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I found that I had nothing interesting to say yesterday, so I said nothing. Today is different.
In the morning, I sometimes watch MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. I turned it on today, and Donald Trump was asked to call in. When he did, one of the panelists, who knows Trump personally as a friend, said, (nearly direct quote) "Bro, drop the birther BS." Trump did not, and went on a bit of a rant about Obama's "mysterious" birth. Now, Trump is wrong on the facts, but that's not what I want to talk about. Rather, I want to discuss the failure of a tool that Republicans had been successfully using for years. Call it the "reverse hammerlock."
In the reverse hammerlock, you attack your opponent's strength while portraying any attack on yourself as somehow out of bounds. So, if, for example, your opponent is a decorated war hero and you yourself spent the same war safely thousands of miles from any threat, you attack your opponent's war record while portraying any attack on your lack of record as denigrating the troops.
In 2008, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. One had to spend 5 or 10 minutes parsing the law to figure out that, yes, he was a natural-born citizen. Republican-leaning folks were so used to the reverse hammerlock that they immediately applied it to Obama.
The reverse hammerlock isn't working. First, since Obama has released a birth certificate, the hammerlock-er has to argue that a certificate of live birth is different than a birth certificate (they're not - "certificate of live birth" is the formal, legal name for a "birth certificate") or that what you've seen is a forgery.
So then the hammerlock-er is forced to attempt to baffle you with bullshit. Most people have a strong bullshit-detector, and when it goes of, they back away from the source of the bullshit. Alas, "most" is not the same as "all," so some people fall for the hammerlock. It appears that Trump is one of the fallen.
The birthers also have to overcome the smell test (pun intended). Obama looks and acts like an American. The birthers have to convince you to ignore your lying eyes and believe them. Although a (bare) majority of Republicans have doubts about Obama, it's so unreasonable that not even all Republicans are buying it.
Bottom line - just because something worked in a previous situation doesn't mean it will always work.
PS - a useful source of debunking tools regarding Obama
In the morning, I sometimes watch MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. I turned it on today, and Donald Trump was asked to call in. When he did, one of the panelists, who knows Trump personally as a friend, said, (nearly direct quote) "Bro, drop the birther BS." Trump did not, and went on a bit of a rant about Obama's "mysterious" birth. Now, Trump is wrong on the facts, but that's not what I want to talk about. Rather, I want to discuss the failure of a tool that Republicans had been successfully using for years. Call it the "reverse hammerlock."
In the reverse hammerlock, you attack your opponent's strength while portraying any attack on yourself as somehow out of bounds. So, if, for example, your opponent is a decorated war hero and you yourself spent the same war safely thousands of miles from any threat, you attack your opponent's war record while portraying any attack on your lack of record as denigrating the troops.
In 2008, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. One had to spend 5 or 10 minutes parsing the law to figure out that, yes, he was a natural-born citizen. Republican-leaning folks were so used to the reverse hammerlock that they immediately applied it to Obama.
The reverse hammerlock isn't working. First, since Obama has released a birth certificate, the hammerlock-er has to argue that a certificate of live birth is different than a birth certificate (they're not - "certificate of live birth" is the formal, legal name for a "birth certificate") or that what you've seen is a forgery.
So then the hammerlock-er is forced to attempt to baffle you with bullshit. Most people have a strong bullshit-detector, and when it goes of, they back away from the source of the bullshit. Alas, "most" is not the same as "all," so some people fall for the hammerlock. It appears that Trump is one of the fallen.
The birthers also have to overcome the smell test (pun intended). Obama looks and acts like an American. The birthers have to convince you to ignore your lying eyes and believe them. Although a (bare) majority of Republicans have doubts about Obama, it's so unreasonable that not even all Republicans are buying it.
Bottom line - just because something worked in a previous situation doesn't mean it will always work.
PS - a useful source of debunking tools regarding Obama
