The New Stupid passes it on.

Conservatives are outraged that members of the Service Employees International Union were allowed to attend Representative Russ Carnahan’s town hall, but conservatives were turned away. Similarly, liberals were outraged when they were denied entry to Representative Kevin Brady’s town hall, but the ninety conservative doctors whose hospital sponsored the event were allowed in. I would link to those outraged liberals, but I invented them. While I’m sure many liberals would complain if the sponsor of an event had seats reserved for its members, I can’t find them. I can, however, find many conservatives who know that the SEIU is sponsoring these town halls, but still write that “the [SEIU] union thugs had already been quietly ushered in through the back door, and had already taken seats that were reserved for them in the front.”

They are upset, first, that the sponsor of an event reserved seats for its members; and second, that when protesters prevented members of the group that sponsored the event from reaching the seats reserved for them, the group sponsoring the event might resort to ferrying its members to their reserved seats by an alternate route. Even without the excessive italics, that much should be obvious—only it isn’t, and while the quality of mainstream political discourse has never been that high, rarely has it been this low.

My standard for quality is not based on civility so much as the that of forensic debate. The rule to which all debaters abide is, plainly but multitudinously, “Never say anything they can use against you.” If you lack the reflexivity required to know whether your words will return to haunt you, you will lose often and spectacularly. That’s why, when the stakes are high, it’s best to be attacking what you believe or defending what you don’t. Your beliefs only impair your argument, because what matters is not what you know, but what you can prove. The last thing you want to do is hand your opponent the ammunition they need to accomplish your execution. In the 1990s, mainstream conservativism understood this well enough: it distanced itself from the Foster dramatics and focused on an affirmative offensive, be it about a Contract with Certain Americans or marital infidelities.

Absurdity mattered less than strategy, because as frustrating as those absurdities were, they sat well in the stomach because we knew that they were merely strategic: the machinations of Newton Leroy Gingrich were clearly machinations, and although we could and did call the man who married his high school math teacher two days after he turned eighteen a hypocrite, we never doubted his ability to excuse our dear Aunt Sally, nor did we care how exactly he pleased her, because we understood that no matter how or where he chose to do so, he knew order of her operations—uterine surgery in ‘78, another in ‘80, and four-hundred and forty dollars a month to provide for an ailing woman, his two children, and a dry cleaning bill for one. Whether or not he ever said his wife was neither “young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of a President, and besides, she has cancer,” we never doubted that he was capable of such a calculus. He was a pure political animal, predictable, and when he spoke stupidly, he did so to inflame his enemies into breaching super-dense patches of stupid that corrupted their every communiqué: “We are approaching bluster tape,” their communications officer would relay. “Permission to canister the light and holder the cup with scrap medicine?” As soon as the words left our lips, we understood the nature of the con in which we had cast ourselves as marks.

Strategic hypocrisy we understood, could compartmentalize, and proffer rejoinder—but the New Stupid is different.  It is an unstrategic stupid emboldened by an unselfconscious hypocrisy, meaning we face an opposition who hands us their rifles and implores us not to fire them; offers us bullets on the condition that we not load those rifles; then they take their place against the wall and proceed to taunt us.  “You may have rifles and bullets,” they shout, “but you don’t know from loading guns.  Even if you somehow managed to load the bullets we  provided into the rifles we also provided you,” they continue, “you lack  the character required to shoot them.  If you don’t believe us, we will hector you mercilessly until you acquire it, and then you will shoot us with a cold smile on your face and we will die, even though we expressly told you we didn’t want you to shoot us when we handed you the rifles and the bullets.”  Knowing how it will end, the temptation to butt them senseless as soon as we secure their rifles is almost impossible to overcome; but we must remember that we are not dealing with savvy political operatives here, nor even with the toadies who absorbed tactical hypocrisy on their bouncing knees.

We are dealing with a lowest common denominator that bootstrapped itself into relevance on the bent back of technological innovation. The super-dense stupid that Gingrich once goaded us into breaching now houses the headquarters of our political opponents, from which they beam their new brand of stupid to the masses:

The Service Employees International Union sponsored this meeting, but I am outraged, I say, outraged that the SEIU reserved seats for its member at it, because that is wrong, because this is America, and I will not stand for any seating arrangement in which money means access, unless it happens to be a baseball game, in which case I will pay outrageous sums for a seat that lets me see sweat gather, bead, and roll down the line of Derek Jeter’s jaw—because that is capitalism, capitalism is American, and America is awesome.

Without the faith we once placed in the operatives of zero-sum politics, such statements can’t be dismissed as self-interested calculation: they emanate from the emo core of the New Stupid, which was created by the two historically unique broadcast systems born in the 1990s.  The first of which, talk radio, came into its own with the rise of Rush Limbaugh; the second is the internet generally and blogs in particular.  Although both were around before, they had yet to acquire the political prominence they would in the wake of Lewinsky (radio) and the build-up to the Second Gulf War (the internet and blogs).  Consider this: if you were 18 years old in 1992 and a conservative, your knowledge of political discourse would amount to Limbaugh’s campaign against the Clinton administration and the defense of Bush policy he and online conservatives mounted.  You would be about the age of the average political blogger, but for the first time in your adult life you are politically impotent.

Granted, there were those two awful years (1992-1994) in which Clinton worked with a Democratic Congress, but that was almost two decades ago and is but a distant memory.  For the past seventeen years, conservatives have framed every issue however they pleased; moreover, for the past nine years they have dominated the narrative so thoroughly that liberals were forced to oppose preemptive invasions, insist that American soldiers would not be greeted as liberators, and denounce those who willfully lied before, during and now in the dénouement of a suspect war in which no American soldier was greeted as a liberator.  Those conservatives who came of age during this period have never been out of power—and those who came of age earlier have forgotten how it stung—and try as they might to harness the fear this doggedly centrist regime instills in them, all they can muster is a stampeding panic.  They are like cattle on the open range who, having heard horror stories about wolves their entire lives, trample themselves silly at the sight of this dread beast.

Of course, by “trample” I mean “soldier on,” which is exactly what the right-wing radio that sustained them through the 1990s and the conservative blogs by which they cudgeled the narrative into shape in the 2000s are doing.  But absent the men in powerful places required to authorize their specious interpretations of suspect facts, their conversations increasingly resemble idle gossip in a endless game of telephone amplified over the airwaves and through a series of tubes: before leaving for work, a conservative communicates his displeasure about some milksop Obama initiative to his neighbor; when he returns home, his wife informs him that the gay Kenyan in the White House wants to kill grandma.  Exactly how his complaint was corrupted—from Rush to some blog, some blog to Fox, Fox to Rush, Rush to Hannity, Hannity to some blog—is less important than the inevitability that it would be.

These conservatives in their 30s and 40s are willing to believe anything because, for the past two decades, they have been in the business of making things believable.  What liberals see as a game of telephone being played by idiots with crap reception, conservatives call “reporting.”  Only without an Administration to accommodate their pretensions to reality—to interrupt the game with a reminder of the original statement—their message is running away from them so quickly that their latest champion is a guy whose hurt shoulder put him in a wheelchair.  (Not that it’s impossible to suffer grave bodily harm and seem fine at first [as Kenneth Gladney did in the video]: I got hit by a car and walked home because adrenaline works wonders.  But being drugged into speechless the day after you made the right-wing rounds for ten hours is mighty suspicious.)  Kenneth Gladney claims he was kicked and punched mercilessly and says the video backs him up.  Conservative blogs concur and Rush and Fox agree:

The tape clearly shows that Gladney was beheaded by union jihadists personally selected by the Kenyan himself.  Pass it on.

That Hannity will say this while interviewing Gladney demonstrates why he would never win a formal debate.  Not that he has to—the New Stupid will say he did no matter how he performed.  Rush will concur and conservative blogs will agree:

Sean Hannity brought Gladney back from the dead with two toothpicks, a bottle of antifreeze and the power of Christ.  Pass it on.

(x-posted.)

Comments

[SEK]

For the record, this is a non-news-cycle related bit of media history, not a political post.

[Ahistoricality]

we face an opposition who hands us their rifles and implores us not to fire them ... we must remember that we are not dealing with savvy political operatives here, nor even with the toadies who absorbed tactical hypocrisy on their bouncing knees.

Actually, I'm reminded of the Qizilbash and Boxers, Warriors of Faith who believed that their righteousness made them invulnerable to bullets. And they did a lot of damage before their enemies rounded up enough bullets.

[Karl Steel]

For the record, this is a non-news-cycle related bit of media history, not a political post.

That should work just fine.

[SEK]

Warriors of Faith who believed that their righteousness made them invulnerable to bullets.

And they say we're the ones who don't from guns.

That should work just fine.

It does feel better. I started this Saturday morning, and revised it continuously until I posted it. I won't have to do silent-revisions-for-style in a week (not that I ever do them, except when I do, which is frequently), because I'm happy enough with the prose to let it stand un-re-re-re-read. But also, and good God damn, you can tell I'm reading Inherent Vice, no? (Which probably means I over-wrote this and will need to calm it down in the days to come.) But for now, I think the improved quality of the prose and the increased pleasure I had in crafting it is worth the risk of being three beats behind the curve. (And I'm not the only one.)

(Of course, I'll hate all of this come soon-enough-already, but I'll wait until that angst grabs me before worrying about its inevitable arrival. Because, really, what's the point in doing that?)

[Ahistoricality]

And they say we're the ones who don't from guns.

???

[SEK]

Er, "who don't know from guns." Have I mentioned that I sometimes words out, especially when I'm tired and?

[JPool]

I'll post this here because the shouting at EotAW has already commenced.

So... the difference is that now you allow yourself to be a couple of days behind the cable and internet brouhaha (which I hadn't previously heard of) to overwrite this? I know you've said before that you absorb the style of others to consume their souls learn from their strengths, but, man, editting!

It's pretty simple and actually pretty tactical in a ham-handed way. The SEIU (who, from a labor point of view, are not without faults as well as strengths) are the one union agressively pushing a pro-labor public policy agenda. Other unions sponsor candidates and make quiet endorsements in their internal newsletters, but the SEIU actually gets out there in the public square and mixes it up. From a coservative point of view, this cannot stand. Not only is it creeping socialism, it's creeping successful progressive politics, which is even worse, because possibly real. "So if ACORN are vote frauders (rather than just incredibly sloppy), SEIU must be ... Teamsters from the 1970s! Great, we've already been using that image to try and convince people that they should want to keep the additional six months of employer intimidation before they can get union representation."

Oh, and the historians over at that other place have been holding back but: 1) I'm guessing if you ask any Americanist about this, they will say, as if by reflex, "Well, things may look nasty now, but in the 19th century, American politicians were literally bashing eachother's skulls in with maces and sicking packs of vicious badgers on their opponents' supporters." 2) There were at least a dozen American soldier greeted as liberators -- in semi-autonomous Kurdistan -- for the first couple of years. 3) Quotations marks can indeed be used for humorous sock-puppetry, but blockquotes should, nay must, be reserved for actual quotey quotes.

[Adam Roberts]

re: Pynchoniana: you saw this promo, right? Voiced by the man himself, according to rumour.

[Ahistoricality]

"A fanatic is one who sticks to his guns whether they're loaded or not." -- Franklin P. Jones

[SEK]

So... the difference is that now you allow yourself to be a couple of days behind the cable and internet brouhaha (which I hadn't previously heard of) to overwrite this?

I relieve myself of the pressure of having to address issues by forcing myself to address them more scholarly-like. Over the past year, I'd gotten way too close to issues best addressed as elements in the bigger picture; so, in this case, instead of mocking conservatives openly, I stepped back, thought about how their movement reached this moment, and this is the result.

I'm guessing if you ask any Americanist about this, they will say, as if by reflex, "Well, things may look nasty now, but in the 19th century, American politicians were literally bashing eachother's skulls in with maces and sicking packs of vicious badgers on their opponents' supporters."

Hey! I'm an Americanist too, damn it! I understand your point, by the way, but the scale of the nastiness and the means by which it's communicated was more of my point here.

Quotations marks can indeed be used for humorous sock-puppetry, but blockquotes should, nay must, be reserved for actual quotey quotes.

It's funny you should mention that, because I've been having a lot of issues---personal-type issues---with formatting of late. I waffled for hours before deciding how to do up this thing, and looking at it now, think I punted it.

Adam, not only have I seen that, it's been confirmed. I'm glad I didn't respond before I read that, because I was going to say that there's no way that's Pynchon, because the guy I know who's met him says he has a think New York accent. Apparently, the man can also act.

[JPool]

Hey! I'm an Americanist too, damn it!
I meant an Americanist historian. This you will only be once you get invited on news shows and when they ask you "Has the quality of mainstream political discourse in America ever been this low?" (actually they'd ask if it had ever been this "contentious" or "filled with personal attacks" or some such), you don't say "Well it is at an especially low poit at the moment. Let me analyze for you the misuses of rhetoric which produces such a lowly condition", but instead respond with a laugh, "Well, actually, there were, in the past, entire armies of badger-wielding ruffians let loose upon the political discourse" and then blather on for a while about Grover Cleveland.

[Ahistoricality]

Actually, if you can reposition yourself as a "media analyst," a title for which there are no known qualifications, you could do very well for yourself in the cable news economy. Eventually, they're going to want someone who can both laugh at this crap and explain it.

[AMac]

My standard for quality is not based on civility so much as [] that of forensic debate.

That's an elegant and artfully composed sentence.

Are you saying that civility is a virtue in this setting, although not as important as the excellence demonstrated by skilled debaters?

Or are you saying that civility isn't important, whereas other standards of forensic debate are?

Is ambiguous speech to be preferred, at times? In the setting of a formal debate, or a blog post?

Many of the anti-Obama-healthcare-proposals antics that you bemoan are offenses against a code of decency to be applied in everyday life, as much as they are blunders in a forensic sense.

[Naadir Jeewa]

This is brilliant New Stupidese, from Investor's Business Daily:

"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

El Reg comments:
"The paper has since been notified that Hawking is both British and still among the living... "I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking told The Guardian. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

The best you can say about Investor's Business Daily is that unlike US radio talk host Rush Limbaugh, it has not compared Obama's health care logo to a swastika."

[SEK]

Are you saying that civility is a virtue in this setting, although not as important as the excellence demonstrated by skilled debaters?

In this context, I simply meant that I wasn't going to discuss civility, which is how the debate's being framed basically everywhere else. That said, I'm not sure whether you can call "civility" a virtue in forensics; a certain mode of pro forma politeness is encouraged, but its absence wouldn't be held against a debater. Moreover, the measures of civility associated with these debates have to do with yelling and talking over people, whereas forensic debates always sound like this.

Is ambiguous speech to be preferred, at times? In the setting of a formal debate, or a blog post?

In context, I don't think my statement was ambiguous: I was just saying that I was concerning myself with issues of argument and evidence, not civility.

Naadir, I saw that and absolutely couldn't believe it. If ever you want an example of someone violating the first rule of forensic debate, there you have it: "This man, who is alive thanks to the British health care system, would be dead if he lived under the British health care system."