Mythogoguery

by Eric Martin

Daniel Larison with a Two-Fer Tuesday special.  First, on the importance of political mythmaking, and its applicabaility to the modern Republican Party:

Another reason why political myths are so powerful and enduring is that they help to justify past actions that cannot really be justified and to cover over present actions that need to be forgotten.

Thus Lincoln “saved the Union,” when in reality he destroyed the Union and replaced it with something else, but the reality is too terrible and cannot be defended without endorsing a radicalism his admirers usually do not want to endorse.  WWI, which was a bloody catastrophe from beginning to end, was fought, according to the propagandists, for the rights of small nations and to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it actually resulted in the ruin of many small nations and had nothing to do with protecting democracy.  According to another popular myth, Reagan “won the Cold War,” the clearest example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in modern history.  Of course, those most interested to promote this myth are among those who most bitterly opposed Reagan’s engagement and negotiations with the Soviets at the time–to credit Reagan with this accomplishment is to align themselves with him despite their previous opposition and to appropriate him for their own purposes later on.  This is just one part of the Reagan myth, which has been built up and expanded over the last two decades as Americans on the right have become disgusted with Reagan’s heirs: they glorify Reagan in the past for much the same reason many glorify Palin today, which is their disgust with the last twenty years of Republican leadership.  They can find something admirable only in the past or in very new figures.  This is why I think there has been such powerful resistance to questioning the myth of Palin the champion of reform, because looking too closely at her record (or lack of a record) exposes the mythologizing for what it is.      

It was an odd Republican Primary in that respect: There were candidates that, early on and from a distance, appeared popular and electable, but the more each putative or predicted frontrunner (Giuliani, Romney, Thompson) came into focus, the less appealing they became to their base (and, even moreso, the nation as a whole).  McCain himself kind of stumbled to the nomination as the fallback choice settled on by a decidedly less-than-enthused base.  Even at this late date, his campaign is still trying to shore up the support of the dispassionate party faithful.

Meanwhile, the nostalgic evocation of Reagan has been as reverential as it has been constant: from the debates during the GOP primary, to the convention speeches (and movies!) to the most recent presidential and vice-presidential debates.  The myth has not only grown to eclipse the reality of Reagan's tenure, but the entire field of GOP personalities has been dwarfed by the incongruous juxtaposition of euphoric revisionism and real-time mediocrity.   

Larison's other piece examines the use of terrorism as a cudgel, and other tools in the demagogue's toolkit:

Conor Friedersdorf notes the unseemly exploitation of terrorism for political purposes:

But the McCain campaign has exploited the fact that Bill Ayers was a terrorist to imply that their opponent is sympathetic to our enemies in the War on Terror, a campaign tactic so irresponsible that even GOP partisans should forcefully denounce it, and for a reason that hasn’t anything to do with fairness.

Larison argues that this type of rhetoric is not limited to recent anti-Oabama attacks, or even past anti-Obama attacks.  Democrats in general, and even conservatives, are not safe from such scurrilous charges - at least when doubt is expressed about a given foreign policy orthodoxy.  The problem is so pervasive that many examples fail to garner the media attention, and backlash, such reckless accusations deserve:

By definition, disagreeing with them becomes proof of wanting to surrender, no matter how irresponsible and genuinely damaging to the national interest the policies they advocate may be.  Having framed their opponents as no better than abettors of the enemy, they are then bewildered when someone says that they have questioned anyone’s patriotism.

When Romney suspended his campaign in February, he said that he was doing it to avoid facilitating surrender to terrorism, which, it almost went without saying, he believed would be the result of a Democratic victory.  This has been a consistent theme of pro-war arguments for the last two years once large numbers of people began seriously considering withdrawal from Iraq as a viable alternative.  During this long campaign, Obama’s critics have repeatedly pushed the idea that he is somehow sympathetic to anti-Israel terrorists, and some on the right have dwelled on the so-called Hamas “endorsement” as if it meant something.  In the earlier version of the association game, Obama’s critics obsessed about peripheral advisors’ views on Israel.  Before we heard about Obama as the “pal of terrorists,” we were lectured frequently about how significant and terrible it was that Robert Malley had a small, informal role in the campaign, which simply had to mean that Obama favored talking to Hamas despite his stated opposition to this very thing.      

So talk of Obama “palling around with terrorists” is not exactly a new attack, nor is it a function of a flailing, losing campaign.  Unfortunately, this is all rather commonplace.  Palin has misrepresented Obama’s views about tactics in the Afghan war in an effort to portray Obama as reflexively anti-military and, by extension, more sympathetic to the enemy than to our own soldiers...Just as they have demagogued the fear of terrorism to push for surveillance powers and invasions, many Republicans seem to treat our ongoing wars as little more than campaign props and they seem to have no qualms about demagoguing reasonable criticisms of current tactics as a way to impute disloyalty or lack of patriotism to their opponents. 

Just last week, the Wall Street Journal labeled those of us that have been arguing for the re-establishment of the rule of law with respect to those accused of terrorism-related crimes as the "anti-antiterror lobby."  Nice touch.

Comments

[aimai]

I just wandered over here from reading Jonah Goldberg in the LA times explaining that the fact that Republicans *always* insist that their enemies are unamerican, terroristic, horrible, evil people who should be killed and who can't be trusted to run the country is proof positive that there is nothing unusually evil about their campaign against Obama. "Unusually evil" here must be read as "merely racist" since everything else is, apparently, just for laffs and all between friends. Remember, too, that the imaginary "abort Sarah Palin" bumper sticker of anonymous *libertarians* is identical to the shouts of "kill him!" from Sarah Palin's own campaign followers as they are whipped into a call and response of "who is he?" "terrorist."

I just despair--not because there are people so misguided they think Republican policies could be good in a time of crisis. But because this is the best the Republican party can do--we are haters, and we always have been, but our hatred is virulent but not racist? That's it? That's the big idea of the election?

aimai

[ThatLeftTurnInABQ]

anti-antiterror lobby

That sounds double-plus ungood.

[nabalzbbfr]

Let us continue to remind Barack Hussein Obama and his drooling fans that real Americans will cling bitterly to their religion and their guns, and will not shirk from using them in defense of our great nation from all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC!

[Andrew]

Am I to understand that you intend to use guns on Obama and his supporters?

Curious...

[russell]

Thus Lincoln “saved the Union,” when in reality he destroyed the Union and replaced it with something else

What is it with conservatives and antebellum nostalgia?

I'm not talking about racism, or a nostalgia for the Confederacy, which is a different kettle of nuttiness, and which I don't see in Larison's work.

I'm wondering what Larison is about in this quote.

Let us continue to remind Barack Hussein Obama and his drooling fans that real Americans will cling bitterly to their religion and their guns, and will not shirk from using them in defense of our great nation from all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC!

Listen....

The children of the night are singing!

Thanks -

[John Spragge]

The Wall Street Journal came out against giving asylum to (innocent) victims of Chinese repression. How interesting.

In fact, Republicans have a long and sorry history of support for terrorists, as long as they terrorized the "right" victims: RENAMO in Mozambique (favourites of Senator McCain, by all accounts), the "Contra" mercenary terrorists in Nicaragua, the anti-Cuba terrorists and the Afghan resistance, which included the people who later made up the Taliban and (oops) al Qaeda.

But those terrorists served the "right" interests, just as helping out Chinese repression serves the "right" interests in this case.

[Turbulence]

I'm wondering what Larison is about in this quote.

My guess is that Larison is referring to the fact that the federal government became much more powerful compared with the state governments as a result of the Civil War.

[Chris Crawford]

Small point: Kennan won the Cold War, not Reagan.

[Anarch]

The children of the night are singing!

Really? I thought the sun on the meadow was summery warm...

[Phil]

I guess maybe the Obama team now has the perfect talisman to ward off any Bill Ayers nonsense tomorrow night:

"William Timmons, the Washington lobbyist who John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team, aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime."

"The two lobbyists who Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government."

[John Spragge]

No "talisman" will ward off the smears about Dr. Ayers, because references to the supposed relationship between Dr. Ayers and Senator Obama have nothing to do with terrorism. References to Dr. Ayers, like dog whistles, act as code for a fear that Senator Obama will lead a government that may make real social change. That, in turn, plays to the fear that marginal "white" workers feel that if they lose the privileges that people identified as "white" have traditionally enjoyed, they will fall, or get kicked, into the underclass.

Senator Obama can't address that fear directly, but he can project competence, fairness, and confidence. His message, which he must also pitch in code, goes like this: you know the people who will make the economic choices in a McCain government don't care about you. You had eight years of Reagan, four years of Bush, and eight years of Bush II, and you work harder than ever, and it really hasn't gotten any better for you. And if things get tough, they will throw you under a bus. John McCain won't stop them, Sarah Palin won't stop them, but I will.

[Matt McIrvin]

He pretty much came right out and said that at the Democratic convention. "You're on your own," etc.

[yoyo]

Communism sucking won the cold war. You'd think people who chicken little when tax top marningal rates go to 30% would realize that.

[publius]

I think he's dead right on the palin/reagan old/new leader myth. it helps explain some of the resistance to seeing her (and him) in a mor enuanced light.

i need to read this guy more often.

[gogiggs]

I read Larison regularly. I disagree with him about a lot of things, but he's the most intellectually honest conservative I've come across. His views aren't subject to daily change based on the shifting positions of the Republican party or what's most convenient for attacking a Democrat.

[Hartmut]

n.a.b.a.l.z.b.b.f.r is a resident RW troll of several blogs of ill repute (from the right's POV) like e.g. Glenn Greenwald. One of the most rabid ones in the group without severe language deficiencies (i.e. the only ones that go lower would drive any spellchecker to suicide too). Not feeding is unfortunately useless.

[Eric Martin]

I'm wondering what Larison is about in this quote.

In addition to what Turbo said, one can argue that there was a voluntary union of states prior to the civil war, and then one that was enforced by the federal government. So the old "union" was destroyed, and a new more singular entity was born.

[Tom Scudder]

Said troll also has the tendency to copy and paste the same exact comment to a number of different blogs, with little regard to relevance.

[Dustin]

What is it with conservatives and antebellum nostalgia?

I'm not talking about racism, or a nostalgia for the Confederacy, which is a different kettle of nuttiness, and which I don't see in Larison's work.

I'm wondering what Larison is about in this quote.

Though I too read him regularly and respect him, Larison is a Confederate nostalgist, a member of the neo-Confederate League of the South.