After receiving an email today that took highly-edited quotes from a defunct House bill (HR 3200) and was trying to pass them off as what Obama passed in the Affordable Care Act, I suddenly realized why we as Democrats never seem to be able to move forward with their message and the truth.
Democrats are constantly faced with debunking falsehoods and chasing down facts to disprove egregious lies that Republicans so willingly spread. Democrats have always fought for right and good, for the less fortunate and the downtrodden. Unfortunately, their message is too often diverted, sidetracked by amoral individuals willing to say and do anything to further their own self-interests, country, countrymen and National integrity be damned.
The Bigger the Lie
How do you defend the less fortunate against a group of people who are so willing to and willfully spread outrageous lies? The sheer lack of character involved and disingenuous nature of their actions leave an honest man flabbergasted. There is an old quote that is wrongfully attributed to Hitler that often comes to mind when we Democrats are faced with a constant barrage of Republican lies, "The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it." The person who actually said that was Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Reich Minister of Propaganda. And he was right.
So, as Democrats, when we hear such lies we are forced to debunk them, but it eats up all of our time and leaves us unable to stay a step ahead and deliver our own message. It's either that or let the lies fester and be perceived as truth, because let's face it, if someone accuses you of something horrible and you don't defend yourself, well, you must be guilty!
Republicans laugh at this fact. They laugh with sheer sociopathic delight at the fact that all they have to do is lie about any topic they want to sway public opinion on, and we Democrats will spend weeks scrambling to hold Republicans accountable for their mis-truths. And just as one lie is debunked, the Republicans, fueled by Fox news and billionaire-phone-hacker-Australian-turned-American-simply-so-he-can-hold-more-American-media-assets Rupert Murdoch, put out another lie and the tail-chasing starts all over again.
A true American - no a true Patriot - does not need to manipulate their followers through lies and propaganda, but many other notorious figures in history did; Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Quadafi, Sadam Hussein, Marx, Lenin, Kim Jong Il, Mao Tse Tung, Dick Cheney, George Bush. How far did it get any of them?
Play Hardball; Start Fighting for Real This Time
My advice to all Democrats: Get in the fight for real. Be direct and blunt with the truth. Do not be afraid to call a spade a spade and walk the fine line of ridicule over issues that practically beg for ridicule. And the nice thing is, we can do it with the truth...
"Tax cuts creates jobs"
Yeah, the Bush tax cuts worked so well we were losing 750,000 jobs a month when Bush left office in January 2009.
"George Bush went to Yale. I [Rick Perry] went to Texas A&M!" (where his GPA was 2.2)
So, Governor, are you then confirming that out of the two of you George Bush is the smart one?
"We need less regulation, not more regulation!"
Hey genius, do you think the American people are so stupid that we don't remember 2008? That complete lack of banking regulation caused a monumental implosion in the mortgage industry that laid waste to our economy.
What's more, the Bush mortgage catastrophe decimated the stock market on March 9th, 2009. How much wealth did the richest 1 percent lose on that day? And ironically, they lost it all through their own failed policy! You know the saying, those that don't learn from history...
"We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem!"
Really? 'Cause in the year 2000, when tax rates were just 4.9% higher, we had more than enough money for all our government entitlement programs and some left over. And with taxes higher in the '90's, we created more jobs in those 10 years than we had in the previous two decades. I guess we created all those jobs because higher tax rates hurt job creation...oh, wait...um, I mean...oops, um...THIS IS CLASS WARFARE!!!
The Party of No! No Heart, No Soul, No Empathy
The real problem is that Republicans are just not that smart.
Republicans have been on the wrong side of history EVERY SINGLE TIME: It was Republicans who held up passage of the Civil Rights Act. It took 50 years to bring Republicans around to the issue of Suffrage and a woman's right to vote. Republicans overwhelmingly voted against Social Security and Medicare.
Look at the previous paragraph and tell me who in their right mind could be against any of those things. What kind of human being is that type of person, and why, oh God why would any caring person...any CHRISTIAN person proudly consider themselves to be a part of such a callous, selfish group?
An Unblemished Record of Failure
Republican policies wrecked our country, allowed Al Queda to attack our soil on 9/11 (yes, Bush was warned that this would happen one month prior, to which he responded to the person delivering the warning, "okay, you've covered your ass, let's more on"), leave the sick and elderly to suffer and die (an audience member in the most recent Republican debate screamed out "Let them die!"), attack average working Americans who risk their lives every day for our safety and strip low-income women of basic health care and cancer screenings.
How can any caring person, for that matter how can any human being in today's day and age can actually, proudly proclaim themselves to be a Republican?
Jeff Sherwood - Please follow Jeff on Twitter to be updated when new articles are published @Jeff_R_Sherwood or go to the following link: ...
