Dig, it's all about marketing and positioning and you know it.
A Democrat will point to McCarthyism but ignore Senator McCarran's Act of the same era.
A Democrat will point to a few examples of racism against African-Americans and turn that into
"The Republican Party is racist"
A Republican will point to a few examples of anti-semitism in the Democratic party and turn it into "The Democratic Part is anti-jewish"
A Republican will point to a white lie told by a Democratic president and turn it into "Bill Clinton is an untrustworthy devil".
Coca Cola, Gillette, and McDonald's tell you their good qualities but not their bad. They don't run any ads telling you about cutting yourself or cholesterol and fat.
It's marketing and everyone is doing it and the political parties are certainly no exception. The Republican Party is not an exception. The Democratic Party is not an exception.
It's all about story-telling. You can tell the story anyway you wish. You can say "Bill Clinton balanced the budget" or you can say "The budget was a comprise. The Republicans actually wanted to cut spending more but had to make a deal to get it passed".
You can say "Clinton balanced the budget" or you can say "the US debt increased nearly 2 trillion dollars under Clinton".
You can say "Reagan and Bush ended the Cold War" or you can say "The USSR would have collapsed anyway".
You can say "We won the war in Afghanistan" or you can say "We didn't win. Osama Bin Laden is still out there" or you can say "Thre are still Taliban out there and we'll never if they won't retake control".
Marketing a political party is very easy to do. Since there are three branches of government, one can blame or credit one of them in the story-telling and not the other. If there is a Republican President and a Democratic Congress, the president can be blamed for legislation gone awry as can the congress. Do we blame the GOP for the Patriot Act and ignore the 70% of the Democrats that voted for it too? Do we blame or credit the originator of a bill, the people that voted of it, or the president that signed it? Should we use the same criteria in all evaluations? It seems to me that in political debates the criteria is always changed to fit the circumstance and there is no neutral mark that is ever used. Hell, seems to me that the criteria is usually manufactured on the spot.
Are we interested in truth or are we interested in telling stories?
|