Fighting for the Message: Liberal Guerrillas Need to Work on “Left Hook”

We’ve heard it all before, over and over and over again: “Obama’s a Kenyan/Moslem/Socialist who’s bent on taking away our liberty/guns/free market by encouraging illegal immigration/building secret FEMA detention camps/wielding unconstitutional executive powers!”

Those Americans who actually take the time to become informed instead of inhaling viral conservative emails, absorbing Fox News propaganda, and plugging what remains of their brains into right-wing talk radio, recognize all such bizarre conspiracy theories and leaps of logic for what they are: hateful claptrap designed to fuel the fears of angry white men and the subservient women who bow before them.

But the astonishingly sad fact is that a great many brainwashed and blow-dried citizens actually believe such nonsense. And they vote. How has our nation’s political dialogue become so vapid, degraded, and contemptuous of facts? It’s simple, really.
For one thing, liberals boast a long-standing tradition of not fighting back when smacked in the nose by conservatives. Result: conservatives own the field of battle.

Cassius Clay used a steady diet of lefts to defeat his opponents. Muhammad Ali remains The Greatest to this day. ‘Nuf said?

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For another, when they do deign to respond to the aforementioned conservative claptrap, liberals hold forth with long, drawn-out explanations featuring facts, figures, charts, graphs, and copious footnotes. Conservatives reply with quick, stinging jabs, repeated ad infinitum regardless of truth. Guess which approach wins with low-information voters who feel they simply don’t have the time to be bothered with facts, figures, charts, graphs, and have no earthly idea what “copious” means?
In boxing parlance, liberals need to work on their messaging—their “left hook,” if you will—to counter the constant barrage of conservative right jabs.
In terms of the New American Revolution, the liberal guerrillas and OccuPatriots of the 99% Brigade need to be constantly attacking the rear guard of the Kings Koch CorpaTories, nipping away at the heels of the oligarchs, and waging a war of attrition.

This is a battle for hearts and minds. And, yes, liberals really do need to “dumb down” their message into simple sound-bites and punch back hard when bullied by plutocratic lackeys disguised as “libertarians.”
Let the battlefront strategizing begin. We may have won the Battle of ObamaCare, but the defeat in Wisconsin and the never-ending supply of CorpaTory weapons from Citizens United loom large. There’s no time to lose…

Originally published at Examiner.com