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THOSE MEDDLING KIDS
Mar. 30th, 2018 10:23 pmThis is a variation on the previous post about the Parkland kids – specifically, the part about how they’re looking a lot better than the conservative opposition, mainly because the kids are focused on the issues and the conservatives are focused on convincing everyone THESE KIDS ARE TERRIBLE PEOPLE AND TRAITORS TO THE COUNTRY AND BEING PAID BY THE DEEP STATE HOLLYWOOD LEFT REGIME SO WHY ARE YOU LISTENING TO THEM AMERICA DON’T YOU KNOW WE ARE ALL IN DANGER etc.
I’m paraphrasing there. I think. But yeah, most of the coverage and commentary from the right about gun control at the moment is basically focused on personal attacks on the kids. And it’s backfiring on them.
Just ask Laura Ingraham, who is now bleeding sponsors because she decided to tweet a Daily Wire story on how David Hogg has been rejected by four universities.
What does that have to do with the gun control issue and his opinions about it? Not a damn thing. The story was a hit job to make him look bad and throw red meat to a conservative audience. Nothing more.
Ingraham is far from the only offender. Vox has a longer list of incidents here where conservative pundits and politicians have resorted to name-calling and personal attacks against Hogg, Emma Gonzales and other Parkland survivors.
It’s pretty obvious why they’re resorting to such tactics:
1. Sheer habit – for a lot of conservative pundits and politicians (and let’s admit, quite a few on the liberal side too), a standard tool in the debate toolbox is demonizing and discrediting the opposition for the unforgivable crime of disagreeing with you. For others, it’s a reliable standby if the usual talking points aren’t working. It’s not about how good and logical yr argument is, it’s about making sure everyone knows the person arguing against you is a degenerate evil hypocrite. And they do it because, by and large, it’s good television and it works.
2. Sheer desperation – the Parkland kids are obviously winning hearts and minds. They’re smart and not easy to intimidate. And they know their way around social media a lot better than the grownups do.
So the conservatives are playing the personal attack card because the usual tactics – anger, outrage, fearmongering, canned memes and a very powerful lobby group threatening Republicans with an F rating – aren’t working like they used to. And it turns out the demonization tool doesn’t work so good when the target is a bunch of traumatized emotional teenagers who watched their friends get horribly ripped apart by bullets and who know that they came this close to adding to the death toll.
It also turns out that mocking and slandering those kids doesn’t make you look cool.
Which of course just makes conservatives angrier because if there’s one thing they hate worse than liberals, it’s being made to feel like the bad guys here. I mean, why CAN’T we pick on these kids? THEY started it with their anti-American anti-gun crap – what about MY right to free speech? It’s not FAIR! OPPRESSION!
Et cetera.
Well. You know. When yr political opinions are rooted in fear, loathing, anger and hate to the point that you can justify picking on a bunch of kids and acting like a complete jerk, you can't act surprised when other people call you on it. Well, maybe you can if yr totally oblivious to yr own actions. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to play along.
Who’s the adult,
This is dF
I’m paraphrasing there. I think. But yeah, most of the coverage and commentary from the right about gun control at the moment is basically focused on personal attacks on the kids. And it’s backfiring on them.
Just ask Laura Ingraham, who is now bleeding sponsors because she decided to tweet a Daily Wire story on how David Hogg has been rejected by four universities.
What does that have to do with the gun control issue and his opinions about it? Not a damn thing. The story was a hit job to make him look bad and throw red meat to a conservative audience. Nothing more.
Ingraham is far from the only offender. Vox has a longer list of incidents here where conservative pundits and politicians have resorted to name-calling and personal attacks against Hogg, Emma Gonzales and other Parkland survivors.
It’s pretty obvious why they’re resorting to such tactics:
1. Sheer habit – for a lot of conservative pundits and politicians (and let’s admit, quite a few on the liberal side too), a standard tool in the debate toolbox is demonizing and discrediting the opposition for the unforgivable crime of disagreeing with you. For others, it’s a reliable standby if the usual talking points aren’t working. It’s not about how good and logical yr argument is, it’s about making sure everyone knows the person arguing against you is a degenerate evil hypocrite. And they do it because, by and large, it’s good television and it works.
2. Sheer desperation – the Parkland kids are obviously winning hearts and minds. They’re smart and not easy to intimidate. And they know their way around social media a lot better than the grownups do.
So the conservatives are playing the personal attack card because the usual tactics – anger, outrage, fearmongering, canned memes and a very powerful lobby group threatening Republicans with an F rating – aren’t working like they used to. And it turns out the demonization tool doesn’t work so good when the target is a bunch of traumatized emotional teenagers who watched their friends get horribly ripped apart by bullets and who know that they came this close to adding to the death toll.
It also turns out that mocking and slandering those kids doesn’t make you look cool.
Which of course just makes conservatives angrier because if there’s one thing they hate worse than liberals, it’s being made to feel like the bad guys here. I mean, why CAN’T we pick on these kids? THEY started it with their anti-American anti-gun crap – what about MY right to free speech? It’s not FAIR! OPPRESSION!
Et cetera.
Well. You know. When yr political opinions are rooted in fear, loathing, anger and hate to the point that you can justify picking on a bunch of kids and acting like a complete jerk, you can't act surprised when other people call you on it. Well, maybe you can if yr totally oblivious to yr own actions. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to play along.
Who’s the adult,
This is dF
