One sign that of progressives’ increasing success in communicating about their liberal values is that Republican activists are starting to follow the progressive lead in creating clear and compelling political messages. Desperate to regain the momentum in the culture war that they have declared against American liberal democracy, the Republicans are trying to imitate the progressive messages that have so successfully resonated with the American public in the last few months.
A case in point is the Republicans’ struggle to come up with a counterpart to one of the anti-Bush movement’s most popular political messages, Somewhere in Texas a Village is Missing its Idiot. They tried, and they tried, but they just couldn’t come up with anything snappy on their own.
Out of frustration at their relative impotence, some Republicans have resorted to producing bumper stickers that advocate violence against liberals. Other Republican political operations have simply given up any attempt at originality, and just try to copy the idea of the Texas village idiot theme, creating the following strange button:
Somewhere in Arkansas, a village is missing their idiot? Partisanship aside, this GOP version of the progressive slogan just doesn’t seem to come together well. Like the recent Republican book that tries to trash Hillary Clinton by, it ends up reflecting more poorly upon its creators than it does upon Hillary Clinton.
First of all, if you’re going to create a slogan accusing someone else of being an idiot, you would do well to make sure that the slogan avoids grammatical mistakes common to elementary school students. When Republicans rant that village is missing their idiot, they’re making the very same kind of grammatical mistake that has earned George W. Bush himself a reputation for linguistic idiocy. “A village” is singular. “Their” is used to refer to a plural. The slogan ought to read “… a village is missing its idiot”.
What’s really confusing about this button is that it’s applied to Hillary Clinton. No one, not even her sharpest Republican critics, accuse Hillary Clinton of being an idiot. Among Republicans, her reputation is that of a nasty, devious machiavellian genius who has orchestrated a huge number of national and international criminal conspiracies. Republicans rarely accuse Hillary Clinton of being dim-witted. They don’t like the way that Hillary Clinton uses her intelligence, but Republicans generally acknowledge that Senator Clinton is quite intelligent. This button fails in its message because it’s a plainly desperate copy of a criticism that applies well to George W. Bush but not to Hillary Clinton.
When they blindly copy progressive slogans in this way, Republicans give us a couple of unintentional reassuring messages. First, the Republicans show us that they’re growing quite worried about the popular discontent over the Bush Administration’s incompentent leadership. Second, the Republicans show us that they have no clear plan for countering the prospective Democratic presidential candidates who are preparing to challenge Republican control of the White House in 2008.
The Republican are clutching at straws, having forgotten the clear and simple way of communicating that enabled them to gain control of American government in the first place. Somewhere in the Republican Party, a media relations specialist has lost his bearings.
Although misfires do and will happen, it’s sad when they make it all the way out and get supported by the public.
I am not inclined to think this is a mistake, but an attempt to reach all levels. They want to communicate with the lowest common denominator amongst potential Republican voters, and I think they dislike Hillary so much that reason no longer plays a part in their attacks on her. It would be nice to see signs of discouragement and confusion in Republican tactics, but I don’t think its time to underestimate them.