Tuesday, December 14, 2004
"On Hard and Soft": Digby Nails It
Worth reading in full, but here's some choice excerpts:
If, in order to be “hard” we must support irrationality and grievous error then we are doomed as a country. ... Letting the faith based morons who planned this debacle of a response to 9/11 off the hook and holding their hands in solidarity not only looks weak, it is weak.
...
....We are once again drowning in perceptions, in which the alleged Democratic tough guys are accusing the alleged Democratic sissies of fucking things up and losing elections because the American people won’t support a party that is “soft” on … anything. They are right in a way but they fail to see why this perception is so widely held, who is responsible and how to change it. Mainly this is because the ones making this accusation think they are hard when they are actually soft.
I agree that we need a change in strategy. But, we’ve hit a wall compromising or cooperating with this modern Republican Party on issues. They have left us no room on policy except total capitulation. Anybody who doesn’t see that is definitely soft. (In the head.)...
But there is one surefire way to convince the American people that Democrats are “hard” enough to take on the enemies of the United States. And that would be for us to take on the goddamned Republicans. As long as we do not respond in kind to their in your face bully boy style of politics we will continue to look weak in the face of an existential threat --- because we ARE weak. We can look to history for Scoop Jackson lessons or Arthur Schlessinger lessons, but they are not relevant to the problem at hand. Our problem is that since 1968 the Republicans have waged a take-no-prisoner war against the Democratic party and they use that proxy war to prove to the American people that they are tough enough to protect the American people from threats, both internal and external, and the Democrats are not. (Indeed, to listen to their most skilled polemicists, Democrats are the threat.) And despite the fact that they are completely full of shit, it works quite well because they practice what they preach by fighting every last Democrat to a standstill and when they lose they get right back up and start fighting again with everything they have. People can see exactly what they are about. They demonstrate it. We, on the other hand, talk a lot.
[...]
One word of advice. When George Will backs your ideas you need to rethink your position. Prominent Republican mouthpieces do not have our best interests at heart. Ever.
digby 7:49 PM
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