Monday, April 25, 2016

The Vast Conspiracy of Forgetting, Ctd.

Lethe Beach


It is a slippery business, this writing about media and politics.  So tricky that professional Beltway editorial writers often completely ignore the most salient features of American politics in order to pen high-minded think-pieces about something they consider to be of The Highest Importance.

Take for example, consider this column from the Editorial Board the Washington Post which aims to grab its readers by their razor-shard lapels and shake them good and hard so that they awaken to the Imminent Danger which Donald Trump poses to the D.C. establishment which the Washington Post serves,  Notice how, in order to drive home its Very Important Point, the WaPo Editorial Board is forced to ignore the single most important feature of Modern Conservatism.

See if you can guess what they missed?
The Post's View

Softening on Trump? Remember this.

DO YOU remember when Donald Trump crudely mocked the disability of a New York Times reporter, and then lied about having done so?

No? That’s just as the Republican candidate might hope. Now that he is nearing the Republican nomination, he says he will become more “presidential.” After winning the New York primary, he referred to “Senator Cruz” instead of “Lyin’ Ted.” You can expect multitudes of office-seekers and sycophants to follow Chris Christie’s craven path to believing, or pretending to believe, in a presidential Trump.

So it is important to remember.

Remember that Mr. Trump said that Mexicans...

Remember that Mr. Trump falsely claimed that thousands of American Muslims...

Remember that Mr. Trump insulted....

Remember that Mr. Trump lashed out..

Remember how Mr. Trump threatened...

Remember that Mr. Trump threatened and disparaged...

Remember that Mr. Trump vowed to ban...

Remember that Mr. Trump promised to round up...

Remember that he cited “Operation Wetback”...

Remember that Mr. Trump, unlike virtually every scientist in the world...
It goes on like that at great length, and concludes...
“Winning is the antidote to a lot of things,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said a earlier this year. As Mr. Trump marches toward 1,237 delegates, others will emulate that amoral embrace.

So remember. Winning is not an antidote to bigotry, violence, ignorance, insults and lies.
No, winnning is not an antidote to Conservative bigotry, violence, ignorance, insults and lies, but it is one hell of an effective anesthetic.  Also whining works really well too.

And while I appreciate the WaPo assembling its anti-Trump theses Martin Luther-style and nailing them to the internet's cathedral door,  I must fault them harshly for conspicuously failing to report the real story here.  The real story is that Conservatives Do Not Give A Single Tiny Shit About The Past.

Period.  Full stop.

In fact, as I have documented ad nauseum over the last +11 years, Strategic Forgettery -- the massive, ongoing Conservative campaign of historical revisionism --  is not a bug in our political process. From David Brooks to Rush Limbaugh, lying about the past is Conservatism's most critical feature. Without the aid of constant stream of real-time bullshit about their own immediate past, Hate Radio and Fox News would be out of business in a week, and the Republican Party would vanish from the face the Earth,  

In 2009, with the aid of a mountain of Koch Brothers money, wall-to-wall marketing on Fax and Hate Radio and a compliant Beltway media, the Right was able to make the entire Bush Administration and the suddenly-inconvenient political affiliations on millions and millions of life-long Republicans just... fucking...vanish.  One minute, they were the loyal meathead Republicans base who took Fox News as gospel and had loudly cheered on every GOP travesty from the Clinton impeachment farce to the war in Iraq...

...and the next minute they were political virgins again.  Just plain, good, honest, god-fearin' Independent Constitutional Conservative Murrican folks who had never had any interest in politics and had never even heard of George W. Bush.  

The real story is that he GOP has spent 30 years building a mighty media and electoral machine that depends entirely on its capacity to constantly reprogram the memory of its millions of rank-and-file members to conform to the needs of Conservative ideologues and power brokers on any given day,  

And the notion that this machine is going to suddenly stop tweaking the memories of its base and begin exhorting them to spontaneously embrace the act of honestly remembering a whole lot of brutally uncomfortable and embarrassing truths is as ludicrous as tossing a carp out of an airplane and exhorting it to spontaneously learn how to breathe and fly as it plummets to the ground below.  

7 comments:

Polopaula said...

Clearly, nothing has changed.
Republicans still attack women, LBGT, Obamacare, the Middle Class, the poor, African Americans, Latinos and the Disabled or Mentally Challenged.

dinthebeast said...

Apparently things are much easier to forget if you don't pay much attention to them in the first place...

-Doug in Oakland

stratocruiser said...

A minor correction. They do not remember their screw-ups, but the Democrats who make a mistake, different story. I swear they tattoo the list on their knuckles so they can review them while typing.

It would be fun to do a scandal bracket, 32 of ours against 32 of theirs. and play it out. In my book, Cheney and Valerie Plame would have to be crowned the champion, but that's just me.

RUKidding said...

Lying about the past... Rewriting history. Basically that's the GOP strategy in a nutshell & it works. Having witnessed this in my family for the past 40+ years, the GOP has perfected their brainwashing techniques & the networks of who participate. I await the result of this latest rewrite vis Trump. I can inform that my family hates Trump NOW. 'Twas not always the case especially as all their precious media outlets - which they are firmly plugged into 24/7/365 - gave Trump endless agog attention for so long. And Trump is an out loud & proud racist!! So wonderful not to feel ashamed & constrained by all that stupid pussy liebrul political correctness!! Trump tells the Truth! He speaks his Mind! He's so great!

Well my family - total sheep that they are - are usually good indicators of what's coming next. They now hate Trump & vow to vote for "godly" Cruz. I'm sure they've already disavowed any prior allegiance to or liking for Trump.

The GOP may yet pull this off & get Cruz enough votes to get the nomination "legitimately". Time will tell.

Cirze said...

As an atheist I've huuugely enjoyed the "godly" Cruz Republican moment.

I'm foretelling another huuugely important moment coming up soon (enough) in the future - when they strategically forgettery Cruz.

h/t to the Great and Powerful Dg

trgahan said...

It is Strategic Forgetter that makes my very skeptical the Republican Party is headed for any kind of collapse/split/or whatever.

The MSM will not be able to find a single Trump voter on November 9th and Brooks et al. will take to their columns to talk about "family fights," "Tent Broadening," and how the 2016 election results will actually help the GOP rise again into that generation long super majority that has supposed to have happened every election since 1994.

The only practical conclusion I see coming from 2016 is Ted Cruz's failed southern mega-church strategy foretelling the death of Republican political PAC's parading as nonprofit Evangelical Mega-Churches as national-level relevant electoral machines.

tony in san diego said...

We have always been at war with Eurasia.