[Paleopsych] GOP vs. Dems

[Michael Christopher]

>>This afternoon when I was planting bulbs it 
occurred to me that the Republican party may soon
arrive at a position similar to that of a football
team that runs the same successful plays too many
times. Eventually their opponents learn to see them 
coming and the plays no longer work.<<

--Republicans will have several problems. One you just
mentioned. Certain propaganda techniques depend on the
presence of an enemy that can be demonized, and
Repubilicans did a great job of demonizing liberals
and playing up fear of terrorism, attaching it to the
idea that liberals are weak, spineless, wavering,
flip-flopping and every other epithet hurled at high
school nerds who read books. Those techniques tend to
stop working after a while, because people start
questioning the epithets. Are liberals really "weak"?
Are Democrats necessarily liberals? After a while,
people take those questions seriously, instead of
going with a knee-jerk emotional response. The public
also cycles from liberal to conservative and back
again, and when the pendulum swings, rhetoric which
worked last cycle begins to flop.

Another issue will be the tendency of groups which
define themselves in opposition to other groups to
allow corruption to set in on their own side.
Republicans closing ranks around Tom DeLay (which
moderate Republicans as well as Democrats find
distasteful) is one example. Another is the tendency
of systems, regardless of who is involved, to form
incestuous links and dysfunctional feedback loops.
Regulatory agencies gradually become stacked with
people from the industries regulated, until there is a
scandal involving unsafe drugs, etc. If one party is
supposed to be in charge of those systems when they
fail, that party gets the blame.

Then there's the issue of results. A party that gains
a lock on power must provide results, not just theory
and rhetoric. That's easier said than done, and the
administration can't blame liberalism for its own
failures if it does not deliver on what it promised.

Michael



		
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