(c) Josh Sager - 2012
Modern conservatives have developed
a highly effective and extremely well-funded strategy of using relentless
attack ads to destroy their political opponents. Unfortunately, most modern progressives
and Democrat have not developed their ability to attack politically as much as
many conservatives. By promoting conservative infighting and fueling
conservative political cannibalism, Democrats and progressives can both promote
strife within the conservative movement and weaken the surviving candidate to
the point where they lose the general election.
The rise of unaccountable money
in politics has led to a situation where candidates are able to shield their
attack ads behind a veneer of deniability. Not only has this deniability
allowed corporate interests to flood the airwaves with ads supporting “corporate
friendly” candidates, but it has also allowed candidates to run negative and
vicious attack ads without worrying about the blowback onto them. The climate of
unaccountable attacks allows the most extreme, vicious, and well-funded politicians
to simply carpet-bomb their opponents into submission.
A perfect example of how the
current climate of unaccountable attack ads allows politicians to decimate each
other is that of the Romney attack strategy during the 2012 Republican Primary.
Romney’s super-PAC, “Restore Our Future” spent millions
of dollars on negative, and often misleading,
attack ads on his primary opponents. By spending many times more than any of
his opponents, the Romney super-PAC systematically destroyed all opposing
candidates who would threaten Romney’s candidacy.
Modern Republicans and conservatives
have refined their political attack machines to the point where they are able
to attack virtually anybody for virtually any perceived offense. Even
politicians who have committed no real political or ethical wrongdoing are not
immune to the attack machine of the right wing (ex. Jerry being “swift-boated”).
Progressives and Democrats should capitalize upon the conservative attack
machine’s strength by turning it upon conservative politicians.
During Republican primaries, progressive
politicians and activist groups should attempt to shift the public conversation
onto topics which are divisive within the conservative movement. Even with the
highly homogeneous nature of the mainstream conservative movement (ex. virtually
the entire movement is anti-choice), there are still ideological schisms which divide
the conservatives from the extreme conservatives--one current example of such a
schism is found between the neoconservative hawks and the libertarian
conservatives. Despite the fact that they are part of the same party,
neoconservatives support expansions in military spending, while libertarian conservatives
support heavy cuts in military spending. Bringing up divisive topics (ex.
military spending) during the critical time of primary season would incite
conflict inside of the conservative movement and cause the different sides to
expend resources to attack one another. As most conservative ads are highly
negative, this tactic would allow progressives to shift conservative resources
towards attacking other conservatives and surviving incoming conservative
attacks.
In addition to attempting to
shift the topics of public conversation during primary times, progressives
should feed some damaging information on conservative politicians to their
conservative opponents; this tactic is akin to supplying both sides of a
conflict weapons and simply waiting on the sidelines to see both sides destroy
each other. By utilizing the highly effective conservative attack machines to
attack each other, progressives can conserve resources and ensure than the survivors
of Republican infighting are drastically weakened during the general election.
The most common way a conservative
will defend themselves from other conservatives criticizing them is to strictly
adhere to all of the conservative ideology’s acceptable policy position
(anti-choice, deregulation, tax cuts, etc.). Unfortunately for conservatives,
many of these policies have become unpalatable to the average American voter,
thus the defense against conservative criticisms is likely to be damaging in
general election. Through being forced so far out on the fringe in order to
survive the primary, conservative politicians can be forced into the position
of winning the primary only to lose the election.
Progressive politicians should
keep extremely damaging political attacks in their pocket—so as not to reduce their
effectiveness in attacking the surviving conservative during the primary season—but
should leak more minor damaging information to opposing conservatives during
primary campaigns. Through inciting conservatives to batter one-another with
minor scandals during the primary campaigns, then releasing the truly damaging
attacks upon the conservative survivor during the general election, progressives
and Democrats can inflict maximum political damage on their opponents with
minimal exposure and resource consumption.
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