The Mad Don Zone

During the late-1980s and early-‘90s, some of the most power-hungry Republican pundits and politicians started going to school on the way ascending phrase-makers, such as radio personality Rush Limbaugh and Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga), used rhetoric to cleverly frame issues and repetition to paint opponents as villains. 

Essentially, the word management strategy called for saying simple things about complex problems. Saying stuff their anti-intellectual audience enjoyed repeating to sound in-the-know. So, no highbrow wordsmithery. 

And, if the message runs on a continuous loop and is amplified by broadcast media, a low-information, right-wing audience might buy almost anything you're selling. Moreover, if the manipulative messages ride on the backs of long existing resentments and hatreds, that tailored message can gather a substantial following ... especially if all of the players stick to the script.

Well, it worked. Like a charm.

And, for a long time most of the Democrats acted stunned. It was like they had been sucker-punched by a focus group strategy. It was a strategy that really had little to do with solving real problems. It had everything to do with promulgating propaganda to put college professors, unions, minorities, artists of all stripes, governments, etc., in bad light.

For example, instead of saying religious intolerance and racism were lingering problems that each generation of Americans needed to step up and help ameliorate, the swaggering Limbaugh/Gingrich conservative pundits and politicians repeatedly told the fools propping them up that liberal Democrats were hellbent on crushing their “freedom.” Now we can see that brainwashing process was equivalent to pouring gasoline on what were small white nationalism fires. 

Then, in 2000, George W. Bush’s advisors thought they could use the hordes of haters on the right. And the haters on the right thought they could use the traditional Republicans like Bush. Well, it turned out both sides of that unholy alliance were sort of right. 

Meanwhile, self-styled populist/mobster Donald Trump was listening and watching. Then came the Tea Party -- a hate-driven reaction to the election of Barack Obama in 2008.  And, after they accepted Sarah Palin as a legitimate VEEP nominee, Trump knew the Republican Party had become totally shameless.  

Subsequently, Trump saw his path to the White House open up. With the "birther" issue greasing the wheels of the Mad Don's gold-plated bandwagon, Democrats couldn't harness the will, or find the way, to stop a rather silly slogan -- Make America Great Again. 

Like it, or not, Trump surely knows how to strike a pose and sling red meat phrases at his adoring mob of cultists. Hey, they still love wearing those damn red MAGA baseball caps. 

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To cut to the chase: With the January 6 Committee’s hearings, the Democrats (with the help of the two remaining traditional Republicans in the House of Representatives) have seized the moment. For the first time in over 20 years savvy Democrats are winning an important  propaganda war. The staging of the seven hearings, so far, has been a marvel.

Republicans are flabbergasted. The Committee's Episode 8 is airing in prime time (8 p.m. ET) on a list of networks and web sites on Thursday night.

2022's truth be told, for the sake of the USA's future as a democracy, this is not a word war Democrats can allow Trump to win. Stay tuned...

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