Dog Whistle Politics - How Liberals became no better than Conservatives

I have been at DU since 2003. I have been heavily invested in politics since 2000. I have paid attention to what goes on around me since 1972.

Some Folks are falling all over themselves to denounce Barack Obama for daring to discuss, in an intelligent manner, the dynamics of the Reagan era, including understanding how Reagan was able to win by landslides, and how it was that he worked his conservative agenda through a Democratic congress.

Simply saying the name "Reagan" calls out the dogs and gets them to bite all of those around them.

I thought that most here would be able to separate an analysis of Reagan's' method of operation from the actual content of his policies.

Color me amazed that although many "get it", there are a few who have no clue, and have run screaming at the very sound of the name "Reagan" being spoken. It can be said that Intellectual honesty is more of a rarity here at DU these day......and dog whistle politics, a freeper concept, is now the rage with those that would call themselves liberal progressive. How ironic!

that you do. :shrug:

where if one just uses a word, even without context, it generates a certain predictable reaction by instinct without thought from those around you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2702631&mesg_id=2702631

We'll see if anyone chips in with a good definition. :)

because that is not what I mean; code words.

Although it does seem that emoting the name Reagan to a Democrat appears to have become a Code word meaning "anyone who says anything remotely positive about anything about Reagan ever is the devil reincarnated, and I really can't go beyond that..screw that he won landslides victories and got his agenda passed by Democratically held houses of congress"....so maybe it was the right term! :shrug:

;)

but dog-whistle is the wrong term.

If a candidate speaks in code that only some of his supporters understand but goes over the head of everyone else, that's dog-whistle.

like a dog-whistle that only canines can hear.

Huckabee and Mittens have been doing it for a while. W used it quite often to speak to his evangelical base.

I think you are using it to describe the raw meat dangled in front of the partisan dogs...
aka "Obama said something that SOUNDS like he thinks Reagan was a great President" thread.

grr, growl, snap, snap, snap, dog pile. Must chew Obama's leg off for THAT one!!!

Of course, the Obama statement doesn't say what the rabid pack howls that it said. But that won't stop them. grrr, chew, snap, bite, bark!!!

Whatever.

backroom deals with our enemies
fostering death squads in foreign countries
the ramping up of the drug war
cutting off funding for mental facilities
"I don't recall."


I think the primary point is that the myth of Reagan was just that. A fucking myth. He was no more visionary than his toe-jam. He wasn't all that different than Bush--he had a hand up his ass just like Dubya does.

He was the supply-side, anti-worker, strike-busting corporatist toady. NOTHING more.

There's nothing to admire, unless one admires the way his handlers played the American people.

and you are being predictably reactionary to the name or Reagan and his policies, and not going any further.

You obviously don't want to understand or are unable to separate the concept of policy from the concept of analysing the dynamics that unabled the policies to occur. Maybe you are doing this on purpose, and if you are, you are doing yourself no favor.

You're talking about the overt manipulation of millions of people and the selling of an image as if it's a GOOD thing. It isn't. I'm not even talking about the policies so much as I'm talking about the illusion that allowed them to implement those policies while the stupid Americans were going "ooh, look at the pretty pictures."

The policies sucked. The people behind those policies sucked. The fucking illusion they crafted to sell the man who played the American people sucked.

I lived through it and saw through it all THEN. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.

Reagan played people, used people, hurt people, you would think Obama would be intelligent enough to see through that. Apparently for Obama, it's win at any cost. There is nothing to admire about a con artist like Reagan, nothing.

Why did that happen?

And please don't liken him to Bush...cause Bush stole both elections as far as I am concerned.

I hope that you will answer my question.

I'm wasting time with you.

Which, in fact, I'm finished doing.

Buh-bye.

you would have answered instead of taking up the time saying that I should know.

It was very hard for Democrats to demonize him because he was so charismatic and projected such a affable, kind image to the public. Never mind his ruthless policies toward many Americans. That brings me to the second reason Reagan won. He targeted weak groups in society, chiefly the poor and minorities. What Reagan did, and I am generalizing a bit here, was forge a coalition against these groups among the rest of the population.

made up majority Democrats?

For the remaining six he was average at best. What happened? There were enough conservative Democrats to vote with him on his major issues to give him a working majority his first two years in the House (he had the Senate from 1981-1987). Then in 1982 because Reagan was such a disaster his party took a drubbing in the mid-term elections and he lost his working majority. The only significant priority of his he passed in his final six years was a bipartisan tax reform bill written by a Democratic Senator.

You are poor because you choose to be poor.

We should not support the mentally disabled. Every person should support themselves... and private charities should provide support for those who cannot support themselves.

Big government is inherently incompetent and, therefore, evil (incompetent is worse than a competent person actively trying to do harm). The federal government is nothing more than the DMV on steroids and provides nothing to the economy or the well being of society.

..........

Ok, stop me if I've hit the highlights of the Reagan legacy. What he provided the ultra right wing of his party.

Reagan was successful at shifting all political thought in this country hard right. To the point where Clinton, a right leaning moderate, was viewed as leftist... and Hillary was tagged as "far left" even though she was then only slightly to the left of Bill. But the labeling stuck. In doing this, Ronald Reagan was successful at shifting the dialog and the LANGUAGE of politics to the right, so much so that it's hard to imagine an FDR even running today.

And yes, if you weren't part of Reagan's base, you were the enemy...

W.Bush is the natural successor to Reagan, with Hurricane Katrina as the ultimate expression of the Reagan philosophy of government and Iraq as the ultimate expression of Reagan foreign policy.

His entire political philosophy revolved around reducing the size of government. He vowed to rollback LBJ's Great Society. He failed to do both. Government grew under him and he could not touch any of LBJ's major programs, or Social Security which he tried to cut. He succeeded on building the military up and tax cuts but that came at the cost of his goal to balance the budget, which he never recognized was in conflict with his big tax cut. On social issues he failed badly. Abortion, affirmative action are legal to this day. He was not able to do much to bring religion back into schools.

I agree with you his biggest impact was political. He changed the game. Clinton was more conservative than Nixon, who was in office just six years before Reagan was elected, yet Clinton was viewed as a leftist by Republicans. After Reagan no one ran on advocating LBJ or FDR style "big government" programs to help the poor and working classes. No one ran on even Nixon's platform. Remember Nixon favored a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans, universal health care, affirmative action, and environmental regulations.

Reagan is like the 6th or 5th worst President EVER on my list.

My list: W. Bush, Nixon, Hoover, Andrew Jackson (reconstruction anyone). Then there are a number of people near there... US Grant, WG Harding. Ronald Reagan.

I tend to put Reagan closer to the worst, but I'm afraid that's because I lived through it too. I understand that Reconstruction wasn't a very nice time to be an American either.

Anyway, I think everyone agrees (probably even Obama) that Ronald Reagan had some absolutely horrible policies and people working for him. Negroponte, Oliver North, etc, etc.

Nobody can deny that Ronald Reagan was very effective at getting his policies through... and was, apparently, a very nice guy in private (one of his best friends on capitol hill was Tip O'neal).

Obama apparently gave Reagan some very faint praise (totally about his style of leadership) in an interview or speech sometime in the past.

So what.

Want to bet that every one of our leading Democrats (both running for President and not) have said nice things about Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush, and George W. Bush at some point in the past? I don't have Lexus-Nexus, but I'm willing to bet they all have. They are politicians.
Ted Kennedy co-sponsored No Child Left Behind (a Bush piece of crap legislation). Want to bet that he said some nice things about Bush when he did that? I'm pretty sure he did. Ted has wised up about that since then... but should we dredge it up and make a big deal about it now?
You can bet if Ted was running, somebody with a small post count would be doing it right now!

Please, let's not do this scorched earth thing, where only purists can win the nomination and support of us here at DU. If we can't refrain from doing it, well, there's plenty of dirt on Edwards, Clinton, and, yeah, even Kucinich if we want to dig for it. And probably more on Obama too.

;) Johnson was the one who succeeded Lincoln and was horrible during Reconstruction. Jackson is the founder of the current Democratic Party, although that was a splinter of the party founded by Jefferson (both can be claimed as founders of the party). Jackson was a successful president who ushered in Jacksonian democracy that expanded the right to vote greatly and fought corporate interests, chiefly with his fight over the national bank. As jackson_dem I had to point this out.

Jackson was not perfect. Neither was Jefferson, or for that matter Washington, Lincoln, or FDR. I have never bought the idea of judging figures from past eras by modern standards. They have to be judged by the era they lived in. Lincoln was a progressive in his day but would be to the right of Mike Huckabee if he lived today.

Some seem to think we reached an end point in history. We haven't. People will look back on our era as socially regressive relative to the time they live in and say things like "Clinton? Good president but he was a bigot who opposed gay marriage."

of the Cherokee nation?

those things you write are both true and obvious, but they don't relate to what either FrenchieCat or Obama are saying.

... that Obama supporters make reasonably arguments while "others" on this board drop F bombs and rail mindlessly against things they don't seem to understand?


Just curious

and call it intellectual dishonesty.

I believe that "others" actually do kind of understand, but they have to pretend not to....or else they would have to actually agree. That pisses them off. So instead, they act like they don't understand...and that has got to be a hard job. :shrug:

is something to emulate, or respect.

I disagree.

...since you are throwing it out there.

Reagan lied about his record of opposing Medicare when it was created. The election was close until two weeks before the election when undecided voters broke very heavily for Reagan. He wasn't always leading big. His "home run" in the debates was deflecting Carter's truthful attack on his record with "There you go again" which produced laughter and belittled Carter and than lying about his record.

Please tell me the lie that Reagan used to get people to vote for him.

He was able to get so called Reagan Democrats to vote Republican. How did he achieve this? What lie did he tell.

Reagan relied heavily on the race card to win. This was one way and then look at where he kicked off his campaign. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x4091505

You want to learn tactics from Reagan? Lying and racism were major weapons in the Reagan arsenal.

a series of concepts...one example which you give being race?

well, at least two.

First, he let Iran take and hold Americans hostage for 444 days. For this, he was viewed as weak.

Second what the reason stated above. The Reagan "There you go again". It was almost a catch phrase.

I think Reagan was going to win even without the famous debate line, but it certainly helped.

In the Reagan - Mondale debate, the question of age "I won't hold my opponents youthfulness and inexperience against him" was a killer too.

It was almost like America was voting for the best guest comedian on late night talk shows or something. But it did resonate with people. And we should not discount that as a political skill that Reagan was very very good at. Great Communicator? No, not in my book. That would belong to a JFK or FDR who could give speeches that made you cry and gave you hope for the future. Reagan never really did that... even with his "shining city on a hill" speech.

but I do believe that he was able to convince the nation's middle to move to the right.

We need someone now to move the nation back to the left.

The Clinton years were nothing more than a centrists appeasing the Right (hence the DLC)....., imo.

and I've placed my bet on Obama.

It was Biden until he dropped, then it was a toss up of Obama / Edwards. Now, mostly because of the flying monkeys from the Clinton campaign and the lawsuit against the union voters that work in Vegas casinos, I've picked Obama... plus he has the ability to speak about cooperation and bi-partisanship... get the middle to shift back to the real middle... and, I hope, undo all that's been done in the last 7 years, and possibly a bit more. Helps that he is a constitutional scholar.

My simplistic view of things...

Bill Clinton - rhetoric was left, governance was middle

George W. Bush - rhetoric (before and through first term) was middle, governance was extreme right

Barack Obama - rhetoric is middle, governance will be (I hope) left or at least middle left.

Hillary Clinton - rhetoric is middle left, governance would be middle right (based on how she has performed in the Senate)

John Edwards - rhetoric is left, governance would be middle left. (but the rhetoric left means he might not win this election cycle, especially against John McCain)

so that also leans me to Obama, though Edwards would be a close second. Since we are coming off of a disastrous G.W. Bush governance, I'm thinking the country is ready for a shift to the middle, but pendulums take time, eight years from now, after a successful Democratic Presidency, someone who talks left and governs left might well win. So...

Obama / Edwards 2008... Edwards / (Boxer???)... 2016

More Dishonesty in political discussions


I'M KIDDING !!!!!


Also kinda ashamed it is comming from our side of the isle.

It's kinda like folks running around the board with their fingers in their ears yelling at the top of their lungs in order to drown out any logic in hopes that others will not hear it.

LIKE THIS ---->

I like language, even language that makes others wince.

And if you think that's all I can write, try reading my journal.

are not as ready to praise him as you and your candidate might be. No matter what 'points' it might gain us.

and you can only speak for yourself....not "those of us".

How did Reagan get elected by landslides twice and get his agenda through a Democratic congress?

Reagan, and his handlers, were masters at creating and selling a particular illusion. It is an illusion that has surfaced many times throughout the history of the country. The illusion is that we can "transcend" partisanship, and that it is the partisanship that is the cause of the social problems we face rather than the effect of the problems. Stephen Douglas attempted this in the 1850's - he promised to put the "trouble" all behind us, as though it were the argument about slavery rather than slavery itself that was the problem, and as if the problem would go away if we stopped arguing about it.

Calls for transcending the partisanship - for eliminating the supposedly old and tired and unworkable right-left divide - are always intended to disappear the left. The right isn't going anywhere - it rests on entrenched wealth and privilege, which the powerful few are not about to give up, and it is that entrenched wealth and privilege that are the root cause of the social problems. People are tempted to think that if we just eliminate, or silence, the "complainers" who are "causing all of the divisiveness" that we will then have peace and prosperity. It is a deadly illusion.

Neither has Bush the current. The only recent rethug who worked with Democrats was Bush 41 and he was an unsuccessful one termer. I guess that shows you how far "unity" and "post-partisanship" takes you.

The funniest thing about Obamites arguing today that Reagan is proof the Obama model works is Reagan was successful because he did the opposite of what Obama wants on partisanship.

Reagan had the bully pulpit.

The funniest thing about Hillarians and Edwardians is that they believe that either giving the GOP most of what they wanted (which is what Clinton ended up doing) or Fighting (like that's really gonna do anything but divide us further) is going to be a succesful approach in accomplishing our agenda.

Reagan got his agenda (and the point is not what the agenda was) by appealing to a wide cross section of voters.

Clinton didn't get his agenda accomplished (passing Welfare reform, NAFTA, the 1996 Telecommunications Act and ignoring 800,000 Rwandans were not his agenda) because the opposite side fought him tooth and nail. Why do you think that the bankrupcy bill as it passed a couple of years ago took form under the Clinton administration? And that health care reform and even the issue of Gays in the military were miserable failures?

What did Clinton really accomplish other than balancing the budget, in large part due to the timing of a Dot.com economy?

The results were not there after 1982, though.

It is true Reagan used the bully pulpit successfully, especially in his first two years, but it is also true he didn't preach "unity", "compromise", and use lovey-dovey rhetoric about the other side. He said what he wanted, got the people involved (making nationally televised primetime addresses often to promote his agenda) so they would support him and tried to get it done. He didn't give a flip about "post-partisanship."

I turned 18 3 months after Reagan took office.

I had to start my adult life under Reagan policies and I was almost 30 before we got a democrat in the white house, and that was a fat adulterer who wouldn't know a true statement if you stuck it in a bun and placed it in a Big Mac wrapper.






Obama DID NOT PRAISE HIM !!!!

Simple statements of facts presented in a civil tone are not praise.

they wouldn't have an excuse to landbase Obama...which at the end of the day, is their most important duty.

They are not here to discuss issues, concepts and politics, as much as to support a particular candidate or a particular narrowly defined ideology.

It is painfully obvious that honesty is not a part of the rules.

Top 5 Presidential Landslides

F.D.R . really stomped his second-term opponent. He won 60.8% of the popular vote to Alfred Landon's 36.5%. Here are the Presidents who rode into the White House on the biggest waves of popular support:

1. Lyndon B. Johnson (D, 1964) 61.1%

2. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D, 1936) 60.8%

3. Richard M. Nixon (R, 1972) 60.7%

4. Warren G. Harding (R, 1920) 60.3%

5. Ronald W. Reagan (R, 1984) 58.8%

Source: Vital Statistics on American Politics, 1994
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/teachers/wr/article/0,27972,94405,00.html

That's what I thought.

Top 2 in fact. Maybe you and Obama might care to take notice of that fact? Or is that too much to ask? I think not.

History is what matters....and the more recent, the better.

The times at the time that FDR was elected are at a time when we didn't really have a middle class. He established that middle class.

Reagan was able to galvanize that middle class and was able to swing the pendulum to the conservative side...which is how we center became the left.

Clinton was really a centrist who governed by appeasing the right wing more than the left wing.

The time is now to swing the pendulum back towards liberalism...but we are not going to be able to accomplish that by fighting them or by appeasing them. Instead, we have to offer them a new vision that is more beneficial to their personal interest. That is what OBama is talking about doing. But since you are offended by the mere mention of a name, guess we can't go any further, right? :shrug:

He's a right-wing authoritarian:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/usprimaries2008

but I wonder are you noticing it only because it's against Obama?

Mention the letters DLC and you better have your pepper spray ready.

Make no mistake that it's Bill Clinton's beloved DLC whose operatives are patterning their "dirty tricks" from Uncle KKKarl's guidance and past "stellar examples." :thumbsdown:

no matter how absurd or offensive- and he gets an uncritcal pass from his supporters. Personally, I find that pattern disturbing- and it wouldn't matter who the candidate was.

This is why more and more are begininng to see this whole deal as having the characteristics of a personality cult- as opposed to a campaign on progressive issues.

they're choosing to ignore it, or overlook it, or confuse his point to make him look like he supports Reagan because they need to find a way to bash him.

Its sad that people do this, especially when we have so little influence here that there's really no point in acting like you're talking to the whole country, when really you're discussing a topic amongst 300 or 400 people, all of whom hold very similiar views to your own.