Name Calling as Politics

Slander, defamation, name-calling… we are not in the world of deliberative democracy. We are not in a world where people present alternative policy proposals and then debate which one we should try first. We are not in a world where we agree to try out one proposal, and are willing to accept the verdict of reality-- did it or did it not work?

To engage in such a process requires some measure of intelligence. Clearly, young Kamala does not possess such a quantum of intelligence. It is not merely the word salads that are her signature. It is that she is unwilling or unable to accept that she or her administration has ever gotten it wrong. Failing to accept responsibility is a character flaw. She cannot laugh it off. 

The level of debate in the current presidential campaign is worthy of an idiotocracy. The problem is not merely that Kamala is witless and stupid. The problem is that far too many citizens consider her to be eminently qualified to occupy the office of president of the United States, to represent the nation on the world stage, to stand tall and proud with other world leaders-- without descending into schoolgirl giggles and cackling.

In one sense this is the consequence of an educational system that no longer teaches, but indoctrinates. It was produced because young people, in particular, never learned how to think rationally, to evaluate alternative proposals and to allow reality to decide. 

They are taught to be true believers and cult followers. They are most concerned with holding to the right beliefs-- the orthodoxy-- and being a member in good standing of this or that cult. In many precincts if you support the wrong candidate, you will be shunned for being a fascist, or some such.

Nowadays, the terms are thrown around with reckless abandon. And yet, as Bret Stephens points out, terms can be overused, to the point where they no longer mean much of anything-- beyond the fact that the person in question must be rejected from polite society.

First, like “racist” or “sexist,” the fascist epithet has lost much of its moral force over the years by dint of overuse. George W. Bush, along with most other past Republican presidents, was also often called a fascist; even Keith Olbermann later apologized to Bush for the overheated language. To use the word now feels both tired and meaningless.

“Tired and meaningless”... the old methods of slander and defamation are no longer working their black magic.

Stephens considers that Harris made a mistake by trotting out the old slander:

Second, by adopting the term as her own, Harris descended from truth-telling — that is, just noting what Trump’s own people said about him — to being a name-caller. It’s the wrong look for a candidate casting herself as a uniter and seeking to win over undecided voters, including prior Trump voters. And though the accusation was aimed at Trump alone, there’s an implication that his supporters must, to some degree, be fascists themselves. It will turn off some portion of an undecided electorate that’s tired of moral hectoring from liberal elites.

It sounds like what James Carville once said about the Democratic Party-- it contains too many preachy females. Place that next to the notion of “moral hectoring from liberal elites” and you arrive at the notion that name calling, when directed against political candidates, tends to implicate all of those who support them.

And then there is the question of what it means to be fascistic. According to Stephens we normally associate it with--

…secret police terrorize ordinary citizens, free media doesn’t exist and protest is forbidden. 

But then, Stephens proposes a reality check, namely that we have all had the experience of a Trump presidency:

That’s probably not what most Americans remember of their experience of the Trump years, when this newspaper more than doubled its circulation and Trump’s loudest critics could be heard from the minute Joe Scarborough woke them up to the hour Rachel Maddow put them to sleep.

  

But then again, people who have nothing to say continue to call Trump a Nazi. After all, the mentally challenged Hillary Clinton said, Trump is holding a rally in Madison Square Garden and anyone who does so is ipso facto a Nazi.

So Trump, who has Jewish children and Jewish grandchildren… must be a Nazi. As always, Hillary is the very model of the sore loser.

Insults are the last recourse of the scoundrel. As it happens, it is no longer working its magic. Spend an evening watching Kamala Harris refuse to answer questions and to act the clown and you are reminded of the satirical Babylon Bee, that once asked what you would pay not to have to listen to her again.

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