Jon Stewart deconstructs the GOP path to win
Jon Stewart got to the grit of the 2014 midterm election. He deconstructed the path and methods the Republicans hope to follow to ensure a victory. Tonight’s results will determine if the American gullibility index is still high.
Jon Stewart starts the piece by showing conservative pundits attacking the Democratic Party for a lack of ideas and competence. They fail to mention that the Democratic Party with little to no help from the Republican Party navigated the country out of a potential depression and provided for the first time in history affordable and secure healthcare.
Jon Stewart then contrasted what the GOP was offering to Americans as seen through their ads. It was evident that there was no fact based policy being offered to help working and unemployed Americans. What the GOP offered was fear, a carnal fear, an existential fear. ‘Ebola and/or ISIS will get you if you do not vote Republican’ is their offer.
One should note that the Democrats ceded this cycle to fear. Why else was there no full throated articulation of what is actually going right and what would be done to improve the trajectory? Just as it was political malpractice when Republicans concentrated solely on social issues (Guns, gays, and abortion, etc.), it is political malpractice for Democrats to concentrate on directed social issues without articulating an improved trajectory for the country. Bill Maher did a great piece where he slammed Democrats for not promoting the myriad of successes throughout the Obama administration.
Jon Stewart proceeded to illustrate the GOP’s ‘fail-safe’ option to work in concert with the fear factor, voter suppression. It was not difficult for him to use snippets of news reports from around the country to show the laws were specifically designed to target the young, minorities, and women.
The question remains, will it work? If it works this time, is it a method that will be effective going forward? We will know if it worked no later than January. If it does work it will be modus operandi until honest brokers are returned to power.