Reprivateans constantly demonize "liberals" and "liberalism," so why won't

[bobweaver]

the Democrats ever demonize "conservatives" or "conservativism?" To the Reprivateans the real war is against liberalism, but the Democrats only want to fight the little tiny battles here and there, not the big war against the Reprivateans' entire ideology?

[Carolab]

1. Yup. Reframe the debate.

Right-wing extremists are domestic terrorists.

[housewolf]

2. Today's Conservatives need enemies

and one of their's is liberalism. Democrats are more conciliatory and don't like enemies. We'd rather negotiate. But we're never going to get anywhere trying to negotiate with these conservatives so we'd better realize that they've declared a war against us, stand up and fight it.

[AmandaRuth]

3. i wonder the same thing myself

The dems would have no problems winning if the connection was made between the one religion dominionists nut-cases, the economic terrorists (Chao) and neocons.

Sometimes i get the feeling that the lesson will be learned after the next election, unfortunate, if the hard right gains control of the government, it will be too late. We will be looking at fundamental changes in our society.

[renaissanceguy]

4. That's exactly what we need to do.

The MSM is starting to pick up "neocon." We need to give it a bad meaning (i.e. war criminal, Taliban-esque). At the same time, though, we need to make "liberal" a good word again.

Edited to add: Liberals have always been the source of progress, from the formation of this country, to the Civil Rights movement, to the Gay Rights Movement. And it seems now that the liberals are the ones with fiscal responsibility.

http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues/466053

[LostInAnomie]

5. It is hard to demonize the status quo.

It is easy for them because they can easily identify those who are willing to make changes.

The case for demonizing the conservatives would take in depth explanations and a audience with the attention span to actually listen. That does not describe the American public.

Conservatives already have the work done for them. Most of the public does not like paying taxes, most of the public is convinced that organized religion is a good thing, etc. They can reduce their arguments easily to a short sentence, catch phrase, or slogan.

[fnottr]

6. I think what we need to do

Is to get some people on the payroll to come up with simple catch phrases and sentences to sum up our positions. I think one of our problems is we assume the general public is as interested in policy specifics as we are. In general, they aren't, they want something short and sweet that they can understand. I think we lose a lot of support because a lot of prospective voters simply don't understand what progressivism is in this day and age,

[DaedelusNemo]

7. Split your enemies away from your potential friends

We are in inevitable conflict with the authoritarian theocrats. We need to talk about how we like the old-style conservatives, the ones that believed in limiting gov't power and maximizing personal freedom, but have seen their party hijacked by authoritarian theocrats who are inimical to all of that. Split the libertarian-minded away from the power-mad.

Demonize authoritarianism, the idea that gov't should control the people, that power should rule. Don't demonize all republicans, and don't demonize all christians. Putting people in a box together and calling them your enemy usually convinces them they are your enemy and they'd better hang together. Separate your potential friends away from your dedicated enemy - authoritarianism.

[Democrat Dragon]

8. And don't be afraid to use

the "N" word: Nazi

Hey, they call us "Commies"!