Our Season of Luntzspeak

Projection

prə-jĕk′shən (pruh-jek-shuh n) 
The tendency to ascribe to another person feelings, thoughts, or attitudes present in oneself, or to regard external reality as embodying such feelings, thoughts, etc., in some way.

Just why do Republicans always tell us what Democrats are thinking instead of and despite what they're saying? For example, on the right and extreme right, it is a given that impeachment is job one for us, their opponents. 

Jonathan Alter stopped Kayleigh McEnany from saying just that and rebutted with the pertinent statistics that exactly 3 congresspeople were on board seeking it and fewer than 3 dozen candidates out of around 450 in the mid-terms had it as their top tier plank. As is customary, Ms. McEnany repeated it again and again until "we'll have to leave it right there" won the day.

Democrats are not thinking that, at least not out loud. I mean who couldn't say that the half ton gorilla in the room is the 239 pound orange ape in the oval office, so I shouldn't doubt that those with any modicum of common sense have gone there to some extent, but the point is you should have to stand for something to be awarded the blessings of the electorate. Such a singularly narrow issue seems like a subtle voter suppression, if defending against this straw man steals your focus and robs your potential supporters a fair look.

Without starting to go all Powerpoint on a multi-point platform, one can and should articulate one's philosophy of governance and representation; it also couldn't hurt to ask a person for her or his vote. 


This is the time we should fear the most. The informed voter has had pretty much everything for a while now. Save for the dead girl or the live boy. 

But there's time remaining for the complacent to get caught up in the inevitable media spectacle and that's when the Luntzspeak, historically, has taken over. The hidden persuaders, who not for nothing make a pretty penny, are locking up the prime slots in media and gravitating to the latest apps. They are a-readying.

"We don't need a congressperson who will be constantly distracted by hatred of Donald J. Trump, enough to investigate and impeach him day in and day out and not pay attention to the things Americans really care about." And their voice-over guys will sound all snarky, with or without the doomsday music and the grainy, black & white stills. 

What should be the response? In the past, Democrats have lapsed into far too much tit for tat and it's evident they're not particularly good at it. 

Either or both. 


With the ground being conceded by the other side including just about every positive thing since The Enlightenment (many with Republican backing), we have to hope that adopting a stance of readiness to rebut any and all crazy surely has never had a better shot at prevailing this time. Hope is good. I can show you a poster.

The topic of impeachment as a political cudgel this week will find its replacement soon. Because it's only important as dominator of the news cycle, but the fact that they accuse the Democrats of such singular focus presents beaucoup evidence of projection.

The temptation to be anything but real to fight it is their aim in keeping you on your back foot until November. Real takes real.

The impetus to out bon mot Republicans has to be let go of. They are the ones both smelling it and dealing it.


Keeping you locked in and losing the battle which you can't win (see 'rigged system') because of the Trump Triangle we should call it, carries more than a whiff of high school. Ideas (such as) going from the loonisphere, to Fox News, to the mouth and hashtag of he who must be praised or else you're fired, rinse repeat, is what got us here.

The Trump Triangle: norms enter and are never heard from again. Its zeitgeist is projection. It knows its greatest weaknesses so it knows what to turn into weapons. The Democrats must have a single issue driving them because Republicans do. They can't tell you what tomorrow's will be but they know how to hammer today's.

Woe be to anyone contemplating defensive reaction to it because when the tit changes, as it were, the old tat becomes a loser. (See: oh yeah? and what about...?)


The jazz guys say it's outside the concept of the pocket if you wait to hear the beat played to try to play on the beat. You're always late. 

Instead, know which measure of what refrain you're in and be prepared to say something, if it's your turn.

If it's your turn.

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CORRECTED TO REFLECT IT WAS JONATHAN ALTER, NOT DAVID CORN WHO CONFRONTED KAYLEIGH MCENANY

DC vs. Hell Yeah I'll Tell You What

Since 2008 and the Supreme Court's decision in DC vs. Heller, gun ownership has had an individual right conferred on it. Anyone who begins a discussion by objecting to that as fact is wrong; anyone who excuses carte blanche possession of maniacally dangerous weapons that bear no resemblance to those around in 1789 is as well. And could we please drop the overly hackneyed "but what about" argument involving muskets, as Scalia's opinion used the old Groucho Marx You Bet Your Life terms and conditions of something you might find around the house. Meaning the right to bear arms may be refined by legislation, regardless of how many dangerous and unusual weapons have already been walking out of stores and crammed into the old gun case. Nor is a person immune from laws about safe storage and handling. Before Heller, the right was interpreted differently. It was politics of the day that began a chain of whittling away any dreams of a gun-free or gun limited culture.

If not proof positive that elections matter, little speaks more loudly than the comments section of my local paper during this fortnight of walkout and march. I asked, after the walkout story: "Did we obviate the 'well regulated militia' when we established local, county and state police forces and went with a professional army to defend us? Someday a Supreme Court decision might say just that and read the 2nd amendment differently than Scalia's thought processes in 'DC vs. Heller.' Were that to happen, would that be the boogie man 'tyranny' that is such a bottom line to so many. Could today's recreational bashing of liberals be a precursor to much worse if in due time the political winds in the country succeed in reversing a 38 year trend?"

One response, and hardly atypical these days, was: "No, the establishment of police forces and a professional military do not obviate any provision of the Second Amendment. Remember that 'well regulated militia' is immediately followed by 'being necessary to the security of a free state.' A free state must be defended not only against external foreign powers but also against internal domestic powers that seek to take away the other rights granted to us under the Constitution."

I don't know about you, savvy reader, but I took that as a "yes."

My point about him being right about the individual right being asserted and defended by Scalia was lost in his assumption that I was challenging the obviating or lack thereof. My point about it coming from the political realm and not some divine ordinance remained unaddressed but not lost to the discussion.

A Human Event

For after the local paper reported on our town's March for Life this past Saturday, the comments section had an aneurysm. This same commenter chimed in "I have to wonder if the idiot supporters of Initiative 42" (ed note: now 43, to do with assault weapons control) "know how many Oathkeepers and 3 Percenters there are here in Oregon. If this idiot proposal were to become law, are they willing to literally go to war to to enforce it? Heck, disarming my literal neck of the woods alone would take no less than an infantry batallion with armor, air, and special operations support."

I took that as a double "yes?" A "hell yeah" and an "I'll tell you what!" Literally.

I found a post by Andrew Rosenthal (NY Times 12/11/15) to be fair and balanced because he spelled out Scalia's opinion without skipping straight to a wish list. He laid the justice's premises out clearly but then added: "So rather than saying 'assault weapons,' in the future perhaps we should say 'the kinds of weapons that Justice Antonin Scalia has defined as dangerous and unusual and subject to regulation or an outright ban under the Second Amendment.'”

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