GOP risks making same mistake with OWS that Dems did with Tea Party
posted at 12:37 pm on October 17, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Moonbats ]
An illuminating article by John S. Wilson at Mediaite makes an argument that Republican leaders would do well to heed. Wilson writes:
Democrats are not the reason the Tea Party exists. But by ignoring the Tea Party—or in many cases, mocking it—until it was far too late, Democrats were ill-prepared to deal with the fallout that led to an unmerciful electoral defeat in the 2010 midterm elections.
As I wrote earlier, finding differences (which are legion) between the two movements has become almost a cottage industry among political writers in the past week or so. But one difference that has received less attention than it deserves is the depth of coverage of OWS in the so-called elite media and its largely positive tone.
Early indicators suggest the GOP has already begun to learn from its mistakes. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, appearing yesterday on FOX News Sunday, told host Chris Wallace that he agrees there is “too much income disparity” in the nation, adding:
We know in this country right now that there is a complaint about folks at the top end of the income scales, that they make too much and too many don’t make enough.
When asked about his characterization of the protesters as “mobs,” Cantor didn’t back down but did try to deflect criticism to Democratic leaders, whom he took to task for “joining in an effort to blame others rather than focusing on the policies that have brought about the current situation.”
Wilson is correct to sound a cautionary note. Republicans who continue to heap scorn on the protesters or make light of their lack of direction do so at their own—and our—peril.
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They’re MARXISTS. I’m now supposed to show respect and deference to the hard core, radical Left? The same bunch that wants to destroy my nation and our way of life? Um……NO.
DocinPA on October 17, 2011 at 12:55 PM
We aren’t flat out lying and making things up about the Marxist March of 2011.
Exhibit 4231693048 in the case of GOP vs Reality.
We’re all class warriors now.
uknowmorethanme on October 17, 2011 at 1:03 PM
You also left out the part where Cantor tells rich people they need to start using their money to create jobs and make income disparity go away.
So when does the GOP and Dems officially announce their merge together to form Tom Friedman’s utopia of a one-party system? The charade is over.
uknowmorethanme on October 17, 2011 at 1:11 PM
First of all I haven’t seen much of the kind of denunciations from Republicans about the OWS crowd that we saw from Dems about the Tea Party.
Second, this assumes that the two movements are equally valid, if different, expressions of disgust with the status quot. Whiny, upper-middle-class, white, anti-semitic socialists-who-don’t-bathe and want a free lunch do not deserve anything BUT scorn.
Strange, Howard. You’re actually advocating that we indulge these Jacobins. I’d go the opposite way… call the leadership to point these protests out and MAKE SURE to tie them to the aims of the Democratic leadership.
SAMinVA on October 17, 2011 at 2:18 PM
Not at all. Just attempting to beat them at their own game. Making an open show of your scorn just emboldens them and adds to the favorable narrative of them (and portrayal of conservatives as heartless) in the MSM.
Howard Portnoy on October 17, 2011 at 2:25 PM
I’m not sure we win anything by playing the game according to the media’s rules anyway. Trust the American people. Let them see the difference between the media’s treatment of the Clean-taxpaying-noncriminal-soberobjectivehaving Tea Party vs THE ACTUAL OWS crowd. Then pile on the scorn. Once they know these kids are just anti-capitalists who (with no sense of irony) want their worthless degrees paid for by someone else and want to get paid $20/hr to do squat, the scorn of the America voter will follow.
I’m telling you we don’t run the same risks the Dems did. The key difference is that our criticisms have the virtue of being true.
SAMinVA on October 17, 2011 at 3:34 PM
An open show of WHAT THEY ARE is what will defuse them. We have to go around the MSM completely because they are not our friends. Look at Big Journalism’s coverage of media participation in OWS – another difference between them and us.
Oh, and I don’t show deference or respect to people who want to make me a slave, it encourages them. That’s not hyperbole, look at what they say they want.
Merovign on October 17, 2011 at 5:02 PM
When Obama replaces Biden with Huntsman.
batterup on October 17, 2011 at 5:20 PM
Hmmm. I disagree that there is “too much income disparity” in the US. What in the world does that even mean? What is the “right amount” of income disparity? Where’s the “too much” line drawn? Who decides?
Endorsing emotional huffs like the “too much income disparity” tantrum is a weak-hand approach. It’s a product of not having thought about the subject enough. There is no way for government to have an opinion about “income disparity” without that becoming an open-ended pretext for enlarging government and curtailing freedom.
The premise itself can’t be admitted, nor is it hard-hearted to say so. It’s mushy-headed to embrace the premise. Cantor should have done better. The right response to caterwauling about “income disparity” is to (courteously) demolish the faulty premise, not show solicitude for the invalid emotion. A whole lot of things we don’t personally like exist in the world. The more of them government interests itself in, the less free we all are. That’s an irreducible reality that doesn’t give way just because each generation thinks it’s the first one to experience garden-variety envy and cheap sanctimony over other people’s incomes.
J.E. Dyer on October 17, 2011 at 10:13 PM
I do, too, J.E. I suspect that Cantor does as well and that he is merely attempting to diffuse some of the misplaced anger.
The point of my article is not that I think these loons should be coddled but rather that GOP leaders need to take care in the way they deal with a highly charged situation.
Howard Portnoy on October 17, 2011 at 10:46 PM
Yeah, I agree GOP leaders need to deal with the loons intelligently. I don’t think Cantor did, however, with his comments on “income disparity.”
I do think I understand your point, though: that GOP leaders need to avoid coming off as reactionary curmudgeons in discussing the OWS mobs. Agreed. I view that as a matter of tone and focus, rather than a requirement to show solicitude for its own sake.
Avoiding snark and sarcasm should be about 99% (if you will) of the effort. It’s possible to reject the OWS premise without doing it frat-boy style.
It’s important to reject it, however. The protesters are carrying signs everywhere that say “This is what democracy looks like!” That’s wrong. What they’re doing is not what democracy looks like. Democracy looks like ordinary people standing in line to vote, and then accepting a good-faith outcome, even when it’s not the one they would have preferred.
The OWS protesters want to circumvent actual democracy, substituting emotion and special pressures for due process. Their approach has no legitimacy and should be accorded none.
Not trying to preach in your face here, HP. I’ll get off my soapbox and toddle off…
J.E. Dyer on October 17, 2011 at 11:05 PM
No worries, J.E. All good points.
Howard Portnoy on October 17, 2011 at 11:40 PM
I disagree strongly with Mr. Portnoy that Republicans discount these groups (being polite here)at their and our peril. The peril that we should be concerned about is the disintegration of the way of life that has made our country great. Anything less than that is using that dirty word compromise. We have really seen how compromise has really helped us all toward the abyss.
Fireplug52 on October 18, 2011 at 10:55 AM