Word of the Day: Chalkboardism

- Obama is working behind the scenes to raise gas prices (Mitch McConnell)

- Hillary Clinton's staff includes infiltrators of the Muslim Brotherhood (Michele Bachmann)

- There is reason to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya (Donald Trump)

- Fast and Furious was an operation created to increase support for gun control (Darrell Issa)

- Obama's Kenyan anti-colonial father is a predictive model for Obama's rage (Newt Gingrich)

- 78-81 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives are members of the Communist party (Allen West)

- Barack Obama is attempting to eliminate the Second Amendment (Wayne LaPierre)

- Barack Obama has removed the work requirement from welfare to get support from his base (Mitt Romney)

- 47% of Americans don't take responsibility for their own lives (Mitt Romney)

- There is a conspiracy among pollsters to skew polls for Obama and against Romney (Dick Morris)

Above is a collection of lies and conspiracy theories that have been espoused by high-profile Republican party affiliates over the past year or two. The support for these lies are not limited to the single attribute following the lies, for example, Sean Hannity has plenty of Republican company in believing that global warming is a hoax. While Gingrich is probably more famous for talking up the “predictive model” on Obama’s rage, that idea originated in the writings of right-wing kook Dinesh D’souza. Several Republicans including RNC chair Reince Priebus have backed up the claims that Obama has dropped the work requirement from welfare to shore up his base.

Why do they lie? Followers of AOTL have seen all of the reasons drawn out in previous posts, but here they are again.

As I have repeated before, the GOP is the control freak party. For the most part they have an infantile belief in an American Garden of Eden where God created Republicans who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and who fought the Revolutionary War. It explains their "we were here first and all this stuff is ours" attitude. As part of this fantasy, even Republican elected officials take as their priority, not governing, but beating Democrats (per Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s “our number one priority is defeating Barack Obama”). 

Republicans therefore believe that everything they do is in the name of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution so lying in the name of victory is completely justified “under God, with liberty and justice for all.” It's about attempting to control the debate. As most climate change deniers see it, if Republicans concede that global warming exists then they are giving CONTROL of the dialog to the Democrats. By the same logic, if you make up lies or conspiracy theories about Barack Obama being born in Kenya, it THEORETICALLY weakens Obama's leadership position which, in the end is a good thing for America, so they think. Their hope is that more and more stooges will repeat this nonsense in hopes of it reaching a tipping point.

This was the basis for Glenn Beck's chalkboard and the mumbo jumbo he threw upon it like “communism” and “liberation theocracy” hoping some of it would stick. For this reason I will (derisively) call  this conspiracy theory approach to politics CHALKBOARDISM. Of course, you don’t have to be Glenn Beck to engage in chalkboardism. You only have to be as nefarious in your intentions. But it’s not like leaders in the Republican party had a get-together like a bunch of girls at a sleepover where they said “we hate Obama, so much because he’s so stupid and we should do stuff to destroy him like lie about him all the time” or did they?

There are varying degrees to which the chalkboardisms are effective. In most cases it only serves to self-satisfy since the mischaracterizations tend to spread only among those who are already in the Tea Bag tank. No one else absorbs it, and this is not giving credit to people for having good discretion for the things they choose to believe. It is a criticism of how little attention people pay to what is being said. But when the quality of the debate comes down to speed falsification, is it worth a public that pays attention? This goody-two-shoes would argue yes because if people paid attention, Rick Santorum would not be able to get away with much of the things he says and he shouldn't.

The most critical of the recent Republican lies was the Romney claim that Obama dropped the welfare requirement to appease his base. This was not just a throw-out line to see who would lick it up. This was the basis for an ad Romney ran. With every other demographic lined up in the Obama column, Romney has needed to assure a healthy turnout of white working class voters, thus the welfare ad. The gist of that spot is that while white people are hard at work, black people are laying on their ass sucking up tax dollars and those white workers should be angry enough to vote for Mitt Romney who is going to make it better (if you think this is a left-wing conspiracy theory please see my next post). Romney can deny any racial undertones in the ad because he doesn’t mention race, but the ad is effective at arousing antisocial sentiments nevertheless. It’s a lie to stir racial resentment and it’s immoral. Romney approved that message.

The optimist in me hopes that the Republican pattern of mendacity is so obvious that everyone sees it, but if I really had faith in my optimistic side I wouldn’t be writing this. What would be the point of calling out something everybody knows. Even as I (optimistically) intend to inform, it brings up one consistent mechanism that mitigates the foul behavior from the right. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a thousand times: “Both sides do it.” Those words right there are the call of the obliviati, people who don’t pay attention, but still want to be fair. Part of what makes them oblivious is the fact that in order to be fair you have to know the facts. If you’re on a jury, you can’t get up before the trial and claim that the defendant AND the prosecution are both guilty and then call it a day. Anyone who says “it’s both sides” without putting up any real and comparable facts is doing as much a disservice to the national discourse as the liars themselves.

While talking politics with my good friend Ray three weeks ago he asked why it was we couldn’t have an honest debate anymore in this country. I responded “You can’t have an honest debate when one side refuses to be honest.” Then I repeated it. Then I typed it as a memo on my phone. Three weeks later I’m finally writing this post. Granted this wasn’t a rush job, I was so determined to finally get this finished that I sent a friend (not Ray) away when he showed up at my door with a case of beer earlier today. But that’s another story altogether.