the West had better tech, they could build smaller weapons. But when you showed a Congressional committee scale models, the Soviet low tech giants seemed magnificent.
I don’t understand how this disagrees with me from a messaging standpoint. Certainly numbers can be fabricated, it’s simply more troublesome, because they’re easier to check. When you show why the stock market is booming, and how companies are making record profit, then I think it shows in another way how Biden can demonstrate what the real culprits behind American QoL decay are.
This makes sense as a message, regardless of whether it is perfect or not, which no message is.
You can either claim to be leader of the free world or you can say you want to get rid of NATO.
It can’t be both.
The first is still bullshit, but it definitely can’t be both.
This is the analogy I’ve been using for years.
Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy gave the base beer. Ronald Reagan gave them grain alcohol punch, and Bush Jr. gave them straight moonshine. Trump gave them meth.