I saw it tonight with my very own eyes, heard it with my ears. A cause promoted in the interests of the people was stolen, twisted and regurgitated in a form that would take the steam out of a movement and turn it against itself.
That is exactly what is happening in this country, and it is slicker than slight-of-hand. In just a few sentences, a politician magically transformed ire against wealth disparity into a call to decrease taxes on the wealthy.
Huh? I still can’t believe it, but it is becoming almost routine. It may not work with the Occupy Wall Street crowd, but it has worked in other ways for millions of Americans who saw their anger at Wall Street’s disastrous gamble being bailed out by the taxpayers transformed into a call for deregulation of Wall Street.
Huh?
Hard to believe? Let me start with tonight. Eric Cantor, who not long ago expressed his concern about the “mobs” occupying Wall Street and other cities around the country, said that he understands their concerns about wealth disparity. The Republicans are all about upward mobility fairness, he said. And to help those whose incomes have been stagnant, he, Eric Cantor, has a plan. The plan will increase jobs and salaries by encouraging the 1% to create jobs by – wait for it – decreasing taxes on the wealthy by 10%.
Huh?
At a time when the wealthiest 1% saw their income increase by over $1,000,000.00 a year, with the lowest tax rates in half a century and special tax breaks only for the wealthy, Eric Cantor wants to give the wealthy more tax breaks so that they will have more money to invest in jobs.
One imagines the wealthy sleeping on mattresses stuffed with hundred dollar bills and having problems finding places to store more cash. What in the world will they do with more money? And what makes Representative Cantor think giving them more will help the average American? Certainly not history.
With politics so highly polarized, the TEA party’s transformation from a populist movement to a highly conservative, maybe even regressive, movement almost escaped my notice. Their messages were sometimes mixed with foolishness and racism, and their obvious dislike of Obama invited Democrats to see them as “the enemy.” Most Democrats see the elections of 2010 and the obstructionism after that as vindication of the “us versus them” polarity, and polls that show the majority of the TEA party are, in fact, Republicans substantiate that.
Something happened that changed my mind a bit; not about the TEA party’s influence or the way that their voters have affected elections, but about what the movement was really about in the first place. I noticed that the actual complaints from the Occupy Wall Street were almost identical to those of the TEA party at the very start of the movement.
To wit:
The TEA party objected to “bailouts” of Wall Street and other businesses. Taxpayer money was being funneled into financial institutions with virtually no accountability right after Wall Street had blown trillions on high stakes gambling with “derivatives” and other practices that were permitted by the deregulation of Wall Street.
Why would this group support further deregulation of Wall Street? Why would this group support tax subsidies for corporations making billions of dollars in profits? Why would this group insist that the wealthiest of the wealthy need more tax breaks?
The TEA party was upset when they thought the Democrats might make cuts in Medicare. The screamed “Death Panels” when they thought the cost cutting measures of Medicare might lead to the need for Medicare to approve some charges and not others that might allow hopeless cases to die rather than receive treatment. The most mixed up message was, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”
Why would this group support the repeal of Medicare as we know it?
Democrats have been perplexed at how people could vote against their best interests and vote in favor of those who we can call the 1%, and rightly so, but the more perplexing thing is how they seem to be voting against the very things that inflamed the movement to begin with.
The extremely conservative Republicans whose support comes primarily from the extremely wealthy have (almost) perfected the art of getting people to support the exact opposite of what they want and even what they need. The mental manipulation could have been taken from a book on “How to make a cult.”
There may be several steps, but they follow a pattern.
1. Sympathize with the interests of the group.
2. Equate these interests with some aspect of their own agenda.
3. Change the nature of the complaint (misdirect)
4. Voice their agenda as the goal of the group.
A group or cause that has had their message thus transformed may have buyer’s remorse and so may regret endorsing this agenda, but they also have cognitive dissonance, bolstered by a loyalty and trust (that was misused). If the misdirection is at least superficially logical and fits with their other values, they will find a way to support the substituted agenda. Both the group and the conservative cheerleaders (emphasis on “leaders”) may use confirmation bias and selective ignorance to avoid further cognitive dissonance.
In steps two and three, simplification to the point of oversimplification can take a complicated issue and effectively make the issue itself disappear.
When I reviewed the speeches, I found specific rhetorical cues that identify when the message is being changed. I’ll present some later, but first let me give examples of how specific messages were changed. Hijacked would be a better word perhaps…
1. Wall Street Bailouts
Republicans said they too were against bailouts and blamed them on the Democrats even though the TARP program was devised and initiated by President Bush. They said that Government was to blame. Governments are bad because they do things like bailouts and over regulation. “We need to fight government regulation!”
2. Medicare
Republicans said they supported Medicare and were horrified by the prospect of cutting these programs. Excessive government spending will mean that programs like Medicare will become insolvent. Government giveaways and “entitlement programs” like welfare caused this country to near bankruptcy. We need to cut or eliminate entitlement programs – like Medicare.
I have been focusing on these two items, but there are many other similar examples. Elimination of the EPA, for example, was seemingly out of left field, but by equating this with government spending and regulation (which they consistently aligned with government “on their backs”) they made the EPA a target of the TEA party.
The TEA party wasn’t persuaded to support a radical approach to government that would leave businesses to squeeze customers, cheat customers and pollute their customers; they were tricked into supporting these causes.
Cognitive dissonance leaves them unable to back away from these caustic and harmful positions because they are told that they supported them from the beginning.
Quite a trick, isn’t it?
Changing the emphasis from rebuilding roads and bridges, hiring policemen, firefighters and teachers to government spending and taxes taken from the working people can make people who complain about the lack of good roads, disintegrating bridges, lack of law enforcement, inadequate response of fire departments and the poor quality of education support letting the roads and bridges fall apart and firing public workers.
I have a friend who had decided that Medicare should be eliminated. He was on dialysis from diabetic kidney disease when he voiced this complaint and he subsequently received a kidney transplant – both funded entirely by Medicare through the Medicare Special Needs Plan. Without this support, he would have died. He had become convinced that his own health was subordinate to the evil that is “government spending and taxation.”
Consider that a Republican congressman or congresswoman that belittles public sector employees and their “overgenerous health and retirement plans”:
1. Is a public sector employee
2. Makes more than almost all other public sector employees
3. Has one of the best health care plans in the world
The rhetorical tricks I mentioned parallel the steps I mentioned that are used to change a group’s message into their own agenda.
“We can all agree that…”
And the game is on. They sympathize with the concerns expressed.
“The cause of [your concern] is something we’ve known for a long time…”
Their cause is your cause? Really?
“We know that…”
Taxes hurt business? The wealthy invest when they have money to invest? Poor people are lazy? This is where misdirection becomes an art, and oversimplification makes complicated problems easy to define in terms that are both misleading and enticing at the same time. The twisted logic plays on the patriotism, prejudices and preconceptions of the people and ignores facts and history.
“The only solution to this problem is…”
Beware of the word “only”. Their solutions address their misdirection instead of the original concern, but since they have tied the original concern to their agenda the solution will seem to follow, even if the solution will exacerbate their concerns.
I didn’t pay much attention to this when it was happening at first. I just marveled that people could be led to believe that their interests were being addressed by actions counter to their interests.
Now that I understand, I can explain that vague feeling of nausea I get when I hear Eric Cantor speak.
“Job Creators”….
Excuse me for a moment-
Even understanding this cannot explain why Eric Cantor and his colleagues push an agenda that benefits the wealthiest while harming the rest of the country. In order to understand that, it is necessary to examine the influence of Money in Politics.
That, too, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
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