(Joel Pett via GoComics.com)
Professor Krugman notes that Dave Weigel finds that, for Democratic fundraisers, “Things Go Better With Kochs“:
… [E]mails that bash the Kochs raise three times as much as emails that don’t.
And you can see why: the Kochs are perfect villains. It’s not just what they are — serious evildoers who use their wealth to push hard-line right-wing, anti-environmental policies that redound very much to their own benefit. It’s also what they aren’t: they’re wealthy heirs, not self-made men, they aren’t identified with innovation (which you can at least argue for Bill Gates), they haven’t made money for other people like Warren Buffett. So focusing on the Kochs is a way to personalize a vision of conservative politics as a defense of people with unearned privilege.
And here’s the thing: that vision is basically right…
Weigel’s further defending his stance:
… So 13 percent of Americans view the Kochs favorably and 25 percent view them unfavorably. By contrast, “Wall Street” has a 29/39 favorable/unfavorable rating, and the most prominent libertarian in America, Rand Paul, is at a robust 38/30. There you go—the Kochs are by miles the least popular icons of the pro-business, libertarian right. It only makes sense to pummel them. And when you pummel, you realize that “all Americans” will not be the electorate in 2014. The electorate will consist of maybe 40 percent of registered voters. Democrats need that electorate to grow a bit and include more Democrats. Anything that scares or angers them and makes them vote, they’ll use.
Republicans have relied for many, many electoral cycles on advertising boogeymonsters to scare voters to turn out and vote against their own best interests. If Democratic candidates are finally beginning to understand that we can, and should, use the vast supply of actual GOP monsters — people like Charles & David Koch, malefactors of great wealth — as an argument for our voters to get down to the polling places, more power to us!
amk
that’s why dems are rightly throwing more sunlight on kochroaches, dave, you #idjit.
raven
Morning Joe and Mika are raising fucking hell about the DOUBLE STANDARD!!! George Soros!!!!!
Patricia Kayden
@raven: Isn’t Mika supposed to be liberal? Plus, how much influence does Mr. Soros really have on American politics — especially compared to all of the documented shenanigans of the Koch brothers? There is no comparison.
Baud
@raven:
Double standard, indeed. When have Republicans ever invoked Soros for political purposes?
raven
@Patricia Kayden: Does that make them UNAMERICAN???????
Davis X. Machina
Republicans have been able to scare voters to turn out and vote against their own financial best interests.
People define their self-interest in a number of other ways, and it’s those things that the GOP are very astute at playing up. Recently the Democrats have done well at the presidential level because that’s been a helluva story. What’s their story for the mid-terms?
Cervantes
What’s the best public compendium of Koch machinations that you have seen? Is there a writer or organization or web-site that has been keeping track?
NotMax
@Patricia Kayden
Bwa-ha-ha-ha.
Analogous to the Reagan administration ruling that ketchup was supposed to be a a vegetable.
Thoughtful David
I don’t disagree with running ads against the Kochs and Kochism, but I think the Democratic Party needs to do something else to be viable in the long run: offer people something to be for. Being anti is what the Republicans do. It has gotten them a long way, true, but negativism is destroying the country. We need to offer something for people to be hopeful about. I think that’s why Obama was elected and reelected: people were hopeful for change. And it explains why Democrats don’t show up in the off-elections: there’s nothing to hope for. The Democratic establishment looks too much like the status quo, which it is.
I think we need to offer something useful. Go all in on raising the minimum wage. Go all in on immigration reform. Go all in on rebuilding the infrastructure. Make this election about something people can feel hopeful about, not just “a pox on both their houses.”
PurpleGirl
@Baud: Not recently to my recollection but in the past they have — claiming that Soros paid people to write badly of Republicans,… bleh, I can’t remember stuff this morning. But they’ve blamed him for things. Actually, he’s been more concerned about democracy in the Eastern European countries formerly in the Soviet bloc. He’s also been a boogeyman because of how he made his money, a major part of his fortune comes from foreign currency exchange.
Baud
@Thoughtful David:
Why do believe they’re not doing that? That’s what I’ve been seeing at a national level. Local conditions may vary.
NotMax
Dang. An anniversary entirely forgotten about this past weekend.
In belated celebration, asking myself if should have an extra celebratory drink to make up for the faux pas.
“Okay.”
Baud
@PurpleGirl:
Oh, I know. The GOP is built on bogeymen (and women).
WereBear
@Thoughtful David: We can do both.
Because the Koch Brothers actually ARE a two-headed Bond villain.
Marc
@raven: The .01% and their stenographers will raise holy hell about this line of attack.
Four words every Democrat should remember: “I welcome their hatred.”
JPL
@PurpleGirl: The Koch money came from the Soviet Union and their Grandfather was paid cash while people in Ukraine starved to death. The Soviet Union sold Ukrainian grain in order to pay for drilling. Let them say Soros, Soros, Soros.
JPL
There are still millions dying as a result of pollution. It’s time that someone ask why do the Koch’s want to buy our government? What pesky regulations are costing them money?
Thoughtful David
@WereBear:
True. Like I said, it’s fine to go after the Kochs.
But I’m not seeing the second part, the positive part, very much. There is some talk about raising the minimum wage, and Obama has been pushing it a bit, and that’s all good. And maybe it’s too early before the election. It doesn’t seem to be pushed very hard, though, and yes, I do blame the Village and MSM. They’ll be hard to overcome.
But by, say, July, we need a catchy slogan (“Morning in America” is used, but it was very successful), and we need every Democrat on message every day, loudly saying “Great Days Ahead! We’re raising the minimum wage to get people out of poverty! We’ll make your roads better! No more worries about illegal immigrants!” or something like that.
OzarkHillbilly
For my own self, I hate all rich people, even my rich friends. Things are just simpler that way.
Fred
@Thoughtful David: We can be hopeful that the GOPers don’t get control of our guv again. Remember what happened the last time the clowns had their hands on the wheel?
Betty Cracker
@Thoughtful David: I think you are 100% right. Go after the Kochs hammers-and-tongs and declare the party the protector and promoter of the working class.
Baud
@Marc:
Which was said after the American people elected FDR in 1932 and supported him by electing more Democrats in 1934. In 2010, we tried a different approach. I don’t think it’s worked out as well.
WereBear
@Thoughtful David: Oh, I agree. People have to be for something… when they are normal.
I’m stunned to watch the way Tea Partiers lurch at the new Two MInute Hate like starved sharks, but that seems to be what motivates them. The only “positives” they get offered are what gets taken away from other people.
We don’t want to be like that.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
He made a bet that he was smarter than the Bank of England. He won.
Cervantes
Stunned? Reminds me of some threads here, actually. Yesterday, for example, six hours (never mind Two Minutes) after his actual proposals were listed here, some bright spark was still criticizing that Alaskan state senator for (and I quote) “insisting that women pee on a stick in public before they get a drink.”
(No, I’m not mis-quoting.)
No, never.
Well, hardly ever.
Well, OK, sometimes.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
Amir Khalid could tell you more about this, I am sure, but in some parts of the world Soros has been Public Enemy #N partly because of his Jewish ancestry.
(I’m not saying the same factor does not play a role here in the US. It may.)
WereBear
@Cervantes: That senator dismissed birth control and preferred that women lurch into the ladies room (because you don’t visit it first thing, you visit after you’ve already been drinking) and take the opportunity to “see if they’re pregnant” before deciding if they will drink some more.
I’m one of the people who found it ridiculous on many many levels. And thus, worthy of scorn. It’s a serious problem and the Republicans avoid the big helpful solutions for small, ridiculous, sure-not-to-work ones.
Which is why we make fun of them.
Marc
@Baud: Yeah, this country isn’t getting anything done until we can decide on what we want for at least three elections in a row, midterms included.
(ETA: And preferably including a census year.)
PurpleGirl
@Cervantes: Oh, I know that many people dislike him because he’s Jewish. That’s one of the reasons he has worked for democracy in Eastern Europe. He remembers too well the anti-Semitism he and the Jewish people have faced. And, yes, it might play a role in how Republicans see him.
Cervantes
@WereBear: Make fun of him, by all means — even feel free to ignore his actual plan to solve a serious problem — even focus instead on his answer to a separate question in an interview — even criticize that answer despite the fact that he is already backing away from it — by all means do all that — what’s wrong with Six Hours of Hate? — but at least get the facts right. (Not referring to you in particular, but go back and look at that thread if you still don’t know what I mean. It was pathetic.)
And yes, I agree, it would be nice if he — and billions of other people — could be convinced to think more sensibly about birth control. Let’s work on that.
Oh, and by the way:
Kelly’s plan has several parts to it, including a third-party study to see if it does work. (Again, look at that thread from yesterday.)
debbie
The Tea Party won’t be able to deal with Soros’s latest book on the Ukraine and Crimea:
http://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-European-Union-Disintegration-Revival/dp/1610394216/ref=la_B000AP7F58_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395837471&sr=1-1
The best thing about Soros is how much he pisses off conservatives. The Kochs aren’t liked, bu they lack that same kind of magnetism.
Cervantes
@PurpleGirl:
Exactly.
And sorry, I did not mean to suggest you were unaware of this. Was just pointing out something fairly important that had to be said.
Cervantes
@debbie:
That’s a silver lining if ever there was one.
A gold lining, even.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Yup.
Endless source of astonishment on the ‘net to read the flights of invective of those who interpret ‘The circle is green’ to mean ‘The square is mauve.’
C.V. Danes
Nothing works better than a direct appeal to the lizard brain.
Cervantes
@Thoughtful David: “Great Days Ahead!” does appeal to me!
You have something else for the youngsters? Needs more hip, as they might say.
Seriously, I appreciated the comments. Your name fits. Thanks.
jomike
The fact that they operate an opaque maze of PACs unlike anything ever seen before might have something to do with the urge to “pummel them.” The suggestion that the Kochs’ unpopularity is the reason Dems and others are “pummeling” them is exactly like the suggestion forty years ago that Nixon’s unpopularity was the primary motivator behind the D.C. press corps obsession with Watergate. Politics sometimes is no more than a middle school lunch table, but hardly always, and the knee-jerk resort to that explanation is laziness masquerading as worldliness.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
“The square is mauve” is at least comparable to the original.
Sometimes, though, it’s “The fish lives in a tree.”
That’s when it becomes completely ludicrous.
Oh, and you’re right: the utterly deranged invective is the best part.
NotMax
@Cervantes
Yup yup.
Makes one wonder how often saying “Thank you” to a cashier is interpreted as announcing “Your grandmother is a baboon.”
Communication – what a concept.
Cervantes
@jomike:
Exactly. Criticize them not for being “least popular” but for the evil they purvey.
But Weigel’s point is that, given there are several possible targets, all purveying related varieties of evil, picking on the least popular of these potential targets is the best tactic.
Another (albeit unimportant) example right here.
Cervantes
@NotMax:
Oh, yes, about Rumsfeld and his “trained apes,” there’s this.
Paul in KY
@NotMax: I think Colmes was/is way more ‘liberal’ than her.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I’m not sure Pres. Obama would ever say some of the lines FDR said.Some of it might be him being black & thus a partisan statement might sound different if he said it (maybe his thoughts on that). The other reason being that I just don’t see Pres. Obama as a strong partisan Democrat (in same light/manner as FDR/Truman, both of whom genuinely loved to zing Republicans).
I personally would like Pres. Obama to be more plain speaking when it comes to Republican perfidity.
Elizabelle
I’m fine with going after the Kochs.
They are anti-democratic, a real threat to good governance and fair play with their support of ALEC and Americans for Prosperity, and deserve to have several layers of their serpent skins peeled off.
It will be a good day when NPR or a major cultural institution thinks twice about accepting Koch largesse.
Make them the equivalent of the Charles Manson family. They’re actually scarier.
Paul in KY
@WereBear: I agree that the politician up in Alaska probably doesn’t have women’s best interests at heart (hoping to slut-shame them, it apperas), but a part of his proposal would (IMO) be a step in the right direction. If you can get free pregnancy tests, that is 1 step closer to having free contraceptives.
Just because a fucktard accidently comes up with a decent idea, you don’t have to dismiss it out of hand.
Elizabelle
@Paul in KY:
Absolutely. Not just to “friendly” groups and in exasperation after Republicans have done their worst.
I laughed out loud when I heard him call Russia a “regional power.” *slap*
A Humble Lurker
@Cervantes:
Yeah, that doesn’t seem the same at all.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
In the Boston area, Harvard, MIT, and WGBH (TV and radio) are three of their beneficiaries.
If you need an emetic this morning, see here.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Dr Mahathir, our PM at the time, used to blame George Soros’s currency-related business activities for the currency crash of 1997. And yes, he did indeed mention Soros’ religious affiliation from time to time. (I don’t know how Dr M feels about him now. I don’t like Dr M enough to check out his blog.)
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: I remember. Mahathir called George a moron and George retorted that Mahathir was a menace to his country. One (1.0) of them was right.
fidelio
A visit with the bishop.
Elizabelle
@Cervantes:
I looked. *sigh*
Reputation laundering. The article by James Glassman (!) was a nice additional touch, huh?
Chris
@raven:
There would only be a double standard if George Soros wasn’t already the bogeyman-in-chief of every other right wing conspiracy theory concerning the Democratic Party, which – oh. He is. And has been for some time.
But now that we’re hitting back, NOW there’s a double standard.
Chris
@PurpleGirl:
That’s what I love most about those conspiracy theories: they’re picking a super-wealthy capitalist whose main hobby so far has been promoting market democracy in the former Communist Bloc. One would THINK he’d be right up their alley, but yegods, he votes Democrat. How dare he.
Cervantes
@Chris:
Precisely.
Kindergarteners have this stuff all figured out. Scarborough pretends it’s a mystery.
Let’s hope Reid keeps hitting — while preparing the next attack.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle:
Well, they did say it was a “cover story.”
Sometimes people tell the truth without meaning to.
Calouste
@Chris:
Promoting actual democracy is not really up the Republicans’ alley. They talk about democracy, but in name only. They’d rather prop up a Pinochet.
Cervantes
@Calouste:
Exactly. What they promote is the interest of their financiers, abroad and at home.
The Democrats do some of the same as well.