The poor man is inundated with hateful email. People don’t like him, they’re angry at George Bush, they accuse him of being Bush’s lapdog (a charge he denies, but Digby provides the evidence—hatefully, no doubt), and he just can’t understand why (at least I can answer that one: it’s because he’s not very bright).
Cohen can whine all he wants about the fact that people don’t like him, but here’s the charge to which I must take strong exception:
But the message in this case truly is the medium. The e-mails pulse in my queue, emanating raw hatred. This spells trouble — not for Bush or, in 2008, the next GOP presidential candidate, but for Democrats. The anger festering on the Democratic left will be taken out on the Democratic middle. (Watch out, Hillary!) I have seen this anger before — back in the Vietnam War era. That’s when the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party helped elect Richard Nixon. In this way, they managed to prolong the very war they so hated.
Oh, yeah—don’t be angry, you’ll lose! And please, please don’t throw me into that briar patch, Br’er Fox!
I despise George W. Bush, and I’m extremely angry at the direction the Republican party has taken my country. That, it seems to me, is the appropriate response; why would anyone with my best interests at heart suggest otherwise? We’re in the middle of a morass of a war that was started by those assholes on the basis of an error (charitably) or pure venality and stupidity (most likely), our people are dying, the Middle East has become more unstable, and what are we supposed to do? Nod pleasantly at the nice oilmen, sit back and enjoy our high fat diets and cable TV, and try to be placid? That’s insane. We should be angry. We should be fighting back. We should be standing up with veins throbbing at our temples, shouting at the tepid Democrats who want our votes that they damn well better wake up and oppose the status quo. Cohen himself says that “Institution after institution failed America—the presidency, Congress and the press”…and we’re not supposed to be furious about that? We’re not supposed to demand change?
As for the Vietnam War—I remember that. I remember the demonstrations and the college campuses lighting up with howls of protest. I remember the dead every night on the television news. That’s also a war the people wanted to stop, and we screamed at the top of our lungs until they heard us. We were so loud that Nixon had to promise “peace with honor” and to “end the war and win peace” to get elected. In the 60s and 70s, that vigorous opposition had even the Republicans admitting that they somehow had to end that wasteful war; have you noticed how quiet the campuses and city streets are now, and how no one in power is admitting their failures yet? The message of Vietnam is that we need to mobilize more anger and stir up more strenuous, vocal opposition.
It’s the lapdogs of the administration, the tools of the destructive status quo, whose job it is to quell the angry mob. Rise up and scream, people, ignore the lackeys of the Right who want you to be ashamed of righteous fury.
Eh, just tell Wanker Cohen to go eat a good old-fashioned Texas s**t sandwich. ;)
And yet the war ended not by a planned pullout, but by the fall of Saigon. So, in other words, the protesters might well have not bothered. While the war in Vietnam was a bad idea, and so is the Iraq war, as a cynical member of Gen X, I’m a bit annoyed at the self-praise Baby Boomers give themselves for the end of the Vietnam war.
Protest is all good and well, but it is basically like scream therapy — it allows the frustrations with the idiocy of the Bush administration to be released in a safe manner.
Great post, PZ – thanks for again pointing out what should be obvious to anyone with a functioning cerebrum, yet somehow isn’t…Someone needs to take a stand – we’ve been civil for waaaay too long!
This seems to be a common notion, this idea that the only way Democrats will ever start winning elections is if they suppress all their opinions and become indistinguishable from Republicans. Usually this kindly piece of advice comes from Republicans and can be easily ignored, but sometimes more servile, Uncle Tom quasi-democrats like Cohen voice it, which is much more annoying.
Besides, if being ‘angry’ always costs parties elections, how does one explain 2000? The Republicans were demented with rage after 8 years of Clinton, and they did a remarkably adroit job of stealing that election. (Heck, they almost got more votes than the Democrat!) The idea that anger is what costs the Democrats the elections is bullshit misinformation started by the Republicans, which makes it all the more pathetic when Democrats start parroting the idea.
I hate him because of this line in his Colbert commentary, following a description of how in the past and in other countries there’s still jail time and death for criticising your leaders: “But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in.”
I love this. No, really. I just love how he implies that the ability to criticize the leadership of our country is something BAD. I love how he denegrates the 220 years of effort of the founding fathers and the people who have challenged kings, religions, administrations, and congresses by getting the courts to recognise and enforce the constitution that these leaders are supposed to be adhering to above all other factors (including God) in their decisions for this country.
We have almost reached a true point of the enlightenment that the founders wanted all along – the ability to say ANYTHING about the government and not be punished (other than encouraging murder, which is treasonable). Anything goes – the ultimate in freedom of thought and speech.
And Cohen thinks this is a bad thing!
The idea that anger hurts Democrats is ridiculous. It never hurt Republicans. About the only thing going for Republicans is their ability to play on lower middle class resentment–the notion that because I don’t have everything I would like to have, it must be that some undeserving party has stolen it from me. Surely, the GOP would have trouble getting votes if all they could offer was a promise of free golf trips to Scotland for any Republican elected to a seat in Congress.
Republicans have turned anger into such an artform that they manage to stay angry even after they win elections. This partly compensates for their inability to do much of anything else as far as I can tell. The main problem with Democrats is an unfortunate tendency to declare victory too early–we’re the stupid kids in a zombie movie, the ones who think it’s time to party after we hit the zombie over the head with a shovel and stunned it.
What has hurt Democrats history is not anger but disunity. I’m not old enough to know really, but I think that is a much better explanation of the 1968 convention disaster than “anger.” Right now, there is plenty (“a long train of abuses and usurpations”) that we can all agree to be angry about. There’s no reason why this anger needs to cause disunity.
Mr. Badgers says: “And yet the war ended not by a planned pullout, but by the fall of Saigon. So, in other words, the protesters might well have not bothered. While the war in Vietnam was a bad idea, and so is the Iraq war, as a cynical member of Gen X, I’m a bit annoyed at the self-praise Baby Boomers give themselves for the end of the Vietnam war.”
I beg to differ with you. The protests against the war stirred the public to oppose the war which in turn motivated the politicians, including Nixon and before him, Johnson, to lose their appetite for the war. Troops were being withdrawn even as Saigon fell. Maybe Gen X members should consider what they can do to stop the current madness instead sitting back silently in their annoyed cynicism.
Joe Shelby:
Yeah, though what made me stop and say “Wuuuuh?” was the part about Colbert being a “bully” criticizing a sitting US president to his face.
But I have to admit that the part about suffering consequences gave me more to chew on later. I was trying to understand it. By his rule, you cannot really speak truth to power unless there’s a measurable risk that you’ll be thrown into the dungeon for it. What should we conclude from this? That we ought to get the dungeons up and running again to provide more opportunities for courage? Or that it’s just not worth speaking up about anything anymore because it’s just too easy? Speaking truth to power is a “tired” phrase to Cohen, after all. Like it’s so totally 1960s.
It strikes me that the prospect of Cohen losing his cushy WaPo gig is enough to prevent him from criticizing anyone too harshly. The genius of American political control is the realization that nothing as grotesque as a dungeon is needed to suppress nearly all forms of dissent.
I rather suspect the fact that the public were more motivated by relatives coming back in body bags from a country that they couldn’t even place on a map than any protests.
Sure — the communists were controlling more and more territory — where were the troops supposed to stay? Nixon was never sincere about wanting to pull the troops out in the years when he could have — he really thought the US was going to win.
Hey, I’ve licked and stuffed envelopes for political campaigns — less glamorous than being at the March on the Pentagon or at Woodstock or something, but rather more useful, I’d think.
BTW, there’s a certain irony that the same guy who says Colbert suffered no consequences is now hysterical over a “digital lynch mob.” So he got a bunch of letters? So what? He gets to keep his job and even spend valuable column inches complaining to millions of readers about his ill-treatment. That’s how it should be, as long as he provides whatever service it is that the Washington Post sees fit to pay him to do.
But his detractors, while they may have used a “digital” medium, have no resemblance whatsoever to a lynch mob. By Cohen’s own admission, he didn’t even bother to read the responses carefully. Whoa, Richy, I feel your pain. Just knowing those letters are there is painful enough. It’s disgusting for him to compare this to the suffering and death of the victims of lynching in this country.
It’s pretty much always your oppressor that tells you you’re the one at fault. Ironically enough this fits in with both the philospohical basis for hard-right conservatism, and conservative approaches to religion.
The other paradox I find most interesting in conservatism is the fact that though they claim the individual is the starting point, and the better unit to focus on as opposed to the group, the individual is the first thing they tar and feather. So how can they simultaneously trust and distrust the same thing?
It’s so fucking ridiculous when people say that “anger is not the correct response”. Enlighten me, then, as to what is the correct response. These people want to perpetrate their religious bullshit ON MY PERSON. But we’re supposed to shut up about that and take one for the team because we don’t want to scare away the “liberal” religionists.
Oh, those crazy liberals, they’re so crazy and angry! No, what’s crazy and utterly creepy is wanting to know wanting to know what I’m doing in the bedroom so you can make sure I’m not doing anything to offend your pervy deity.
You see, this is the problem. You just don’t understand that he works under better standards. They’re twice as good. That’s why they’re called “double-standards.” ;)
i’ve posted this elsewhere, but it still seems relevant here:
another thing that strikes me is, if you ignore someone long enough, eventually the frustration at being continually ignored builds up and explodes as anger (or, 3,000 mean emails).
the msm should start listening, if not to the individual ranting, then to the phenomenon of thousands of people feeling the need to rant, and they should ask themselves, what does this mean, how are we involved in this apparent need to yell, and why?
of course, they won’t. they long for the days when journamalism was a one way street, with pundits on high gracing the unwashed masses with their pure thoughts without fear of debate.
anyway, my take on the msm’s rather late take on colbert’s take on aWol is here
“His show has an audience of about 1 million — not exactly ‘American Idol’ numbers. ”
More proof that Cohen just doesn’t get it. First, how can one compare a low-budget, late-night basic cable show with the biggest hit on prime-time network television that spends millions on promotion. For more realistic comparison, I looked at week’s ratings from the last week of November 2005 (the only ones I could find). Colbert had an average of 650,000 viewers for the week compared to Leno and Letterman who each had about 2.6 million. Not too shabby, especially when one considers that Comedy Central reaches 20% fewer homes than the networks and that TCR has virtually zero advertising outside of Comedy Central. Also for comparison, this past weekend Fox News Sunday had 1.2 million viewers.
And more importantly, people haven’t watched this Colbert clip on his show. So Colbert’s weekly ratings are really beside the point. They’ve watched it on the web. YouTube reports that there were 2.7 million downloads of the Colbert video in a 48 hour span. And that’s just one site. All told, there are probably 5-6 million who’ve seen the clip. That’s roughly 5% of the Ameican population and registered voters are probably overrepresented in this group. Clearly, Colbert hit a nerve that resonated with millions of Americans.
What is perhaps most disturbing to Cohen and his ilk in the MSM is that for the first time, thanks to the web, they are really hearing from the American public. They’re not used to being fact-checked, corrected, criticized, and held accountable by their readers for what they write. And they don’t like it.
You know the regime is in its last throes when its water carriers are running scared from a fake journalist on a late-night basic cable comedy show.
The idea that Stephen Colbert is a “bully” is grotesque. Stephen Colbert hasn’t sent anyone’s kids to die in a needless quagmire war to enhance Comedy Central’s bottom line.
As for Cohen’s “digital lynch mob”, I’m sure Colbert got twice as many hate mails, death threats against him and his family, etc.
Like all wingnuts, Cohen is a bully, and like all bullies, he is a coward. He can dish it out but he can’t take it.
Quotes taken from multiple posts:
Protest is all good and well, but it is basically like scream therapy…
… but what else is there? Change through voting alone happens in geological time, especially when candidates are so slickly marketed by their polished inoffensiveness. At the other extreme, change through violence is an ethical nightmare. What else do we have but our willingness to be non-violent but vocal? Peace does not always equal quiet.
I just love how he implies that the ability to criticize the leadership of our country is something BAD.
That one always shocks and infuriates me as well. “It’s better here than in the gulag!” is not a slogan that inspires confidence in the wingnuts’ vision for this country.
of course, it’s a little difficult to take seriously somebody whose reaction to the infamous Colin Powell UN presentation was this:
(Via the General, via Atrios)
PZ: That’s also a war the people wanted to stop, and we screamed at the top of our lungs until they heard us.
I think you left out a tiny little difference. The draft. I think if we bring it back we’ll have a lot more protesters. You just can’t whip up that kind of anger on something that won’t affect you personally I guess. I mean soldiers are dying but that’ll be nothing the protesters will face. Unless they volunteer and sign up. Which they won’t.
Joe Shelby: I just love how he implies that the ability to criticize the leadership of our country is something BAD.
I think you twisted the meaning. Wasn’t he commenting on this “is representative of what too often passes for political courage“? Colbert is seen a courageous because he insulted the president. But there is no courage if there are no consequences, right? He didn’t say criticize the leadership, he said “insult the president”. There’s a difference. Me saying “I think you’re wrong because…” is a bit different than if I said “You troll…”.
BlueIndependent: I think the way to understand the paradox is to recognize first that there is a distinction between sociocultural and financial/economic conservatism. Second, it seems to me that the sociocultural conservatives gain power when people are otherwise atomized because this allows them to impose their own form of authoritarianism on top – people are social creatures and when only one or two forms of sociality are available, they reach out to it.
NatureSelectedMe:
Mainly, he’s seen as having said things that were accurate and needed to be said. Whether he’s courageous or not is irrelevant. If you need a drain cleared you call the plumber and you’re happy when the job is done, independent of the plumber’s “courage” in doing it.
Likewise, Colbert did a job that was waiting to be done. It’s good to live in a world where people can do their job without fear of unjust retribution. I respect those who’ve shown courage in the past, but I look forward to a world in which even we cowards can speak our minds.
I don’t know about courage, but Colbert certainly has balls.
To summarize Cohen’s main points:
Colbert did not really speak truth to power (a “tired phrase” as the hip DC insiders all know) because Bush lacks the traditional prerogatives of power, such as being able to send him off to the gulag, throw him in the dungeon, arrange a “disappearance”, etc.
President Bush, head of state of the world’s most powerful nation, and commander in chief of its armed forces, was in fact a victim of Colbert’s bullying.
Cohen, moreover, is the victim of a “digital lynch mob” because he got a big stack of emails that made him feel bad.
Let’s see, we have one big bully and two victims. If this is the new definition of bullying, then let’s have a big Nelson “Ha Ha.”
Not to disagree with the message, but if “We should be standing up with veins throbbing at our temples,..” you have something wrong with your veins. The throbs should be arterial, and only arterial.
Colbert did not really speak truth to power (a “tired phrase” as the hip DC insiders all know) because Bush lacks the traditional prerogatives of power, such as being able to send him off to the gulag, throw him in the dungeon, arrange a “disappearance”, etc.
Who’d like to take bets on Colbert having a surprise IRS audit next year, coupled with a sudden appearance on the national no-fly list?
Also, imagine the wingnut nastygrams Colbert must be getting. Think Cohen’s ‘sympathetic’?