Steve Benen looks at the silly poll questions the RNC sent out this morning, and I will let others muse over the leading nature of the questions. What caught my attention was the following:
Which do you believe creates more jobs for the American economy: Government Programs and Spending or The American Free Enterprise System?
Why is “The American Free Enterprise System” capitalized? When you google it, there doesn’t seem to be any official “The American Free Enterprise System,” and if you turn it into an acronym, TAFES, nothing else shows up.
Am I missing something? Is this a well known right wing code I never picked up on? Is this more Bircher stuff like Bachmann has been pushing? Or is this just more of them being silly?
Snark Based Reality
You whine about TAFES but don’t ask why "Government Programs and Spending" are capitalized too?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Because if the question had been Government Programs and Spending vs. Organized Crime Disguised As Free Enterprise, the answers would not create the proper reality and would fail to catapult the appropriate propaganda.
Besides, Al Gore is fat, also.
Just Some Fuckhead
Because GP&S is always capitalized. Duh.
Doctor Gonzo
I dunno, maybe whoever edited that is a native German speaker.
Tom
How do you "pass more socialism"? These guys are like Obama when he bowls.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Colin Ferguson is silly (usually hilariously so). Ellen DeGeneres is silly (ditto on the hilarity).
These people are just barking mad- and there’s damn little hilarity in it.
NonyNony
Wait – if I’m reading that Benen link right, this was a survey sent out to "supporters" (which I read as "people who have donated money in the past").
They’re push polling their own donors? That’s awesome – I love it.
The DNC sends me ridiculous stuff on occasion – but I’ve never seen them send out a "poll" before. Amusingly the RNC also sends us ridiculous stuff on occasion (for some reason they think my wife is a Republican, something that I find far, far funnier than she does). I wonder if we’ll get a copy of this…
gizmo
Actually, "Government Programs and Spending" is doing a heck of a lot better at creating jobs than the "American Free Enterprise System."
TheHatOnMyCat
Y.
OLATSQ.
(one letter answers to simple questions).
Library Grape
I figure Republicans put out naked talking points like this, phrased as a question, so the rubes that read it can trot off to their next-door neighbors in the trailer park and impress them with the Important Learnin’ they thought up all by themselves
MikeJ
Which do you think caused the financial meltdown: Government Programs and Oversight or the American Free Enterprise Con Game?
gypsy howell
ha. I got polled last night by our local republicans, and got similarly slanted questions. At one point, both I and the caller were laughing about it. She’d start some ridiculously slanted question about Pat Toomey or Joe Pitts ("Do you agree more with the position of candidate A who believes in the sanctity of human life and wants to protect marriage as an institution or, candidate B who believes in … " at which point I’d jump in and say "…. the DEVIL !" )
No wonder they’re so out of touch. Even in their polling, they’re only talking to themselves.
nylund
I wonder how the people at Halliburton, Blackwater, K.B.R., and the other recipients of the Bush era no-bid contracts would answer that question?
Or how would respondents would answer if they were reminded that ~20% of the US budget goes to defense and that all those people making planes, bombs, guns, drones, missile defense systems, etc. all have their jobs due to "Government Programs and Spending."
Zifnab
It’s like when you’ve got a big Wrestling match and you want to make everyone look super impressive. Do you like Mr. America Terry The Super Destroyer "Hulk" Hogan or are you partial to Jim "Justice" Hedwig The Ultimate Warrior?
These are Big Decisions and Shouldn’t Be Taken Lightly as they pick One Indomitable Opponent against Another Unstoppable Force in the Cage Match Of The Century.
The idea that you can have free enterprise in a country with substantial government involvement is counter intuitive to the GOP mindset. It’s either 100% free capitalism all the way to turning back full on EXTREME or you’re just another pinko communist growing turnups in Siberia. You need the capital letters to sell that message.
NonyNony
@gizmo:
They never specified which country the jobs were being created in.
The American Free Enterprise System has done a bang-up job over the last 20-30 years or so of creating jobs in places like China. It’s easy when you take jobs that people are doing here and move them over there.
Also it’s done a bang-up job of creating a lot of jobs that are paid to undocumented workers coming over the border to work for wages lower than American workers are willing to negotiate for (and in many cases, lower than American companies are legally required to pay). See! Bang-up job!
Zifnab
Damn you and your social lism! My first amendment rights!
mclaren
The reason they used the phrase "The American Free Enterprise" system, or TAFE, is that the actual phrase which should be employed, Republican American Private Enterprise, has an acronym that, well…
Need I say more?
Bubblegum Tate
Seriously. It seemed so stupid that I actually had to stop and think if there was something deeper lurking behind the hilarious facade. There isn’t. They’re seriously push polling their base.
John: The capitalization is because the ordinary rules of grammar have a liberal bias.
Zifnab
We surround them!
Also… pass more social ism? Is there a "Socia lism Act of 2009" I’m unaware of? Could you be a little more vague?
Oh, thank you. That clears up so much. /facedesk
Library Grape
Let’s come up with some more super-clever push poll questions for them!
Here’s one:
— Do you agree with Barack Obama’s new plan to force every child under the age of 12 to engage in sodomy with gay al-Qaeda terrorists with leprosy?
nylund
From the data I’ve seen, net job creation by "TAFES" has been negative recently.
Tsulagi
If you have to ask, you haven’t been paying attention.
Zifnab
@Library Grape: Do you oppose the far left efforts to mandate abortions for girls under the age of 16?
Library Grape
— Are you concerned that President Barack Obama fathered two negro children?
Politically Lost
I don’t usually give a shit about typos. But, you may want to fix "pusing".
MikeJ
Do you walk to school or carry your lunch?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if Chuck Todd could chuck wood?
Library Grape
— Does it concern you that Nancy Pelosi will soon give birth to the Anti-Christ?
Andrew
I’m surprised it wasn’t written like:
Which do you believe creates more jobs for the American economy:
poopy government programs and spending money on wlefare queens
or
The Totally American and Awesome AMERICAN Free Enterprise System That Kicks ASS AND TAKES NAMES! POWER THIRST!! YEAH!
?
Corner Stone
@gypsy howell
Hope you have a free clinic nearby.
I’m assuming you’re laughing because of the teeny tiny little peckers all Republicans have.
KCinDC
I think they’re just trying to emulate the Founding Fathers, with their Germanish capitalization in "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Library Grape
— Do you share the RNC’s concern about the new Democrat plan in Congress to require all American-produced salad dressings to contain at least 5% harvested fetal stem cells?
camchuck
How should the government approach the problems facing our nation?
A) Must Use Some Liberal Ideological Marxism
B) Just End Social-ist Uber Spending?
NonyNony
@Library Grape:
Barack Hussein Obama: Socialist Muslim Terrorist or Radical Communist Fascist?
b-psycho
Maybe if we started calling war a government make-work program we could trick them into opposing that too…
vacuumslayer
OK, I guess this is the perfect time to announce that I’m a fangirl of Balloon Juice’s commenters. Each of these responses is funnier than the last.
I’d been lurking for a bit enjoying the wit, but had to delurk to join the fun(ny).
Yes.
Paul L.
And could you name them?
Followed by this bit of pure gold.
Ladies and gentleman Obama’s Scott McClellan
WereBear
You know there will be at least 3% who are "not sure."
gwangung
@Paul L.:
Whoosh!
vacuumslayer
Nah. Scott McClellan always looked like a deer caught in the headlights when he wasn’t looking like an uncircumcised penis in a suit.
Robert Gibbs is actually quite calm and witty. So…nah…the comparison doesn’t work even remotely.
Legalize
I passed some social ism last weekend. Let me tell you —
— oh, you mean the other thing.
Forget it.
vacuumslayer
You know what’s worse than social ism? Unsociable ism.
colleeniem
@36: If you’re going to expend some precious energy on some pretty weak trolling, you should at least put it in the thread that actually deals with the topic. You know, the one RIGHT BELOW THIS ONE.
Jill
For the same reason they capitalized Government Programs and Spending. To make them nouns, lest they think people won’t understand the choices.
Zam
Funny thing I actually got a letter in the mail, back when had Just turned, 18 from the RNC with a survey like that.
Library Grape
— What do you think of the recent Democrat proposal to eliminate Christmas and replace it with a holiday celebrating Gay Jewish Abortionists?
El Cruzado
I was rather young at the time, but I seem to remember some instances of Saint Ronald Reagan of Super-Duper-Conservatism having to stop a speech mid-phrase due to teleprompter malfunction.
This must be the most moronic right-wing meme I’ve seen, and these guys are to moronic memes what the Justice League of America are to super-heroes.
Tonal Crow
Which do you believe creates more strawmen: The GOP Apparatchiks, the Limbaugh Brigades, or the Redstate Reactionaries?
jibeaux
Okay, it’s funny, but I’m feeling kind of comedically let down after reading the entire fark thread on the "Road to Recovery". You could excerpt all the graphics on that thread and publish them in a really funny book, albeit one with a short shelf life — since next week they’re gonna come out with their This Is Our Real Budget, We Mean It This Time. Look! It Has A Pie Graph In It!
kay
The headline of the local paper is…"City gets stimulus funds". Only "city" is capitalized. Transportation money goes out first, according to my county commish, which I did not know.
We’re restoring an underpass on the main drag. We go under, train goes over. It’s half a million dollars.
This counts as both Government Programs and Spending I would think, although there may be some American Free Enterprise System overlap, depending on who gets the work.
TenguPhule
As opposed to the current insurance assholes who have an incentive to deny payment on anything?
Tonal Crow
BTW, shouldn’t the "guys" formulating these polls have Gone Galt(tm) already?
Zifnab
@Paul L.:
I saw him as kinda a bizarro-world Ari Fletcher.
thefncrow
Off-topic, but Taibbi wrote a piece about that whining AIG exec with the letter printed in the NY Times.
In short:
Zifnab
@TenguPhule: Depends on which bureaucrats. If they’re Limbaugh Republicans, can we expect to see new rules on Oxycontin distribution?
Tonal Crow
How about: "Should Bureaucrats in Washington be in charge of Determining Whether you can Smoke a Plant, or Should You?"
Oh, wait, that supposes that they like Liberty….
El Cruzado
If only I could take control of this army of strawmen they have erected, I would DOMINATE THE WORLD!!!
Cue maniacal laughter.
Tonal Crow
@El Cruzado:
Do you suppose that the much-feared Conficker virus is really a mechanism to do exactly this?
Calouste
Fix’t
Dennis-SGMM
If 25% of the people want the government to pass more social ism then they should feed it more roughage.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. Easy.
What’s up with you, man? You’ve been gone a while. Did all the black women move away?
D-Chance.
Robert Kagan… Obama supporter.
This is now Obama’s War.
kay
@thefncrow:
The bankers held a press conference, after they met with Obama.
They know everyone hates them, they know why everyone hates them, and they are going to try to be less whiny and pampered and unhelpful.
We’re going to see more of them, they promise, because when we get to know them better, we’ll like them.
The Moar You Know
@Library Grape: Like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve heard rumors that he even wed a Negro, bu I’m sure those scurillious statements can’t possibly be true.
jake 4 that 1
1. If fixing the economy, improving schools and providing healthcare to every U.S. citizen would allow the terrorists to win would you want the terrorists to win?
2. People who support a woman’s right to an abortion hate America. Do you hate America?
3. Caring about the environment is totally gay. Are you totally gay?
Kyle
Which do you believe creates more jobs for the American economy: Government Programs and Spending or The American Free Enterprise System?
Which do you think creates more jobs and spending in the Red State areas that bitch and moan constantly about taxes? Oh I forgot, military spending doesn’t come from government tax dollars, it magically descends from Republican-Jesus heaven borne by angels in the form of John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. These whiny assholes are welfare-teat-sucklers being subsidized by federal government dollars from states like CA and New Jersey. No wonder their state taxes are so low; the rest of us are paying for them.
If they won’t send me a basket of southern specialty foods to thank me for my tax dollars, the least they can do is stay home from the polls during presidential elections instead of voting for destructive fucktards, and just sit down and shut the fuck up while the adults try to navigate out of the fucking mess they cheered on for the last eight years.
binzinerator
@Zifnab:
This is pretty much why they’re so vague. "Social ism" has been made into another Atwater dogwhistle for the knuckledragger base. N#ggers = welfare qeens = welfare = social programs = social ism
That whole obsession with ‘wasteful spending’ is another. Wasteful spending is whatever is spend on social ism which is social programs which is welfare which is welfare queens which is N#ggers.
Simple really. These kinds of fucktards haven’t changed much since 1865. Not surprising, sitting athwart history yelling stop and all.
MikeJ
How is babby formed?
Library Grape
Did all y’all see that ThinkProgress got UPS to yank its advertising from The Bill O’Reilly Comedy Hour? librarygrape.com/2009/03/ups-to-pull-its-oreilly-advertising.html
CapMidnight
I thought the problem was the banks now have The American Free Enterprise System undercapitalized.
Leelee for Obama
@b-psycho:
The Moar You Know
@D-Chance.: What, you bought the bullshit that Obama was some kind of liberal? That’s GOP propaganda, not truth.
It was his war the day he took office. At least now it’s being fought where it always should have been, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Bush fucked away years that could have been spent finding those who did 9/11 and throwing them into a shark tank on live TV. I know it’s very unDemocratic of me, but I think that’s not a bad goal.
Library Grape
@Kyle:
shutting fucktards up FTW!
TenguPhule
They’d say yes.
Because Private outside contractors are independent and have large penises which they proudly present as they do the outsourced work that the girlyman military can’t.
Library Grape
@The Moar You Know:
don’t feed the trolls
kay
@D-Chance.:
Of course it is. He’s the President. I have no idea why this is a cutting and earth-shattering statement.
Is there some indication (I’ll need a statement) that Obama is sort of pretending he isn’t running the war(s)? I don’t get that from him at all.
You’re off the hook for the prosecution of the wars. We had a peaceful transfer of power. Happy?
Legalize
It’s possible that they are communicating from an undisGalted location.
Napoleon
@kay:
Funny, our paper did also, well except its a $200,000,000 towards a $300,000,000 bridge project. That is some major money.
Svensker
You mean the Free Enterprise System that is based on government contracts for bombs, planes, ships, security, tapping phones, building jails, etc.? Or the Free Enterprise System that is based on bailing out banks and hedge funds? If you could find one of them thar Free Enterprise Systems that wasn’t gummint funded, I’d be happy to take a gander at it. Ain’t seen one in a pile o’ years.
NonyNony
@binzinerator:
That was the case 20-30 years ago, but an interesting thing has happened. The younger members of the GOP actually grew up believing "social ism is evil" and "all social programs are bad" and "states rights are important" and "government is the problem, tax cuts are the answer" and so on. Many of them thought that the GOP actually stood for these things as principles, rather than knowing that they were code words as the older folks did.
So now the GOP platform is completely incoherent. The code words have become the platform – there’s no underlying agenda anymore beyond "do things that piss off liberals", "stop anything that smacks of the government being competent", and "bash the queers and talk about ending abortion (but don’t actually do anything about it)".
They’re a cargo-cult of a political party at this point – they think they have a set of "core principles" but what they really have is a set of code words and dog whistles.
Zifnab
@binzinerator:
It’s a well known fact that white people don’t need the federal government to step in and build them bridges or roads, and they don’t mind paying four to five digit insurance premiums every year just to not get covered when their diabetes sets in. Cause only n#ggers and welfare queens get diabetes (or heart disease or cancer or AIDS) and can’t afford to be covered in full.
That’s why the GOP is so popular right now. Sure, you’re getting foreclosed now that you’ve lost your job while caring for a sick parent suffering from an uncovered condition. So it’s more important than ever to stick it to those Negros.
Jill
But why just pick on the capitalization issue? Every question is flawed.
WTF is "pass more socialism?"
Forget the capitalization, they capitalized both, treating them equal in that respect. What is far worse is their inclusion of the word American in the question and in only one potential answer. Why include the word American in the second choice and not the first? To stack the deck and make it clear free enterprise is the right answer.
"Crush future economic growth" is being made a foregone conclusion. And if that were the case who wouldn’t want to prevent that from happening.
What does this even mean, what is it referring to?
This is just to disseminate misinformation and scare people. No one is proposing this. It’s not a potential outcome of any health care reform being discussed.
And how they present the findings is equally problematic. Will they acknowledge this is a sample of their base or try to claim this is representative of the American people?
Leelee for Obama
@Dennis-SGMM:
kay
@Napoleon:
There’s less than 10,000 people here, so it’s a lot. I spoke with a conservative friend yesterday and he was asking me where the stimulus money was. They ask me like I’m holding it in my ACORN escrow account. It’s a conservative county. I’m the token Democrat. It’s not mean-spirited, but it’s a little annoying.
I don’t have the stimulus money. I swear.
devopsych
This is the new face of the new moderate RNC. They resisted the trollish urge to put it ALL IN CAPS. Give em’ Some Credit.
RSA
Hey, I notice that by putting that phrase in quotation marks, you’ve made it even more important.
GuyFromOhio
@kay:
I read this too quickly and I thought it said, ".. because when we get to know them better, we’ll kill them."
Michael
The American Free Enterprise System sounds like something from one of those great pseudo-Bircher propaganda pieces from 50 years ago.
"This Godless Communism" is a classic.
authentichistory.com/1960s/treasure_chest/cover_01.html
bago
Don’t give them quote marks room to grow. Pests I tells ya!
Joshua Norton
And spell most of it wrong.
NonyNony
@thefncrow:
That. Is. Awesome.
That’s a brutal smackdown by Taibbi. DeSantis’s whining attitude in that letter pissed me off beyond belief, because I’ve worked with over-entitled finance guys before and the whole thing smelled like bullshit and whining to me. Sounds like Taibbi knows the same type of people and had a similar thought.
Davis X. Machina
God no. Bureaucrats in wherever the hell the Anthem/Wellpoint headquarters already do that, and I can’t throw them out at the next election — I’m not a shareholder.
Power and irresponsibilty — I’ll vote for that combo every time.
jake 4 that 1
Do you think Reid-Pelosi democrats should be allowed to quarter UN troops in your sons and daughters?
kay
@GuyFromOhio:
It was slightly pathetic. Obama got them in a room and they left all hopeful, and they had to run out and tell everyone about how they’ve changed, and how they want to join with us and fix something or other….
They’re like newly sober drunks.
Davis X. Machina
"Going Galt" is last week’s craze. The new novel is Pride and Prejudice and all the cool kids are ‘Doing the Darcy’.
binzinerator
@NonyNony:
I started to write a reply saying I partly agree with you, then re-read what you wrote. I have to say I totally agree with you.
But I know that dogwhistle shit still has an effect. Lots of people who were of voting age 20-30 years ago are still around (including myself) and they still know what that dogwhistle means. Look at the demographics of the GOP. They are mostly older white bigots. Of course the base still makes the connection, they still hear it. Above all, those old overtones of the whistles are still resonant to them.
I imagine it’s like what happens if a bunch of college kids went for a drink at a VFW post or an Elks Club. And there’s this cheesy 3-piece band of old guys, and sooner or later they’re gonna try to play something from Glenn Miller.
The young people hear a few bars and they think, yeah what ever, just some old fart music. Yawn. But all the old farts jump up, grab their old lady and shuffle around to relive that old dance long ago where they cut up the floor, and get all misty-eyed over the nostalgia of it all.
Heh, actually I mention that because when I was in college, that’s what my buddies and I did sometimes. I knew of Glenn Miller, but that stuff meant nothing to me, interested me not at all. I had no connection to it. It was simply a case of ‘before my time’. But the oldsters! Shit if someone had hollered ‘free beer’ I’d’ve understood.
I’m ever so looking forward to when all those old white guys who are the gooper base are dead and gone. Damn shame that by the numbers I’ll likely only have another decade myself.
binzinerator
@Zifnab:
I really think this lurks at the root of the whole gooper worldview. It’s an expression of that bigotry and selfishness and resentment and entitlement they have so much of. Which is why they absolute hate it when they think someone else is getting something for nothing, and go batshit frothing when they think that that someone is whatever group of people they are most bigoted against.
The whole gooper game is to make palatable what would make most people spit in disgust. It’s been a never-ending search to make the unacceptable acceptable, to disguise all the ugly dark mean shit that lurks in people, to cloak it and mask it so it can walk about in daylight without society condemning it or shunning it.
I am inclined to think republicanism at its core is really playing the ego to the id of their base, trying to make acceptable to the superego of society the base’s roiling greed, virulent bigotry, callousness, and naked selfishness.
The GOP, in other words, is one big fucking defense mechanism for people who have an extra couple of helpings of ugliness in their souls.
No wonder goopers attack viciously when shown how impossible or illogical or hypocritical the shit they come up with. The full bore ugliness that they mask cannot, must not be seen for what it is. And if that mask is ever peeled away, they become unhinged.
Tonal Crow
@binzinerator:
Yes, but they hate it when someone else is getting anything at all, even if well-earned, if that someone else is a target of their bigotry.
GOP, thy name is Envy.
Dennis-SGMM
@Tonal Crow:
They must feel that the Red States deserve all of the money the government throws at them. Me, I’ve never been able to reconcile Republican rants about welfare queens with the fact that most of their own home states are welfare queens on a massive scale.
TenguPhule
They hate the competition.
bago
You get yer money fer nothin and your chicks for free.
bago
Insert rant about domination and the masses, alongside the captains of industry deciding they do not exist among the masses. There is an epic tale that could be told about the need for domination and how it makes a confluence with sex, but I am not an appropriate author. Insert Jeri Ryan here. Heeeyoo!
Dennis-SGMM
Listened to "Left, Right and Center" on NPR today. The righty was saying that Europe provides a more comprehensive social safety net but it was at the expense of economic growth. That it was radio precluded my knowing if he said it with a straight face.
Neil H
I know this one. It’s referring to a desire by Obama to see youth get more involved in community service work. HR1388 is aimed at, among other things, increasing the number of government-supported volunteer positions available, and providing incentives to students to participate. Right-wingers, in their usual understated fashion, see this as an attempt by Obama to set up his own version of the Hitler Youth.
Matt
Actually, the RNC didn’t come up with these questions. The Heritage Foundation did; I got on their mailing list a long time ago, and they just sent out a 5 page call to arms, and a questionnaire. The same questions on that questionnaire were used by the RNC.
devopsych
Yurp is the socialist hell it is today because of DFH’s like George Marshall and Harry S(notice the kerning anomaly) Truman. Imagine the utopia they would be enjoying if Alan "the Galt" Greenspan and Michelle "the tea-bagger" Malkin had been in charge.
Rick Taylor
My favorite part was the following:
Looks like they’ll be in the wilderness for a long long while.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
Seriously? They just got a major spanking and their responses so far have been:
1. I kan haz Joe the Plunger Jockey?
2. Mmmm, Rush Limbaugh’s ass takes like freedom.
3. Moar Michelle Don’t Come Bachmann!
4. 19 page collection of random circles.
And now,
5. Ask the few people who still like them to validate the talking points that landed them in this current mess.
They’re fucked because they’ve lost the basic ability to connect cause and effect.
Ed Marshall
I work in media research and every paper in the country ran stories about what the local community got out of the stimulus bill after it passed. That was the story that got wrote. They got a courthouse, they got a rail package, they got a research center, they got whatever the place has been wishing for, etc… Didn’t matter if the mayor or County Board chair or whoever was a Republican or a Democrat or whatever they were praising God for the project.
So while the local wingnuts were writing letters to the editor bitching about socialism and such they were doing it under these banner headlines where everyone normal was thrilled.
Janet Strange
@binzinerator: Sometimes I bookmark a comment. I bookmarked that one.
It explains a lot. Sadly.
Little Dreamer
@GuyFromOhio:
That might be the more likely outcome. ;)
J. Michael Neal
I disagree. At least 40% of Americans want the government to pass more socialism.
Mr Sketchy
Do you guys have TAFE schools in america?
In australia TAFE stands for ‘Technical And Further Education’ and basically is a level of schooling…