***Warning: This post contains speculation, political commentary, and most dangerously, humor. Handle at your own risk.***
There are some votes that Democrats can always count on. Evil people, for example, will always vote for us because they understand that we have the same goals as they do: poverty, dictatorship, and mass murder. You will recall that during the Cold War the Soviet Union routinely contributed to Democratic presidential campaigns, and after the USSR's tragic collapse, the heroic freedom fighter Osama Bin Laden was kind enough to endorse John Kerry. The congenitally stupid will also usually vote for us, brainwashed as they have been by the massive efforts of the New York Times, CNN and nearly all America's schoolteachers. The Republicans will always have to hand the "immature narcissist" vote to us, thanks to our years of effort catering to their egos; the few immature narcissists who have any toehold on reality will vote Libertarian, much to the embarrassment of actual Libertarians. Also in our pocket are the self-hating homosexuals and many of the adherents of "New Age" religions, both of whom feel guilty about their pursuits. For as long as they believe they are doing something wrong, they will vote for the party which assures them that morality is an illusion.
Another vote, however, is trickier, and that is the vote of someone who has made a study of propaganda and Machiavellian strategy. How can we induce such a person to fall for his own tricks?
Fortunately, we have an excellent case study in the case of Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power. Despite having written three thick volumes about underhanded tricks, all of which display a brilliant grasp of human nature and of devious strategy, Greene's blog includes an essay called How to crush Karl Rove and the Republicans in Five Easy Steps. For those who have not read Greene's books, the essay reads like the usual ramblings of a dilletante who acquires all of his information by occasionally tuning in to Bill Moyers and never bothers to do enough research to learn the actual facts. For those who have, the deception of such a first-rate mind and thorough researcher is an unparalleled achievement we would do well to study.
Of course all of you know well the principle of the Big Lie, which Greene is practicing by repeating several of our key Lies without supporting them. Early in the essay he remarks, "The idea is that the Republicans are doing such a bad job right now with the war and with the economy, it is better to let them self-destruct." Had he checked his facts concerning the economy and the war, he would not have been able to say this, assuming he is indeed repeating the Big Lie and not deliberately lying himself. Which leads to the question, how can someone so insightful be so gullible? Ten minutes of research on the Internet could have brought the truth to his attention.
His essay continues, "To turn this state of affairs around, two things are required: first, the crafting of an overall vision, of something strong and definitive that can separate them in form and content from the Republicans; second, a thorough understanding of the Rovian electoral strategies and how to do combat them."
Of course, Democrats do have a strong, definitive, overall vision. The reason red-staters don't vote Democrat is that they know precisely what that vision is. He then suggests ways that we could make our vision more palatable; for instance, that we could claim that instead of sending soldiers into the Middle East, we would put the money and manpower into intelligence and diplomacy. Is it possible that Greene is unaware of the decades of intelligence and diplomacy America put into the Middle East, to no avail? If so, our stranglehold on the media, while loosened grievously by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch, is still effective.
Greene asks, "Will the Democrats be the party of Hollywood, of New York, of Talk America, and progressive ghettos throughout the country, thereby ensuring permanent minority status? Or will it return to the vision of FDR, to a party that the average American could and wanted to identify with?" Here, again, he is relying on his readers being unaware that FDR's policies were disastrous to America's economy and that it is still suffering from them today.
Best of all, Greene proposes, "The case is made to the public, in strong terms, that the military is the worst option with terrorism. The Democrats will put their resources into intelligence, into infiltration, into breaking up their money and lines of communication, and with politics and diplomacy, effectively isolating the enemy."
This is very encouraging. Greene clearly has no idea what would be involved in his plan. Infiltration, for example, is nigh-impossible. To get into an al-Queda type terrorist organization, you have to spend years proving you're their kind of bloke. This involves such things as committing numerous vicious murders and tortures on innocent people. While most Democrats have few compunctions about murder or human suffering, most of us are also squeamish and prefer not to be directly confronted with the sight of it. In addition, his remark about "isolating the enemy" implies that he thinks the nations of Europe, most of which eagerly surrendered to the Nazis and slyly cooperated with the Soviet Union, and almost all of which is now cheerfully accepting kickbacks from Middle Eastern dictators and embracing dhimmitude, are going to ally themselves with America when there are murderous dictatorships available.
The fact is that even clever strategians like Robert Greene are not immune to the very strategies they chronicle, though they require a special, two-pronged approach.
First, intelligent people are generally very conceited about their own intellect, and it is this which we must flatter. They become so accustomed to analyzing events like a chess game that they come to think entirely too highly of their own cleverness. This conceit causes them to miss things. This is why the liberal media is constantly harping on the "strategy" and "spin" of Republicans. No matter how self-evident a statement made by a Republican may be, the MSM rushes to make the accusation of propaganda. Since the culmination of President Clinton's years of diplomacy on September 11, 2001, most Americans are aware that terrorism is a real threat to them. Nonetheless, whenever any Republican states, "There are terrorists out there who want to kill Americans," you will notice that thousands of left-wing columnists and editors will accuse that Republican of "playing on our fears". Say this enough times and people will be distracted from the detail that the Republican in question was simply stating a fact which everyone already knew. Most people are too weak to face unpleasant facts of reality and would prefer to have us assure them that the terrorist threat doesn't exist. Left-wing columnists support these assertions with convoluted explanations of why something that looks good - i.e. the economy right now - is actually bad, or vice versa. The more convoluted and counterintuitive the better, because following the twists and turns of these creative explanations makes people feel clever.
Our approach, in short, makes people feel clever. Republicans acknowledge that when dealing with the seriously evil - fascists, communists, Islamic terrorists - talking nice, playing chess with treaties and sanctions and stuff, gathering intelligence in various sneaky indirect ways, generally isn't going to do the trick. Only marching in with large guns is. What's clever about that? Strategians such as Greene want to sit around feeling smart as they weave elaborate plans about diplomacy and whatnot, even as the other guys are tossing grenades into their laps. Conservative acknowledgement that some problems can only be solved by punching someone in the nose comes to seem naive to them, infatuated as they are with their byzantine manipulations.
Which brings us to the second prong of our strategy with strategians: their preoccupation with strategic thinking really does blind them. They read so much Machiavellian philosophy and evolutionary psychology that they begin to assume that human behavior is totally determined by these Darwinian urges and by clever strategians (like themselves!). They forget that they are not really dealing with a chess game where the only question is whether the black or white pieces get into the power spots. They see so many bad people painting themselves as good that they lose sight of the fact that good and evil really do exist, they're not just garments to put yourself and your opponent in for propaganda purposes. Look at the world with this attitude long enough and people, like Republicans, who acknowledge the existence of good and evil seem downright naive.
