The Way It Is

The book Answering Back by David Coates has a very insightful summary of right-wing rottweiler techniques. “Here’s how to write like a conservative rottweiler:”

1. Straw men and Trojan horses Put together a straw-man liberal composed of several people with bizarre beliefs. Once you’ve labelled these people as “liberals”, you can accuse all liberals of holding the same bizarre beliefs. If anyone points out that very few liberals actually hold those beliefs, you claim that they nonetheless represent the essence of liberalism and that moderate liberals are merely a Trojan horse for your straw-man radicals.
2. Patriots and traitors Wrap everything you say in the American flag, speak lovingly of the old days when conservative policies made America a paradise, and then imply that one generation of liberal policies destroyed it. Cry a little to demonstrate your patriotism, preferably on TV.
3. Label the message, shoot the messenger Label any policy you dislike with as many “bad” tags as you can think of, like “activist” or “socialist”. Always present every discussion as no-middle-ground “freedom” vs “socialism” with socialism understood to be anything which might reduce inequality, increase taxes, or limit the political power the rich. Never simply disagree, but denigrate the person in medical terms, as an infection, a cancer, vermin which needs to be cut out or exterminated. Yet at the same time, exaggerate their power and prestige and present yourself as an oppressed and persecuted minority even when you visibly are not.
4. Blame the victim, demonize those who try to help Turn reality entirely on its head. Ignore the fact that the vast majority of wealth is inherited, not earned, and ignore the extremely low social mobility in America compared to all other industrialized nations. Blame poverty on the poor, unemployment on the jobless, and illness on the sick. This frees you from all moral obligations! Blame all social ills on previous liberal attempts to correct them.
5. Outflank the Republican party on the right Present Republican leadership in DC as closet liberals. Do not admit that the Bush administration was genuinely conservative. Continuously pull the Republican Party further from government-based solutions of any kind. This allows you to blame the failures of the Bush administration not on his conservative ideals, but on his betrayal of them! Turn so far to the right that not even Fox News would disseminate your ideas, because that will show how dominant the liberal media is — see, they even control Fox News…
6. Paint the immediate future in truly apocalyptic terms Treat Obama as the the source and embodiment of everything that is bad, blame him (and not Bush) for our present economic difficulties. Talk about a conspiracy of unspeakable evil bringing America to ruin by electing Obama. Get very close to inviting a private violent intervention by some hothead that might yet save us from this disaster.

There you have it folks! The right-wing rottweiler training program in a nutshell, an ingenious way to prevent calm, polite, and thoughtful discussion.