Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to It's time. These boneheads aren't getting it.

Now THAT was a Flame!!
Robert — (archived)

Good work, Art, and fact-based and understandable. I can dig it. But I disagree with your strategic conclusion: Boycotting the argument and disengaging won't help. That's what they do, not what we do.

There's not a snowball's chance in hell of changing Tom's mind, but that's not why I keep arguing with him. I do it for the practice. I'm pretty certain that Tom is representing mainstream Republican demagoguery, because as near as I can tell, all the Republicans have in the way of a strategy for the next two elections is "go negative", and Tom's "Democrats are evil!" riff is going to be the centerpiece. It isn't wasted effort to debunk Tom, because those rebuttals will be ammo against the Republican general smear campaign.

Actually I love seeing Tom stick to his guns, because it suggests that the Republican strategy is so weak that they'll be flattened at the polls. The theme Tom and other Republican demagogues are developing boils down to just this: "Republicans really suck, but Democrats suck worse". Debunk the smears against Democrats, and what's left is the self-admission "Republicans really suck". That and the fact that Republicans are essentially running against their own record after six years will buy a Democratic landslide.

There's light at the end of the tunnel, and I suggest that continuing to fight the rhetorical war will be a major component in that victory. This isn't the time to give up.

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