Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Political Chaos Theory

What's with all the chaos? Drudge has been blathering out link after link about the border problems for a week while the administration pretends there's no crisis whatsoever.  This government's inaction--especially from the Commander-in-Chief charged with defending our borders--tends to inflame the usual conservative suspects, while really jazzing the more extremist wingers, who are calling for militias on the border.

Then yesterday the Attorney General of the United States came out and suggested that any opposition to his performance and Obama's administration is probably due to racism.  He provided zero evidence, which is very unlike a lawyer.  But he didn't need any evidence.  And no, using the phrase "take our country back" is NOT evidence of racism.

He followed by saying that one of the things that keeps him awake is worrying about domestic terrorists, not just the Major Hasan/Boston bomber types, but the other ones--those dissatisfied with government. In other words, the ones displaying Gadsden Flags or talking about tea who may go to the border.

This after a lengthy news feast over the Hobby Lobby ruling and how it affected women.

Yet it's entirely possible that none of these things are coincidences.  Some perspective may be useful, from 2012:



"They gonna put y'all back in chains". The clip was reported far and wide in the mainstream and social media. It was bare naked identity politics with a racial edge, but it helped get the vote out that November. Obama wasn't without his moment--he famously told a Telemundo audience they should "punish their enemies", and he wasn't talking about drug cartels or al Qaeda terrorists (who were officially on the run back then).

This isn't to say the Democrats are manufacturing news stories, no, simply capitalizing on them.  Never let a crisis go to waste, but they have an impending crisis--a lame duck president at year's end. 

Historically blacks don't show up in the same numbers for the mid-terms as they do for generals.  This was the case in 2010 when Obama got 'shellacked' by those he now calls tea baggers.   But the Democrats need a big turnout from the blacks, Hispanics and females to keep the train rolling towards the change they believed in, a Utopian place where white folks' greed doesn't run a world in need.

Oddly enough the mainstream media has been hitting three stories very hard these past few weeks, each pointing towards those very same voter demographics:  women's issues, immigration, and now race.

Amidst this forest of towering strawmen, Fox host Megyn Kelly is literally beside herself.   She's a person that thinks methodically and logically, as do most lawyers, and has never been afraid to challenge Bill O'Reilly's occasional foray into populism or panderism.  She went after Nancy Pelosi's idiotic comments about the Hobby Lobby decision, or how "five men" on the Supreme Court are trying to take away women's contraception (at least she didn't say five "white" men like Harry Reid).

Kelly is right of course--Pelosi's argument shouldn't impress an either-grader much less a voting adult, but Kelly's audience isn't San Fran Nan's target.  Pelosi might be addled but she's still a skilled politician and likely knows exactly what she's doing and where her message is going.  Kelly should approach it from that angle. 


As the months wind down expect to see the media continue to churn the identity politics commode while continuing to ignore actual stories such as a potentially partisan IRS (and whether anyone ordered their targeting), the president's actions on the night of the Benghazi attack, the VA scandal, or a flagrant abuse of executive powers.  It can all be blamed on racist white men.  They are the ones with a stranglehold on the world while others remain in need.  It's really a win-win for the media because sex, race and immigration stories tend to sell better.

The right needs to understand this effort and react accordingly (which means sensibly, not emotionally). What are the odds?

1 comment:

Debbie said...

p.s It also has to do with forcing those who do not believe in abortion, whether surgical or chemical, to go against their religious beliefs, not just go against their beliefs, but pay...