Last Friday night I was reading Professor Krugman's blog and he had a post entitled "Niallism" and one of the responders was a woman named Jane III 42nd Parallel. She put forth a interesting idea about a strategy that is being employed by the Right Wing. She says.
They intentionally say stupid things b/c that puts dems in the position of having to correct them.Nobody likes being told they are wrong. But, dems tell people they are wrong regularly because because we are forced to.
But all that does is alienate everybody else.
Now today I was at the Hardware store and started a conversation with a fellow in my community and was flabbercasted at the misinformation he had about what I thought was a shared reality. So thinking about the Outrageous Lies that the Ring Wing and the Romney's campaign are spouting, I think that Jane III is right, but I believe it goes much much further. They spout lies and we spend time trying to correct their lies. We keep playing on their field. You know the Mark Twain quote "don't argue with an idiot because first, you have to get down to their level, and second, they have more experience there."
This guy in the Hardware store said that the Obama administration is spending much more that any recent administration even though we all know that this is a lie and easily proven wrong. If we do not challenge these lies they will just stay out there and a lot of people will believe these falsehoods, but by spending time in that struggle to correct these lies we get to spend less time explaining our plans that will bring about a better future.
The Romney campaign and the Right Wing, I believe, know what they are doing and Outrageous Lying has worked for them in the past (Iraq War) very well, and they will continue to use lies to win the power struggle for the future of our country.
We must find a better strategy to fight in this power struggle, if one exists.
Ideas?