Author Topic: Dangers of Crying Wolf  (Read 137 times)

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Offline TimG

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Dangers of Crying Wolf
« on: October 29, 2017, 02:16:05 pm »
This oped echos a sentiment that is a significant concern to me:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-24/be-careful-who-you-call-a-white-supremacist

Quote
During the 2016 presidential campaign, I found myself confronted by a curious problem: Many of my readers simply didn’t take it seriously when I pointed out that Donald Trump was, if not an outright racist himself, at least happily pandering to people who were.

“The media calls every Republican racist,” my conservative readers replied. “They said it about Mitt Romney, they said it about George Bush, so what’s different about Trump?”

They were right. Other columnists had accused Romney and Bush of being racist and pandering to racists. I pointed out that Trump's racist appeals were different, and much worse, than anything that earlier Republican presidential candidates had been accused of. But it didn’t do any good. The media had cried wolf to condemn garden-variety Republicans; labels like “racist” had been rendered useless when a true threat emerged. We shouted to no avail as Trump coyly flirted with **** white supremacists, something no mainstream party had done for decades.
Attempting to score political points by debasing the meaning of words causes great harm in the long run. I wish more people understood this.

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Offline SirJohn

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Re: Dangers of Crying Wolf
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2017, 02:51:19 pm »
This oped echos a sentiment that is a significant concern to me:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-24/be-careful-who-you-call-a-white-supremacist
Attempting to score political points by debasing the meaning of words causes great harm in the long run. I wish more people understood this.

The Republican party has been in the grip of the wealthy for some time now, not conservatives, but the wealthy, the well-funded lobbyists and billionaires with their super PACs. Their interests have found a comfortable home in the Republican party, because their interests are in smaller government and thus lower taxes. Why they want smaller government is obvious. THEY don't need much of what government does. They don't need health care from government, or public education, or government grants and loans for college kids or food stamps or school lunches or anything else designed to help the poor or middle class. You think I'm wrong?

Here is the US in the total control (just about) of the so-called conservatives of the Republican party. It's economy is booming, even more than ours. So is now the time to maybe increase taxes a bit and lower the deficit? Of course not! It's time for a huge tax cut! Screw the deficit! Let's cut those school lunches and college grants and research into diseases and health care and use it to fund a big tax cut which will mainly benefit the wealthy! Yeah, that makes sense!

And Blacks? Blacks are poor (much more often statistically). Blacks consume taxes. Blacks consume services. Ick. Blech. Even worse, Blacks don't vote Republican ( unless they're crazy). Also Blacks are criminals (Willy Horton?), and they're immoral, having lots of kids out of wedlock. They make handy targets for Republican advertising which tells poorer whites that the Republicans will reign in all those unnecessary "entitlements" which are used mainly by Blacks! (yes, I know that's not true but it makes good sound bites). And those Democrats? They only care about Blacks and gays and illegals and Muslims and other furniners and perverts and hate real Americans! (a cliché the likes of Clinton played into without batting an eye).

Trump might well be a racist, but I don't think he puts much effort into it. He's simply tapped into and made more obvious  the same messaging the Republican Party has been given out for some time now. The Democrats are the party of minorities who want to steal all your money, so you need the Republicans to protect you if you're white. Trump didn't invent that message, the Republican party did.
"When liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals won't do." David Frum
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Dangers of Crying Wolf
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2017, 03:24:18 pm »

Attempting to score political points by debasing the meaning of words causes great harm in the long run. I wish more people understood this.

There are other similar effects.  Widening what is called 'assault' so as to point out how many people have been assaulted does create awareness of the breadth of a problem, however it makes it hard to understand what we're talking about as more serious crimes are lumped in with insults and such.  Maybe that's the goal, I don't know.