Political season is heating up so it’s that time in American life when people lose their minds. This is the time when the fact-free claims about candidates spread like wildfire because who has time to fact check, when you just like the claim because it attacks the candidate you hate.
Please fact check before you post or share. When people post fake claims, it shows me that they really don’t have legitimate reasons for the positions they hold so they have to make shit up. That’s not to say that sharing factual information to explain why you don’t like a candidate is problematic. You should show others how you came to the conclusions you came to, and you should be able to have respectful discussions about those conclusions. It’s no secret that I don’t like Mayo Pete. I have never posted a lie to attack Pete because I don’t need to. I have plenty of reasons why I concluded he would be a terrible candidate, and I invited everyone to fact check me.
But fakery isn’t what this post is about. This post is about helping people tell the difference between an “attack” and a political campaign in which someone is trying to win the democratic nomination.
I’m going to start with examples to show what I mean.
Pointing out that Mayo Pete attended a fundraiser in a wine cave is not an “attack”. It’s a factual statement that Pete himself has made about how he’s going to run his campaign: with lots and lots of corporate money. If you’re a Pete supporter and you see this as an “attack”, you may want to ask yourself why you’re so defensive.
Pointing out that Joe Biden’s bankruptcy bill resulted in an explosion of student loan debt, crippling our consumer based economy is not an “attack”. Biden himself has defended that bill. If you’re a Biden supporter and you see this as an “attack”, you may want to ask yourself why you’re so defensive.
Pointing out that Elizabeth Warren was once a republican is not an “attack”. It’s in her freaking book. If you’re a Warren supporter and you see this as an “attack”, you may want to ask yourself why you’re so defensive and why you’re unable to defend her evolution.
Pointing out that Bernie’s record in guns is pretty bad is not an “attack”. You can examine his voting record for yourself. He’s made some pretty terrible votes on the issue. If you’re a Bernie supporter and you see this as an “attack”, you may want to ask yourself why you’re so defensive.
Now for a couple of examples of attacks.
Now this is an attack. It’s a baseless claim designed to tap into fears. Hillary basically referred to Obama as a child for the better part of a year with no evidence whatsoever.
This is also an attack, although a particularly slimy one:
Hillary’s team put this out there in the 2008 primary, hoping to stoke Islamophobic fears in order to win the election. We know it was Hillary’s campaign because it took them a while to deny it.
Do you see the difference between an attack and running a campaign in which you explain to the voters that you’re a better choice than their opponents?
The two examples of attacks that I gave came from Hillary’s 2008 campaign because they were by far, the sleaziest examples of democrat-on-democrat attacks I’d seen in my lifetime. Truly. I looked at primary campaign ads and articles going back to 1991 and 2008 was by far the worst. If anyone can find an example of anything sleazier, please send it to me.
I get particularly bitchy when I see people with “I’m still with her” in their profiles clutching their pearls and posting articles like this, this, this, and this claiming that Bernie is “on the attack”. There have been dozens of these in just the past week, so the DNC is stepping up their efforts against Bernie. Anyone who voted for Hillary in the 2008 primary, the 2016 primary, or the 2016 general is clearly not offended by political “attacks”, and they obviously can’t tell the difference between an attack and a campaign.
Can we please try and limit the stupid this year? I want all of the candidates to be thoroughly vetted and challenged. And yes, that especially applies to the one I support. We need to be able to tell if they can stand up to scrutiny. Campaigning on differences between your record and your opponents’ is called campaigning. I promise you that Trump’s campaign isn’t going to ignore a single shitty vote any of these candidates took. So better to get it all out there in the primaries.
What I have no patience for is fake outrage, phony claims about a candidate’s record, and reactionary defensiveness upon hearing facts that are at odds with your positions. You have to reconcile those inconvenient facts somehow or revisit your position.That’s how sentience works.
For example I have concluded that in regard to Bernie’s crappy voting record on guns, his position on getting corporate money out of politics will do far more to break the NRA’s stranglehold on America than even dozens of good votes would do. See how that worked? I didn’t deny his crappy record because I don’t like it and I don’t get irate when someone brings it up because it’s true. So I accepted this fact about Bernie, on a topic that’s very important to me and I made my calculations based on my priorities and my own self interest. Without his firm stance on corporate money, his gun voting record would be a deal breaker for me and he would be off my short list.
I did the same thing with Elizabeth Warren’s early life as a republican. Nothing in her voting record in the senate suggests she’s anything but a very progressive democrat (on domestic issues, anyway) so I’m unconcerned about her prior republicanness.
To summarize, facts are not attacks. Even when they’re inconvenient for you, facts are facts and you’re going to have to learn to deal with them like a grown-up. Scaring you into voting for someone with baseless allegations and innuendo are attacks. Making shit up out of whole cloth to damage your opponent is an attack.
Please, for the sake of my sanity, learn to tell the difference. We have an important choice to make here. Let’s not repeat the stupidity of the last presidential election.
