SUMMARY: The insightful political analyst Rachel Bitecofer offers some advice to Democrats who are trying to save our democracy by defeating Republican fascism in November 2024. Most of it revolves around how the Republicans have spent billions and decades building an anti-democratic information infrastructure to reify their misinformation and disinformation about the country, the media, Democrats, and individual politicians and how the Democratic Party is still running against Ronald Reagan. She draws attention to the importance of using humor and mockery in combating disinformation, she offers a fresh perspective on the ongoing political landscape. All of it offered in her new book, Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game, and various interviews promoting the book.
COMMENT: Let us know what you think of how Election 2024 is shaping up and whether humor and mockery can break through the numbing noise of the Republican domination of the news cycle.
“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”
She says that the Democratic Party is still running against the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and maybe W, if we’re lucky, while the Republicans are running against the dysfunctional government that they’ve created by refusing to compromise and govern as Goldwater predicted. I’ll add that the MSM and most of the electorate are still operating in the old paradigm, too.
The Republican Party has spent decades building an information infrastructure that spans our society from legal organizations like the Heritage Foundation to legislation through ALEC to the multi-headed hydra of organizations that has sprouted from the decapitated Koch Bros. They also cross the socioeconomic lines from the Tea Party and MAGA to wining and dining Thomas “Jus’ Give All The Moneys to Ginny” Thomas. And, they’ve added a variety of social media platforms, like X and Meta.
Using this infrastructure they can manufacture crisis and controversy as often as a baby shits its dipper. CRT, trans bathroom use, Biden’s shoes, and so many other issues de jour. With their firehose of outrage and an amplifier turned up to eleven, they can keep the public off kilter and confused about what is actually happening.
The Effectiveness of the republican disinformation campaign
The economy is terrible!
Immigrants are flooding across the border!
They’re coming for your stove!
The 2020 election was stolen!
Biden’s lax policies have caused a crime wave!
Republicans handle the economy better!
They aren’t going to cut Medicaid and Social Security.
Democrats are anti-democratic.
Please add to the list in the comments.
Democratic counter messaging is ineffective at best
Democrats still believe that if you can just explain your policies, then voters will see that they are better at governing and will take care of the country. If they can just fact check the Republicans, voters will understand the truth and vote accordingly.
They respond to the latest diarrheic fart from the Republican outrage machine with a long winded explanation about something that no one remembers or has cared about for the last two hundred news cycles.
Republicans produce astroturf movements to influence voter perceptions and coordinate their efforts through invisible national billionaire-funded non-profits while Democrats rely on volunteer efforts.
Most Americans don’t know or care much about politics
Democrats keep acting like they do and think they want educating about political issues and get lost in the weeds of policy. The Republicans exploit it by NOT developing or publicizing their policy goals and relentlessly attacking Democratic policy initiatives as big-spending socialism bankrupting the country because Dems hate our freedoms.
The Republican messaging machine has outsized influence since
Newt Gingrich bullied the MSM into believing they had a left-wing bias and need to give equal time to the crazy that the Republican Party has been spouting ever since Reagan.
Using their array of conservative media outlets from Fox News to Breitbart News to whatever drops off the ass end of what passes for anything remotely resembling journalism on the Internet and cable.
Successfully smearing Democrats as socialist, big-spending, deficit busting, weak on defense, idealistic
Successfully promoting themselves as fiscally conservative, meritocracy-loving, anti-communist/socialist, law and order, strong on defense
Again, if you have anything to add to this list, please let us know in the comments.
Defeat republican disinformation with humor and mockery
Because the MSM has legitimized so much Republican disinformation by covering it as if it were reasonable no matter how outrageous on the surface, it makes it almost impossible to remove it from the public discourse and tremendously influences public opinion.
When the Republicans picked up a slim majority in the House, they were going to launch investigations that were even more baseless than their Benghazi and butheremails bullshit, and the big fear was that Dems would interview the witnesses like they were real reasonable witnesses and the MSM would cover it like it was real reasonable investigation.
You can’t counter the ridiculous trumped up crap of the day with facts. You can only counter it with mockery. Which is exactly what Democrats on those investigative committees have been doing. Our good friend, Tengrain, over at Mock Paper Scissors has done a good job of gathering some video of Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Here’s Your Ass, If You Want It Back Now) showing exactly how it’s done.
And, here I was worrying that Ye Olde Blogge’s snarky, sarcasticky, profaney approach was doing irreparable damage to the country by being part of the Outrage Industrial Complex when we were actually in the trenches defeating Republican disinformation with snark, sarcasm, and profanity. Hunh. Who knew?
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Image Attribution
This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, Make a political cartoon of A Democratic donkey laughing and pointing at a Republican elephant
David Neiwert suggested much the same thing ten years ago, and I myself once proposed joining one of their proposed parades … ride our Harleys all dressed up in clown suits, blowin’ whistles tootin’ horns bangin’ on bongos like chimpanzees. I don’t think I can be that churlish though, just not that sophisticated … but they didn’t show
I remember going to see Ronald Reagan speak back in my hippy dippy days. Some of the other kids and I went to protest. I suggested that we just laugh and laugh and laugh at him. Being laughed at is one of the hardest things in the world to endure. I thought if we could get a dozen or so people to just laugh continuously we might could’ve thrown him off of his game. None of the others saw it that way.
A bunch of clowns on Harleys makin noise would’ve been a sight to behold and quite the protest.
Same thing here, even worser, though. These people are just plumb loco, and need to be laughed out of town.
I have begun snickering then allowing outright laughter to erupt when dealing with MAG’s…it completely throws them off their game of trying to force disinformation down my throat. in a city council meeting, during the public comment portion, one MAGA began declaring that our local HS was pushing “leftist theories” onto the “kids” and promoting the “grooming of the kids” into I suppose “gay” ideology…he was having difficulty getting his outrage out, and I began snickering. then Laughing out loud at some of his statements. eventually the council members began laughing. that maroon eventually gave up and left the room, and some actual discussion of city problems got underway. From my little singular incident I can extrapolate that laughing at idiots can make them shut up and the thinking people around them will begin THINKING.
Wasn’t it you who wrote a comment about standing up for a woman in a hijab who was being harassed back in 2017 or 2018? You certainly stand up and get counted. Well, done.
No one who isn’t trying to be funny and make you laugh, likes to be laughed at. It is one of the most humiliating things ever. Laughing these clowns out of meetings and off of committees is the only way to deal with them, otherwise, they just say the stupidest stuff.
yep…that was me in the hijab debacle… now I am busily mocking the maroons who want to ban books and “bring God back into schools”…so far I have avoided jail time.
It is difficult for liberals to escape one of our own favorite illusions, that people really want to do critical thinking about facts and data, and will vote accordingly. We are the heirs of the enlightenment philosophers and the Age of Reason. Bitecofer is here to wack us up side of the head with the cognitive truths of behavioral economics and to keep the message simple, that our adversaries just are not making sense.
I’m reminded of the observation (I forget by whom) that armies positioning for defense almost always prepare to fight the last war, while the aggression minded set about to invent the next one. That is how we find ourselves debating with Reagan when he wouldn’t even have a job in today’s Republican Party. And, the remaining old line Republicans, even the neo-cons can’t save us because they are just as befuddled by the firehose of lies as we are.
There are stories about someone caught in a trap of the Devil’s lies and escaping with laughter, the one weapon that evil cannot answer.
It’s, more than likely, that, the, Republicans have the, ability to, influence the social media, to, set the, trends for the, upcoming, election. All the, propaganda the Republicans use, although, the, oldest tricks in the book, the voters are, gobbling, every lie the G.O.P. is, feeding to, social media and the, public, and, because the voters lack the sense to, decide for themselves what is right and wrong, as is, the, ultimate goal, therefore, the Republican Party is, more than likely to win the, November, election, and, this will, send U.S., spiraling down to, HELL.
I’m convinced Elon Musk bought Twitter because it was such an effective organizing tool for political progressives. Now, the progressive side doesn’t have a central social media platform. We never coalesced around a single platform. That said, I don’t think the American public, much less the electorate is really buying what Trump and the Republicans are selling. There is something to the notion that most Americans don’t start paying attention to the presidential election until September.
There are signs that Biden and the Dems are in a stronger position than the polls indicate. Small dollar donations, for one. Biden is besting Trump by double digits and the Dems are besting the Repubs. Off year election results have all gone the Dems way. The rallies and protests have all been on the Dem’s side. And, just like in 2022 and 2020, the Repubs are putting up MAGA radicals for the general.
I feeling more confident now than I was in 2020, and I was pretty confident then.
The Psy of Life 
David Neiwert suggested much the same thing ten years ago, and I myself once proposed joining one of their proposed parades … ride our Harleys all dressed up in clown suits, blowin’ whistles tootin’ horns bangin’ on bongos like chimpanzees. I don’t think I can be that churlish though, just not that sophisticated … but they didn’t show
My, oh my, that’s a lot of commas …
LikeLiked by 2 people
Howdy Ten Bears!
I remember going to see Ronald Reagan speak back in my hippy dippy days. Some of the other kids and I went to protest. I suggested that we just laugh and laugh and laugh at him. Being laughed at is one of the hardest things in the world to endure. I thought if we could get a dozen or so people to just laugh continuously we might could’ve thrown him off of his game. None of the others saw it that way.
A bunch of clowns on Harleys makin noise would’ve been a sight to behold and quite the protest.
Same thing here, even worser, though. These people are just plumb loco, and need to be laughed out of town.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLike
I have begun snickering then allowing outright laughter to erupt when dealing with MAG’s…it completely throws them off their game of trying to force disinformation down my throat. in a city council meeting, during the public comment portion, one MAGA began declaring that our local HS was pushing “leftist theories” onto the “kids” and promoting the “grooming of the kids” into I suppose “gay” ideology…he was having difficulty getting his outrage out, and I began snickering. then Laughing out loud at some of his statements. eventually the council members began laughing. that maroon eventually gave up and left the room, and some actual discussion of city problems got underway. From my little singular incident I can extrapolate that laughing at idiots can make them shut up and the thinking people around them will begin THINKING.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Howdy Suze!
Wasn’t it you who wrote a comment about standing up for a woman in a hijab who was being harassed back in 2017 or 2018? You certainly stand up and get counted. Well, done.
No one who isn’t trying to be funny and make you laugh, likes to be laughed at. It is one of the most humiliating things ever. Laughing these clowns out of meetings and off of committees is the only way to deal with them, otherwise, they just say the stupidest stuff.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
yep…that was me in the hijab debacle… now I am busily mocking the maroons who want to ban books and “bring God back into schools”…so far I have avoided jail time.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s to hoping that jail isn’t in you future, but keep making good trouble.
Jack
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is difficult for liberals to escape one of our own favorite illusions, that people really want to do critical thinking about facts and data, and will vote accordingly. We are the heirs of the enlightenment philosophers and the Age of Reason. Bitecofer is here to wack us up side of the head with the cognitive truths of behavioral economics and to keep the message simple, that our adversaries just are not making sense.
I’m reminded of the observation (I forget by whom) that armies positioning for defense almost always prepare to fight the last war, while the aggression minded set about to invent the next one. That is how we find ourselves debating with Reagan when he wouldn’t even have a job in today’s Republican Party. And, the remaining old line Republicans, even the neo-cons can’t save us because they are just as befuddled by the firehose of lies as we are.
There are stories about someone caught in a trap of the Devil’s lies and escaping with laughter, the one weapon that evil cannot answer.
A song comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGRwY74zvGk
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s, more than likely, that, the, Republicans have the, ability to, influence the social media, to, set the, trends for the, upcoming, election. All the, propaganda the Republicans use, although, the, oldest tricks in the book, the voters are, gobbling, every lie the G.O.P. is, feeding to, social media and the, public, and, because the voters lack the sense to, decide for themselves what is right and wrong, as is, the, ultimate goal, therefore, the Republican Party is, more than likely to win the, November, election, and, this will, send U.S., spiraling down to, HELL.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Howdy Taurus!
I’m convinced Elon Musk bought Twitter because it was such an effective organizing tool for political progressives. Now, the progressive side doesn’t have a central social media platform. We never coalesced around a single platform. That said, I don’t think the American public, much less the electorate is really buying what Trump and the Republicans are selling. There is something to the notion that most Americans don’t start paying attention to the presidential election until September.
There are signs that Biden and the Dems are in a stronger position than the polls indicate. Small dollar donations, for one. Biden is besting Trump by double digits and the Dems are besting the Repubs. Off year election results have all gone the Dems way. The rallies and protests have all been on the Dem’s side. And, just like in 2022 and 2020, the Repubs are putting up MAGA radicals for the general.
I feeling more confident now than I was in 2020, and I was pretty confident then.
Huzzah!
Jack
LikeLiked by 3 people