Persecution Politics: The Wisconsin Republican Formula for Success?

Book Review:

Blowing Smoke: Why the Right Keeps Serving Up Whack-job Fantasies about the Plot to Euthanize Grandma, Outlaw Christmas, and Turn Junior into a Raging Homosexual.

Michael Wolraich, a contributor to Talking Points Memo Café.
© 2010 
De Capo Press
Cambridge, MA
ISBN 978-0-306-81919-3



Michael Wolraich makes the strong case that conservatives use an oft-repeated formula that succeeds in getting their right-wing wacko candidates elected to public office. Wolraich uses observations of Pat Buchanan, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly to clarify and his ideas.

Quote from page 21:  "I call this movement and the tactics employed by its leaders persecution politics. Persecution politics did not begin with the Tea Parties. It did not even begin with Fox News or Rush Limbaugh. Its roots go back to the 1970s, when the election of a black president seemed like an impossible dream."

Here's the Persecution Politics formula in a nutshell:

1. Present the slippery slope argument. 
2. Expose a secret plot being conducted by your adversaries.
3. Present yourself as the persecuted party.

I would add a fourth tactic mentioned in the book:  Identify the scapegoat.

(Select the "read more" link below to continue.)




Let me "plug in" my own example of  "persecution politics" so that you can see how the formula might work on almost any political issue. I will use California's Proposition 8, the proposition to remove the right of same-sex marriage, as my example. However, I'm sure you will find your own examples among the Wisconsin Republican 8 or other groups.

1. Present the slippery slope argument:  "Eventually you will have people marrying their pets or pet rocks if same-sex couples are allowed to marry."

2. Present the secret plot:  "Gays are secretly planning to recruit your children in the public schools and make them gay."

3. Present yourself as persecuted:  "Just because I worked feverishly to take away same-sex marriage in California gays don't like me and they refuse to shop at my business. I'm being boycotted."

4. Identify the scapegoat:  "It is fault of those unholy, unsanctioned people who chose an alternative lifestyle and are destroying our traditional marriages."

Now that you know the formula, listen to the heartless speeches of Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, the Wisconsin Republican 8, or Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and you will likely recognize elements of this formula in practice.

(The following link goes to the book at Amazon.)

Blowing Smoke: Why the Right Keeps Serving Up Whack-Job Fantasies about the Plot to Euthanize Grandma, Outlaw Christmas, and Turn Junior into a Raging Homosexual