The news this week brought back the old joke about the European
immigrant attending college in New York City. Every time he had to
address the teacher, he would stand up and make a courtly bow
before asking if the “honored Professor” would honor him with a
response. A classmate who was a local decided to disabuse the poor
greenhorn of his Old World notions.
“That’s not how we do things here in the United States of
America,” he said. “Just ask a question in a casual tone without
preliminaries.”
“Sir,” the immigrant countered. “You can get your A your way and
let me get mine my way.”
The Republican Party thinks it understands how to score A in
politics. You identify the major issues of the day and you develop
positions consistent with the pertinent information, the U.S.
Constitution, existing laws, traditional practices, morals, ethics
and ideals. Then you go out to communicate those views to the
public and hope the people react to them by casting votes in your
favor.
The Democrat Party has a different approach to acquiring the
desired A grade. First you cultivate a series of trite clichés that
artfully misrepresent reality in such a manner that all the wrong
choices sound exactly right. Should the government spend money it
does not have? “To do less would be to abandon the unfortunate.”
Should the government interfere in what food we eat, what soft
drinks we imbibe, what we smoke, what fuel we drill and mine for,
what light bulbs we use, what toilets we use, what shower heads we
use, what cars we drive? “To do less would be to abandon the
planet.” That concludes the substantive debate.
Then you start the smearing and the scoffing and the sniggering
and the scorning, the mocking and the marking and the mucking and
the muddying, the putdowns and the potshots, the detractions and
the detractions. Laugh at the Republicans, who are anyway all
dummies; berate the Republicans, who are anyway all meanies; taunt
the Republicans, who are anyway all squares.
This week’s flap over something misguided a Republican candidate
said followed the familiar pattern. Mister Akin, running for the
post of U.S. Senator from Missouri, acted a mite too Trumanesque in
making a preposterous assertion during an interview. He tried to
walk the comment back and to change the subject to matters of
importance, but to little avail.
It seems to me there are two ways to win, but the Republicans
always take the third way. One way to win is by resolutely refusing
to get involved in nonsense talk, to never give stupid interviews
to ambushing reporters. Just stay on message, speak only about the
issues, and make them come to play on your side of the field. With
both sides playing the same game, you have a fair shot of winning,
and when it is the substance game, the Republican has the home
court advantage.
The other way is to play only the other guy’s game. Dredge up
his dirt, bait him into talking out of turn, sneer at him with a
lip that can match his curl for curl and a nose that can match his
upturn for upturn. He says you’re inaccurate, you say he’s a liar;
he says you’re a racist, you say he’s a racist and a sexist; he
says you’re willing to help the rich at the expense of the poor,
you say he actually takes from the poor with his policies and gives
to the rich with his government contracts.
One thing is for sure, Republicans are not going to win until
they recognize the Democrats are playing a different game. It does
not make you look more noble when he’s smashing you but you’re
respecting him; it just makes you look naïve and unschooled and
misplaced.
I’ll conclude with a story from my own life experience, one I
have mentioned here before in detail. Briefly, I was in a store
selling Jewish religious articles and I witnessed a quirky sort of
negotiation. The store owner kept explaining to the customer the
high quality and value of the item he wanted, while the customer
just kept trying to haggle down the price. Eventually a young
Yeshiva student jumped in and told the storekeeper the following:
“Rabbi Cohen, don’t feel bad. The two of you are not actually
having a discussion. You are talking about religion but he is
talking about money.”
In honor of the birth August 22 of my 9th grandchild, first
male who shares my last name, born to Aaron and Devora Homnick of
New Jersey.
