To Win the Centre, End the Paranoia

There's been a lot of discussion recently about how the conservative movement and the Republican party can grow, regroup and gain the support of the American people. Blame has been placed in all quarters except, it seems, one of the most important: the paranoiac hysteria which is too common among the Right.

I am not a deeply conservative person, but some of the movement's goals are excellent. Efficient government, national security, individual freedoms - we'd all love to see those things achieved. So why don't these policies get votes?

Social conservatives are being blamed, but a huge number of people are socially conservative.

Incompetent leadership is being blamed, but a huge number of Democratic politicians are incompetent.

More important, I think, is the nature of conservative arguments. Instead of appealing to reason or to values, a vast number of GOP supporters prefer, well, nonsense. Vicious, terrifying nonsense, which drives away far more people than it attracts. Take, for example, the well-known example of the Obama Muslim claims - if you're reaidng this, you're probably well aware that he isn't and never has been a follower of the Islamic religion. However, 23% of people in Texas believe otherwise. They believe he's a muslim because this is what we tell them.

By "we", I refer to conservative voices: pundits, Rush and Hannity, bloggers, low-level GOP campaign operatives and the authors of email forwards. A really depressingly large number of conservative communicators have no respect for facts, but simply assume their opponents must be guilty of anything. Let's take the ongoing Minnesota Senate affair:

Norm Coleman has won re-election in the initial count of ballots, although it was very close and he may lose in a hand recount. It's helpful to donate to his campaign's legal fund, to root for him, and to carefully scrutinise the process.. but it is completely unhelpful to make up bullshit about fraud which isn't occurring. It makes us look like unstable fools. Conservative commentators create sites like minnesotademsexposed.com, purporting to expose electoral fraud taking place - which is vital, right? We have to ensure that the election isn't stolen.

But that isn't what they do. Instead, they are paranoid nuts who get hysterical about 'ACORN' - an organisation which has nothing to do with counting votes in Minnesota - and about the story of 'ballots left in cars'. This story is completely false, but nobody checks that.

People don't check whether Barack Obama is really a Muslim - or if they do, and once they know he isn't, they continue to prevaricate and imply that maybe he might somehow be, because they think it will get them electoral advantage. They're wrong; it turns away everyone who's not an idiot.

People don't check whether electoral fraud is really ongoing; whether the Democrats actually intend to reintroduce the Fairness Directive; whether Obama tax policies are "socialist" compared to those of Regan; whether Hillary Clinton shot Vince Foster or whether Sarah Palin opposed building a bridge.

Our own Soren Dayton, for goodness' sakes, posts mostly hysterical paranoia about ACORN and things Obama will never do. It's not even the content so much as the tone: when we spend our time ranting about things which are mostly lies and entirely trivial, we turn off anyone who doesn't already listen to Rush.

Some of us know this stuff is nonsense, and do nothing. Some of us don't know, because we don't want to look too closely at things which support our world view. And some of us believe it and insist on discrediting everyone else by claiming that our enemy is a gay black supremacist arab muslim radical socialist terrorist illegitimate kenyan election thief! This makes Democrats angry, inspired to fight hard against the right; it makes independents scared, unwilling to associate with the right.

Rather than taking on faith anything that sounds good for conservatives - too good to be true - fact check and ignore the lies. Rather than being complicit with their spreading and allowing the base to be brainwashed into monsters, educate them with real reasons to support conservative values. Why not be the party of integrity, and make the other side look like the crazies for once?