GOP: 'Socialism' lost the punch. 'Fascism' will work!

[SirNitram]

Link

As they seek to jolt the economy out of recession, President Obama’s Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have set aside worries about future inflation.

But one form of inflation — rhetorical — may become a short-term hazard for Republicans seeking an effective strategy to oppose Mr. Obama’s activist-government agenda. As the Democratic Congress returns this week to juggle administration initiatives on energy, health care and financial regulation, the minority party faces an internal debate over striking the right tone.

“Rhetorically, Republicans are having a very hard time finding something that raises the consciousness of the average voter,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party who recently lost a bid to became national party chairman.

Workaday labels like “big spender” and “liberal” have lost their punch, and last fall, Senator John McCain of Arizona and Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska gained little traction during the presidential campaign by linking Mr. Obama’s agenda to socialism.

So Mr. Anuzis has turned to provocation with a purpose. He calls the president’s domestic agenda “economic fascism.”

“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”

Whether fellow Republicans think that is factually appropriate or strategically wise is another question.

It’s Been Tried Before

In modern American politics, linking opponents to totalitarianism typically signals that the side making the link is losing. Yet sometimes it works.

In his come-from-behind 1948 victory, President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat, likened a vote for the Republican challenger, Thomas E. Dewey, to a vote for fascism. Four years later, as a vice-presidential candidate trying to break the Democrats’ 20-year grip on the White House, Richard M. Nixon ripped the Democratic nominee for president, Adlai E. Stevenson, as a graduate of the “cowardly college of Communist containment.”

Later, his onetime speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan recalled, Nixon “consciously kept the rhetoric cool” — even after the Democratic presidential challenger in 1972, George McGovern, compared him to Hitler. Ronald Reagan, a master of the temperate communication that fit the dominance of broadcast television, preferred humor to vitriol.

But recent years have produced a boom market for harsher rhetoric, for reasons that include the polarization of the two political parties and the rising influence of cable television and the Internet. In 2004, for instance, The American Prospect magazine depicted an elephant’s trunk curling around the neck of the Statue of Liberty with the headline: “Stranglehold: The right-wing push for a one-party state.”

Addressing President George W. Bush on MSNBC last year, the host Keith Olbermann declared, “You’re a fascist.”

The epithet, commonly associated with Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, gained new currency among conservatives with the publication of Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 book, “Liberal Fascism.” This spring, an article in The American Spectator titled “Il Duce, Redux?” called Mr. Obama’s goals, language and conception of government “straight out of Mussolini’s playbook.”

Mr. Anuzis noted that the Fox News commentator Glenn Beck had picked up the theme, as did some participants at the antitax “tea party” rallies last week. Mr. Anuzis spreads the word on Facebook and Twitter.

But that discomfits other conservatives who question its accuracy and political wisdom.

“I don’t think the word ‘fascism’ applies at all,” said the CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow, a sharp critic of Mr. Obama’s tax and spending policies. “Barack Obama is not a dictator. He’s a liberal.”

Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, said: “If what you’re trying to do is reach out to the middle, the more extreme the language, the less likely they are to pay attention. We sound like white noise in the background. It’s like a yipping Chihuahua.”

Smile When You Say It

The sharper language partly reflects pent-up frustrations over Mr. Bush, who presided over spending increases and the government’s $700 billion financial system bailout last fall. Now Republicans lament much more of the same from Mr. Obama.

“They’re trying to figure out how to oppose a relatively popular president during an economic emergency,” said Robert Kuttner, co-editor of The American Prospect, dismissing the fascism charge. “That’s not an easy thing to do.”

The practical question for Republicans is how best to reach political independents, 60 percent of whom now approve of Mr. Obama’s job performance. As his policies sink in, said William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard magazine, “I think ‘big-government-liberalism’ is good enough.”

Mr. Anuzis remains unconvinced. He notes that he does not call Mr. Obama himself a “fascist.” Rather, he applies the “economic fascism” label to government tax and regulatory policies that seek, in the words of one magazine’s definition he cites, “to achieve the utopian socialist ideal.”

“It’s politically very incorrect only because we’re not used to it,” concluded Mr. Anuzis, who recently joined American Solutions for Winning the Future, a group led by Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker. But he acknowledged, “You’ve got to be careful using the term ‘economic fascism’ in the right way, so it doesn’t come off as extreme.”

[KrauserKrauser]

Next up...

Relgious Communism! Corporate Maoism! Francomussolinihitlerstalinleninism! Quantum of Solace!

There are extremely valid criticisms that can be made with regard to Obama's financial policy without inserting buzzword dujour.

But when you are advocating to the lowest common denominator, I guess facist is just as damning as communist or socialist (In America at least for socialist) so why not throw that word around as well.

[Mr Bean]

I love how they quoted Keith without acutally quoting the first part where he explained what a Facist was and why what then President Bush was doing was a text-book definition of fascism.

To quote a few

Main Entry:
fas·cism Listen to the pronunciation of fascism
Pronunciation:
\ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\

1 : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control <early instances of army fascism and brutality

Fascism
Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology. It is primarily concerned with perceived problems associated with cultural, economic, political, and social decline or decadence, and which seeks to solve such problems by achieving a millenarian national rebirth by exalting the nation, as well as promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.

Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism (including national socialism, national syndicalism, economic nationalism, along with collectivism, mysticism and populism based on the nationalist values); corporatism (including class collaboration, economic planning, mixed economy, and third way); totalitarianism (including dictatorship, holism, major social interventionism, and statism); and militarism. Fascism opposes communism, conservatism, liberalism, and international socialism.

And finally Wiki

Fascism is a radical, authoritarian, corporatist[1] and nationalist political ideology.[2][3][4][5] Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.[6] Fascists believe that nations and races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in combat against the weak.[7] Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.[8] Fascism opposes class conflict and blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and in turn blames communists for exploiting class conflict.[9] Fascists reject the individualism and self-interest of laissez-faire capitalism.[10] Many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state communism.[11][12] This was to be achieved by a form of government control over business and labor (called "the corporate state" by Mussolini).[13] Some call this corporatism[14] while some others do not use the term corporatism to describe the fascist economic arrangement.

If you have any idea what Fascist actually means the charge is crazy. Actual fascist governments where highly against Liberal and Socialist ideals. To note it was compared quote well on a blog I read recently that the Republican Party is having the same issue that Democrats had with George W Bush. You message can't be both, You can't call GW Bush both a know nothing idiot going through life being done as he's told and have the IQ equivalent with most lawn gnomes, or in fact the ultra secretly genius evil wanna be authoritarian dictator who's bent on destroying our freedom's. One Katrina hit the narrative changed and instead of the democrats calling him both the steadied down on just calling him an idiot and it worked much better.

Same issue for Republicans now, they can't call him Liberal McLiberalton the Third and Fascist Mc Hitler at the same time, the two policies are opposed to each other. Now that won't matter to the 20% base, but it sure as hell matters to the other 80% and they frankly don't need to win that 20%.

[General Zod]

“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”

I love the sheer level of Saturday morning cartoon villainy the Republicans have reduced themselves to. Apparently proposing a better idea isn't fashionable anymore.

[Kodiak]

“We’ve so overused the word ‘socialism’ that it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago,” Mr. Anuzis said. “Fascism — everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.”

I love the sheer level of Saturday morning cartoon villainy the Republicans have reduced themselves to. Apparently proposing a better idea isn't fashionable anymore.

I looked for a link to The Onion for this article, but to no avail. What happens when "Fascism" loses its punch? Do we call it "Neo-liberal Baby Eating"? or "Left-Wing Kitten Punting"? Gimme a break guys, and call it what it is: An economic policy that the majority of the country supports that the GOP is afraid of because they're in danger of vanishing as a coherent entity.

[Axis Kast]

An economic policy that the majority of the country supports that the GOP is afraid of because they're in danger of vanishing as a coherent entity.

I'd love to see you supply some empirical data proving the "vanishing" of the Republican Party. Obama's landslide no more threatens the existence of the Republican Party than Reagan's defeat over Mondale threatened the Democrats.

Even in the event that a third party challenger arises to bear the banner of the Religious Right -- something that the mainline Republicans can stop by putting Huckabee forward as their frontman -- the third party as an institution has tended in this country to be a temporary expression. Usually within the next cycle, their pet issue(s) are efficiently addressed by one of the two major movements.

This article was to me very surprising, considering how much traction "socialism" gets as a cultural epithet among people who cling to the idea that the individual is king and government is inherently wasteful and misguided, and as a stinging rebuke of Big Taxation, which among the Republican rank-and-file is still a flaw associated chiefly with Democrats, facts be damned. The effect, from what I can tell, is exactly what happened when that fellow crashed a "Tea Party" to remind those who made less than $250,000 that they were paying lower taxes: he got booed, because nobody wanted to hear such a message. They were much more concerned with excoriating the "evils" of a theoretically super-expensive, super-inefficient Nanny State.

[Patrick Degan]

And so, once again, the GOP thinks that it's problem is one of marketing.

Not even cartoon villany as much as cartoon incompetence.

[Kodiak]

An economic policy that the majority of the country supports that the GOP is afraid of because they're in danger of vanishing as a coherent entity.

I'd love to see you supply some empirical data proving the "vanishing" of the Republican Party. Obama's landslide no more threatens the existence of the Republican Party than Reagan's defeat over Mondale threatened the Democrats.

I never said that Obama's "landslide" threatens the GOP, but rather that his foreign and domestic policy seems to be resonating with a large majority of Americans. It's no secret that the membership of the Republican party has been in decline for nearly a decade time as can be seen here and here, and also that the number of independents with Democratic leanings are increasing. I'll admit I misspoke though, as the thought I was trying to convey was:

An economic policy that the majority of the country supports that the GOP is afraid of because of the perception that they're in danger of vanishing as a coherent entity.

In short, the GOP machine seems to be grasping at straws and reaching for buzzwords to try to polarize the electorate back into a "Good vs. Bad" showdown where they can claim a moral high ground and get back to polishing their halo of "traditional family values" where the whole world can see them.

[SirNitram]

It's worth focusing on coherence. The GOP will be with us for a while, but the lack of coherence in their party is shocking, given the unity they've shown for a while. No surprise, really; the modern GOP is made of groups who are all at cross-purposes, so they were drawn together by collective hate of the opposition and charisma of leadership. After Bush's Presidency and hard fall of the party, they naturally chafe.

Before anyone starts saying the factions aren't outright opposed, stop and think: Big business wants a tiny, ineffective government so it's not regulated and taxed. The Religious Right wants a strong, all-present government who will punish 'sinners' and prevent anything they don't like. Neoconservatives don't give a shit about either of them and their domestic policies, they just want a government gulping down cash so they can bring democracy to people at the point of a gun. They've nothing in common, really, but they could make-believe for a while. Then it all came down..

[Elfdart]

And so, once again, the GOP thinks that it's problem is one of marketing.

Not even cartoon villany as much as cartoon incompetence.

Speaking of which, it's like Wile E. Coyote blaming A.C.M.E. for his bungled plans.

[The Yosemite Bear]

But what kind of company sells WMDs to Coyotes?

[Pulp Hero]

But what kind of company sells WMDs to Coyotes?

Terrorists. Think about it, Wile E. Coyote is the ultimate suicide bomber.

[Prannon]

I'd love to see you supply some empirical data proving the "vanishing" of the Republican Party. Obama's landslide no more threatens the existence of the Republican Party than Reagan's defeat over Mondale threatened the Democrats.

While this is true, it is important to note that Reagan's victory over Mondale inaugurated a new era in American politics defined by the conservative narrative of "big government=bad, small government=good," increased party polarization, and a strong religious and moral element in voting patterns. The Democratic Party didn't die, but it did have to adapt to the new political environment.

I think it's fair to say that the same thing may be happening now with Obama's victory. It seems that many commentators are saying that the religious ascendancy is over and that a new, more liberal theme dominates. Furthermore, the GOP is reeling from defeat, has no real uncontested leadership, and has no resonating theme. Furthermore...

It's no secret that the membership of the Republican party has been in decline for nearly a decade time as can be seen here and here, and also that the number of independents with Democratic leanings are increasing.

So for the moment at least it would appear that a new liberal narrative is ascending. It's up to Obama, the administration, and the Democrats in Congress to define that theme and get the American people to like it. Otherwise, his election may just be a fluke and we will return to further right wing dominated discourse.

[Eframepilot]

It's worth focusing on coherence. The GOP will be with us for a while, but the lack of coherence in their party is shocking, given the unity they've shown for a while. No surprise, really; the modern GOP is made of groups who are all at cross-purposes, so they were drawn together by collective hate of the opposition and charisma of leadership. After Bush's Presidency and hard fall of the party, they naturally chafe.

Before anyone starts saying the factions aren't outright opposed, stop and think: Big business wants a tiny, ineffective government so it's not regulated and taxed. The Religious Right wants a strong, all-present government who will punish 'sinners' and prevent anything they don't like. Neoconservatives don't give a shit about either of them and their domestic policies, they just want a government gulping down cash so they can bring democracy to people at the point of a gun. They've nothing in common, really, but they could make-believe for a while. Then it all came down..

I disagree that the factions aren't outright opposed. While they aren't natural allies, they have managed to agree on an ideal (yet ludicrous) vision of government as tiny and ineffective except in national defense and civil liberties where it's huge and aggressive. That's what Bush was trying to achieve, and Republicans only disliked what he did when he tried to be a "compassionate" conservative and pass prescription drug benefits or reform immigration (though of course both of those issues helped big business). The coalition has been around so long that most Republicans have become tolerant of the other factions' ideals if not openly embracing them. Problems only occur when the Republicans can't field a candidate who appeals to all three groups. The Republicans have shown remarkable unity in defeat so far, but they are facing a much bigger problem...

...which is that all three legs of the conservative stool have been totally discredited! The neoconservative foreign policy has been proven to be a disaster, the social conservatives' agenda is being increasingly rejected as the medieval throwback it is, and the big business fiscal conservatives are the most ruined of all, what with their having destroyed the global economy. So the Republicans' ideas, ALL of them, have been shown to be faulty, and the mushy, indecisive center of the country has turned to Obama and the Democrats in the hope that they can fix things.

[Elfdart]

But what kind of company sells WMDs to Coyotes?

Terrorists. Think about it, Wile E. Coyote is the ultimate suicide bomber.

Not if he survives every jihad against the Roadrunner.

[Solauren]

But what kind of company sells WMDs to Coyotes?

Terrorists. Think about it, Wile E. Coyote is the ultimate suicide bomber.

Not if he survives every jihad against the Roadrunner.

That's why he's so great.

He blows things up (along with himself), survives, and is stupid enough to try, try again!

[Coyote]

...Neoconservatives don't give a shit about either of them and their domestic policies, they just want a government gulping down cash so they can bring democracy open new markets to people at the point of a gun...

Fixed it for you!

[Coyote]

While this is true, it is important to note that Reagan's victory over Mondale inaugurated a new era in American politics defined by the conservative narrative of "big government=bad, small government=good," increased party polarization, and a strong religious and moral element in voting patterns. The Democratic Party didn't die, but it did have to adapt to the new political environment...

I think this is potentially illuminating to some of the problem right here-- up against Reagan, the Democratic Party ran Mondale, who was not exactly a lightning rod of dynamism after Carter. So I think some of Reagan's "victory" wasn't so much Reagan but "not-Mondale" feeling.

Reagan brought a lot of Christian activists into the GOP tent with his rhetoric, but when you look at it, he really did little to further their agenda beyond giving them a voice. And when George Bush-I tried to capitalize on that with his whole schtick in 1992 about "Family Values" while the economy was crumbling, he lost-- so Democrats didn't realize that the guy had actually struck a chord with voters; "Family Values" did mean something to his voters but due to his election loss, Democrats thought that it had been an issue that failed. So they discounted it as a mobilizing issue in elections to come.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing--- I actually do not want "family values" to be a deciding factor in elections, because of course it begs the questions of whose family and which values, etc, but it did mobilize that voter base that wanted Jesus in the Oval Office.

The best thing now that the GOP has hitched itself to that wagon, is to erode the roadway beneath them. So far, all the champions of "family values" include multiple-divorcees (Gingrich, Giuliani), never-married and childless women (Coulter) and drug abusers (Limbaugh). The "family values" mantra GWBush-I introduced over 17 years ago as an attempt to ride Reagan's coattails has provided a handy means of measuring hypocrisy.

[Darth Wong]

This article was to me very surprising, considering how much traction "socialism" gets as a cultural epithet among people who cling to the idea that the individual is king and government is inherently wasteful and misguided, and as a stinging rebuke of Big Taxation, which among the Republican rank-and-file is still a flaw associated chiefly with Democrats, facts be damned. The effect, from what I can tell, is exactly what happened when that fellow crashed a "Tea Party" to remind those who made less than $250,000 that they were paying lower taxes: he got booed, because nobody wanted to hear such a message. They were much more concerned with excoriating the "evils" of a theoretically super-expensive, super-inefficient Nanny State.

Frankly, I think the article is dead wrong. The use of "socialism" as an epithet is just as powerful in the US as it was 10 years ago. It's just that there are other things competing against this mechanism, like a burgeoning resentment against "big money".

Americans are perfectly willing to live their entire lives with the inherent contradiction in being capitalist Christians; I'm sure they can find a way to hate socialism and the wealthy class at the same time.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Has anyone mentioned that Socialism and Facisim are two TOTALLY opposite and conflicting ideologies? That in one breath calling Obama a Communist, and in the next calling him a Facisit is like calling someone an Atheist Muslim?

[Knife]

Has anyone mentioned that Socialism and Facisim are two TOTALLY opposite and conflicting ideologies? That in one breath calling Obama a Communist, and in the next calling him a Facisit is like calling someone an Atheist Muslim?

The problem being, is the simplicity of the mind set of the people leveling the charges. They subscribe to the black/white dynamic, so if socialist=bad and fascist=bad, then both socialist and fascist are the same thing, in their minds. That is why people are laughing at them but they thought it was a good angle to pursue.

[Aratech]

And so, once again, the GOP thinks that it's problem is one of marketing.

Not even cartoon villany as much as cartoon incompetence.

Speaking of which, it's like Wile E. Coyote blaming A.C.M.E. for his bungled plans.

To be fair, Wile E. has at least some logical ground to stand upon there. ACME products do have this notoriously bad habit of breaking down and malfunctioning at the worst possible time, possibly giving rise to the theory that Wile E. is actually a contracted beta tester for the guys.

Has anyone mentioned that Socialism and Facisim are two TOTALLY opposite and conflicting ideologies? That in one breath calling Obama a Communist, and in the next calling him a Facisit is like calling someone an Atheist Muslim?

You're presuming that the Repulitards average devoted follower is smart enough to actually listen to that statement, and not call you a terrorist loving Un-America "insert insult of choice here."

[HamsterViking]

I love how they quoted Keith without acutally quoting the first part where he explained what a Facist was and why what then President Bush was doing was a text-book definition of fascism.

That's how it works. Republicans take accusations more accuratly directed at them, and turn them on the Democrats. All of a sudden it becomes, "Oh, well both sides are calling each other X, so it must be that neither one is X, and they're both just being too partisan. Time to vote for McCain, because he does the best job of pretending to be moderate!" That is to say, the Republicans are very good at fooling meople like my former step-mother.

[CarsonPalmer]

Has anyone mentioned that Socialism and Facisim are two TOTALLY opposite and conflicting ideologies? That in one breath calling Obama a Communist, and in the next calling him a Facisit is like calling someone an Atheist Muslim?

But they don't recognize that distinction. I've argued with people who tell me that every dictator is a liberal, because conservatism requires small government, and is thus a philosophy of freedom. They love to point out that the word socialist is in the name of the Nazi Party.

[The Spartan]

Has anyone mentioned that Socialism and Facisim are two TOTALLY opposite and conflicting ideologies? That in one breath calling Obama a Communist, and in the next calling him a Facisit is like calling someone an Atheist Muslim?

But they don't recognize that distinction. I've argued with people who tell me that every dictator is a liberal, because conservatism requires small government, and is thus a philosophy of freedom. They love to point out that the word socialist is in the name of the Nazi Party.

Do you point out that North Korea officially calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea when it is neither a democracy or a republic?