At bottom, below, I’ll make (yet-again) my case for agile tactics that might actually win the fight for fact-based rejection of lies.
But let’s start with a central nexus of today’s rationalization for treason.
“The final days of the US supreme court’s term offered a clear look at the way its new 6-3 conservative majority is bluntly using its power to reshape American life, but its next term is also set to hear cases that could prove equally, or even more, consequential.”
I make no promises. But I think folks despair too easily. One trick will be to corner Roberts and Gorsuch, the two rightists who might actually care – just a little – about the law and logic and history’s judgement. Enough to perhaps squirm and realize they are cornered by some fresh tactics.
I have offered some such – though alas, none of the brainiac legal minds on the Union side of this desperate struggle seem at all interested in trying a new argument, a new tactic. Here are just two from Polemical Judo:
1. FLIP the demands for Voter ID! Griping about ID requirements only makes dems look like they intend to cheat, even though nearly all the actual cheating is by the other side. So turn it around! Why are red states making it harder for their resident citizens of color or the poor or divorced women or naturalized to GET their ID? Closing DMV offices in blue counties for example?
That should be the point of attack using two words. Compliance Assistance. Republicans demand it for corporations and the rich. Whenever a ‘new, onerous burden” of regulation falls upon them, government must provide assistance complying with the new regs.
The fact that these states make voter ID compliance harder for the poor etc. is so blatant that it could even peel away just a few more ‘ostrich republicans’ – and that peeling away is – demographically – all we need. Moreover, some oligarchy-shills will feel cornered into some partial remediation. Roberts, at least, might feel cornered.
Do not dismiss that possibility with a shrug. That’s lazy! The principle is pure. And I have seen no sign of any of our paladins using it. See the COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE maneuver.
2. I’ve yammered before about how John Roberts admits that gerrymandering is a loathsome cheat! But his ROBERTS DOCTRINE justifies doing nothing about it because:
(a) the Court can’t interfere in the sovereignty of state legislatures – even if they were ‘elected’ via immense cheating – and
Of course this is hypocritical and partisan. Both rationales (both!) are eviscerated here, with an offered Minimal Overlap Solution to gerrymandering that directly addresses every Roberts criterion and is simple and would work instantly. It needn’t be applied in every case in order to demolish his Doctrine, showing there is at least one way to dismantle gerrymandering’s worst cheat effects without replacing the legislature with commissions.
And again, not a single one of the paladins on our side is able even to conceive of the possibility of using such judo, instead of the same grunting sumo they’ve tried for decades.
== The way to corner and demolish lie-fetishists is… ==
“More than 100 Republican nominees for statewide office or Congress this year have falsely claimed that election fraud helped defeat Donald Trump in 2020. Almost 150 members of Congress — more than half of Republicans there — voted to overturn the 2020 election result.” …yet… “…it’s jarring to see how little effort its proponents have put into making an argument on behalf of their claims. They have offered no good evidence, because there is not any. ”
Alas, that’s not the big problem, which is utter ineptitude by Dem pols and by pundits to apply basic psychology.
Try going back to every episode of this mad-mania since 1778. The principal EMOTIONAL drivers behind royalist/confederate/MAGA treasons have been romanticism and machismo.
Macho, especially can be eviscerated, by creating clearly-parsed and relentlessly hammered challenges, making their refusal blatantly an expression of personal cowardice. These challenges do not have to be demands for cash-wagers… though that approach is the most direct and the one these fellows fear most. (They always, always whine and writhe – embarrassing themselves – and then flee.)
Dig it. Instead of following around the latest QAnon ravings, then the next, like Whack-a-Mole, perpetually whining “that’s not true!” PICK A FEW and hang onto them. Pound away for months, if necessary – even years, despite every effort to change the subject and distract with newer lies and fables. Keep hammering as publicly as possible and demanding the foxites stand their ground, or else flee and admit that one was false. Only then move on to others.
Oh, you can offer a lengthy list of lies you intend to get to. But the trick is to sink your teeth into a few – or even just one – chomp hard and never let go, shaking a particular lie over and over until they are seen fleeing in disgrace.
And hell-yeah, offering cash stakes for a wager is another version that shows your own confidence. They never, ever step up with their own stakes, opening their cowardice and evasion to ridicule. Macho demolished.
Alas, what the Dominion and Sandy Hook examples show is that 99% of the politicians and supporters of our good, Union side in this struggle appear to have the tactical sense or learning ability of a tadpole. The fact that no one in high places or punditry will even consider this method – which I have tested for almost a decade and lay out in Polemical Judo – is proof that aliens must be using an IQ reduction ray on us!