Intermarkets' Privacy Policy Support
Donate to Ace of Spades HQ! Contact
Ace:aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com Recent Entries
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
Daily Tech News 26 July 2025 Gentlemen, This Is The ONT Manifest Fri-Yay Cafe The Week in Woke Ninth Circuit Panel: No, You Can't Discriminate Against Christians Just Because They Refuse To Say They'd Support Transing Their Children NPR's Top Editor Resigns After Propaganda Network Loses $500 Million in Federal Funding, Claims Her Resignation Has Nothing to Do With the Cuts Alligator Alcatraz Airlines Begins Sending Illegals Back Home; Vance Predicts We May See Net Negative Immigration In the Next Year How Obama Took Hillary Clinton's Dirty OppoDump Cocaine and Cooked Off the Impurities to Turn It Into Clean, Healthy Psyops Crack Biden's Former Top Aide Ron Klain Testifies, Sticking to the Party Line That Biden Was Not "Politically Viable" But Still Was Totally Competent to Remain President Hunter Biden: Hot Damn, Crack Is My Jam!!! Absent Friends
Jay Guevara 2025
Jim Sunk New Dawn 2025 Jewells45 2025 Bandersnatch 2024 GnuBreed 2024 Captain Hate 2023 moon_over_vermont 2023 westminsterdogshow 2023 Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022 Dave In Texas 2022 Jesse in D.C. 2022 OregonMuse 2022 redc1c4 2021 Tami 2021 Chavez the Hugo 2020 Ibguy 2020 Rickl 2019 Joffen 2014 AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups
|
« Glenn Reynolds: The Capital City Thrives While The Hinterlands Wither |
Main
| College Begins Offering Major in Pot Studies »
November 26, 2012
Three Unrelated ThoughtsI don't know how useful these thoughts are. It's a slow news day and these three things have occurred to me, but I haven't thought about them so much to know if they're good ideas. 1. The key to winning in politics is not to appeal to people's best selves and present to them an idealistic, selfless vision; the key is to appeal to their selfish interests but invent a narrative by which the selfish is depicted as selfless, and the low is depicted as the noble. This is a cynical idea but I have no doubt that this is the central theme of Obama's politics, and the key to why he won two elections. All of his "poetry" is about aspiring to a heaven on earth in which every man is an angel of virtue, but the actual "prose" of his governance is a series of transactional payoffs to one constituency and then another. Rather than calling these things "payoffs" and "small transactions to interested parties seeking money or government favor," he calls it "winning the future" or "safeguarding the dream of America" or whatever. One problem I had with Romney is that he seemed to too much the rationalist. He is swayed by data; he thinks other people are too. They're not, not in the main. (Present company excepted, as always.) I don't think reason really sways people. I think if you want to "lead" people you appeal to what they want to do anyway and you invent an emotional, Purpose-Larger-Than-Self narrative around that and sell them self-interest in the packaging of Idealism. I don't think Romney did that, and furthermore, I don't think he was even capable of doing that because he wasn't grounded in any ideology. Ideology usually provides a logical (if debatable) connection between proposed policy and desired personal outcomes. When you listened to Paul Ryan speak, he often connected conservative policy with the people's aspirations for a better life. Romney didn't do that himself often enough. As many people said before of him (and more since) he seemed to speak conservatism as a second language, to the extent he spoke it all. Mostly he spoke Managerese. 2. If you want to achieve something, you will achieve it faster and easier if it is more like fun and play and less like work. I think this is something the Obama team understood -- they made politicking and activism a game, offering lots of stupid little FaceBook things and such. They also strongly promoted "organic" activism -- people getting together in a precinct leader's house for social activities, in advance of actual hit-the-street activism. Democrats have, I think, a natural advantage in this sort of thing because a younger constituency is more interested in this sort of thing. Young people's lives tend to be socially unsettled -- they're not married yet (mostly), still looking for love, more actively open to new friendships than older people. I also think they're frankly a little bit dumber which makes throwing a sheep at other Obama supporters more of a draw than it would be for people who aren't as, you know, dumb. That said, while Democrats may have an advantage at this mode of politics, it's merely an advantage, and either way the "work as play" rule -- you work on the clock, but you play whenever you have free time -- should and probably must be leveraged for our own purposes. Given that many more conservatives have kids, and would probably enjoy a chance to do something as adults without the kids, I wonder if our own efforts in this direction wouldn't involve a few volunteers agreeing to stay behind with all the kids of the other volunteers. That is, a few volunteer to be day-care personnel, freeing up the rest for social activities/activism. I noticed in some pictures of Obama's activists they tended to be quite young (no kids yet) or much older (kids all grown up). That would tend not to be the situation among Republicans. 3. I was thinking aboutthis Geraghty piece considering this Goldstein piece on the most politic manner conservatives can comport themselves. I don't have many firm ideas on this, except to say that contempt is never persuasive. Contempt has its purposes inside a group -- it is natural that any self-selecting group should, among themselves, express contempt externally at those not enlightened enough to join. Contempt to those outside implicitly compliments those on the inside, and thus boosts in-group morale. Many political embarrassments, however, occur when in-group messaging -- such as naked contempt for those in the out-group -- is vented publicly. As happened with Romney's "47%" remarks, and Obama's "bitter clingers" ruminations. I'm not sure what to make of this, however. One can hardly fashion a strict rule about such things. Any time I am writing on this blog I am communicating publicly. Sort of, I mean. It's public but without much actual publicity -- to some extent, this is public, but it's sort of private because who, apart from us, reads this drivel? And you don't even read this drivel (you're already in the comments, and have been in the comments since point one), which means, effectively, I'm the only guy reading what I'm writing right now, and I'm barely paying attention to myself at that. So when Rush Limbaugh makes a statement which is really supposed to be "between us," entre nous, of course it won't be. But what do we say then? That Rush should never engage in the perfectly useful and perfectly common practice of in-group messaging against the out-group? That's frequently what is said when one of these little statements blows up in the liberal media: "He shouldn't have said that. He's hurt the movement." But is it really realistic to expect someone to act as the most cautious diplomat in every one of his public statements? Diplomats are many things, but interesting they are not. As I said, I have no idea what to say here, because while I agree we should all be (and I should be) the very most presentable and charming Public Diplomat for the Cause of Conservatism Possible in every single public utterance -- and even every private utterance! -- this is simply an impossibility and so massively stupid a recommendation it collapses under its own weight. No one could live like this, and no one would want to. And then when do we get to make dick jokes? Never, I guess. On the other hand, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to keep it in mind that contempt is part of in-group messaging, not intended for wide dissemination outside the group; so when a contemptuous remark gets out in the open, we all shouldn't run around insisting our politicians double-down on it and "prove to the world it's right." | Recent Comments
[/i][/b]SpeakingOf:
"[i]How did GPD manage to cram a Ryzen AI Max 395+ ..."
Pixy Misa: "[i]18 Why is it that news related to computers and ..." Just Wondering : "Birdbath status? ..." fd: "I see AOC is going to have to pay for renting her ..." Marcus T: "“ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for t ..." Cicero Skip: "I just got on and we are only at 46 comments. Must ..." fluffy: ">>> The same thing we do every day--try to take ov ..." The Brain: " mornin yall. I'll ask the question that I ask Bru ..." fd: "I know what Diamondrya Traneele Simmons is doing t ..." fd: "mornin yall. I'll ask the question that I ask Brun ..." Hadrian the Seventh: " Odd. When I show up here, suddenly everyone has ..." Hadrian the Seventh: " Good morning, Hordians. Hope the rain holds off ..." Recent Entries
The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
Daily Tech News 26 July 2025 Gentlemen, This Is The ONT Manifest Fri-Yay Cafe The Week in Woke Ninth Circuit Panel: No, You Can't Discriminate Against Christians Just Because They Refuse To Say They'd Support Transing Their Children NPR's Top Editor Resigns After Propaganda Network Loses $500 Million in Federal Funding, Claims Her Resignation Has Nothing to Do With the Cuts Alligator Alcatraz Airlines Begins Sending Illegals Back Home; Vance Predicts We May See Net Negative Immigration In the Next Year How Obama Took Hillary Clinton's Dirty OppoDump Cocaine and Cooked Off the Impurities to Turn It Into Clean, Healthy Psyops Crack Biden's Former Top Aide Ron Klain Testifies, Sticking to the Party Line That Biden Was Not "Politically Viable" But Still Was Totally Competent to Remain President Hunter Biden: Hot Damn, Crack Is My Jam!!! Search
Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Primary Document: The Audio
Paul Anka Haiku Contest Announcement Integrity SAT's: Entrance Exam for Paul Anka's Band AllahPundit's Paul Anka 45's Collection AnkaPundit: Paul Anka Takes Over the Site for a Weekend (Continues through to Monday's postings) George Bush Slices Don Rumsfeld Like an F*ckin' Hammer Top Top Tens
Democratic Forays into Erotica New Shows On Gore's DNC/MTV Network Nicknames for Potatoes, By People Who Really Hate Potatoes Star Wars Euphemisms for Self-Abuse Signs You're at an Iraqi "Wedding Party" Signs Your Clown Has Gone Bad Signs That You, Geroge Michael, Should Probably Just Give It Up Signs of Hip-Hop Influence on John Kerry NYT Headlines Spinning Bush's Jobs Boom Things People Are More Likely to Say Than "Did You Hear What Al Franken Said Yesterday?" Signs that Paul Krugman Has Lost His Frickin' Mind All-Time Best NBA Players, According to Senator Robert Byrd Other Bad Things About the Jews, According to the Koran Signs That David Letterman Just Doesn't Care Anymore Examples of Bob Kerrey's Insufferable Racial Jackassery Signs Andy Rooney Is Going Senile Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her Appearance Collective Names for Groups of People John Kerry's Other Vietnam Super-Pets Cool Things About the XM8 Assault Rifle Media-Approved Facts About the Democrat Spy Changes to Make Christianity More "Inclusive" Secret John Kerry Senatorial Accomplishments John Edwards Campaign Excuses John Kerry Pick-Up Lines Changes Liberal Senator George Michell Will Make at Disney Torments in Dog-Hell Greatest Hitjobs
The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny More Margaret Cho Abuse Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed" Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means Wonkette's Stand-Up Act Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report! Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet The House of Love: Paul Krugman A Michael Moore Mystery (TM) The Dowd-O-Matic! Liberal Consistency and Other Myths Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate "Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long) The Donkey ("The Raven" parody) |