Not sure if I like the comment on the video’s YouTube page more than the political writers taking the “Be Nice to Republicans” campaign to task.
You have to like the description from Republicans Are People Too:
It seems like it’s okay to say mean things about someone just because they’re Republican. That isn’t right. Before you write another mean post about Republicans, remember Republicans are people, too.
I’ve caught myself saying nice things about Republicans lately, especially those old timey ones who use to make sense. No, today, we usually make fun of tea bagers, who seem to need a lot of love these days, especially from children crossing the border and bringing in ebola.
H/T Daily Kos:
“It isn’t easy being a Republican these days. […] We love political discourse. We encourage political discourse. But when did “Republican” become a dirty word?”Perhaps the answer to that question is: When Republicans started calling Democrats fascists, communists, moochers, whores, traitors, and devils.
Minchillo’s video is a simple production that seeks to enumerate a series of “regular” folks that he labels with a the hashtag “IAmARepublican.” It is a fairly comprehensive list of average Americans who are not generally associated with the exclusivity, racism, and intolerance of the Republican Party. It is no wonder that the GOP is yearning to attract more of the type of people in the video, because it is a cross-section of the nation that represents its diversity, a word that makes the right tremble. The video consists of a parade of alleged party members and asks “Did you know Republicans…”
Drive Priuses, recycle, listen to Spotify, put together IKEA furniture, are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, read the New York Times, use Macs, are grandmas, daughters, moms, are left-handed, are doctors, welders, teachers, donate to charity, enjoy gourmet cooking, shop at Trader Joe’s, like dogs, and cats, have tattoos, have tattoos and beards, have feelings, are people who care.The problem with the argument that Minchillo is making is that the people claiming to be Republicans in his video are not actually Republicans. And by that I don’t simply mean that those types of persons are not Republican, which on the whole they are not. I mean that those specific people in the video are not. In fact, they were photos taken from stock image suppliers. A search for a random selection of the photos in the video found many of them in the iStockPhoto website’s library of images. The persons in the paragraph above that are links will lead you to the stock image page for each one.
So the video produced in order to convince everyone that Republicans are real people is populated by fakes. They are models pretending to be the characters that the video claims represent actual members of the Republican Party. And that’s about as real as it gets for the GOP.
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2014.
Maybe if liberals stop trying to “make fun of tea bagers (sic)” and Republicans stop trying to make fun of liberals, this country could go back to engaging in rational discourse. Just a thought.
Gene you hit the nail on the head. If Mari read her own Weekly so would have seen me criticizing McSally and republicans.
How low will they stoop to try to create a controversy where none exists?
Why can’t we talk about results? You know why.
A slow news? day at the weakly.
Name-calling in politics is as old as our country. Do a little reading about the presidential election of 1800 and see what happened when VP Jefferson ran against President Adams. The things that happened during that election cycle make all the stuff that goes on today look mild.
The real problem that has emerged only recently is not with elections; it is with the period of time that lies between elections when rational members of both major parties used to know how to compromise in order to advance the interests of our country. What has changed is the influence of various special interests that are always in election cycle mode. They are always campaigning and always attacking those who oppose them. There is no room for compromise and there is plenty of money available to politicians who mouth the positions of these heavily financed special interests.
Back in the day of anonymous posting at The Star, there was a group of (usually multi) daily negative posters whose message varied only by switching the subject. It was always: Obama, Democrats, Pelosi or liberals were bad, like singing a never ending round. These people didn’t want to participate in any reasoned discourse, just wanted to post their drivel.
In order to wade through that garbage, I quickly learned to see the name, thumbs down, move on. As comments often reached over 200 for a single article, this allowed me to quickly scan through to posts worthy of my intellect. I’m not understanding why some of the Weekly authors seem to be giving special attention to one of that ilk. There is a saying as old as the internet, “Don’t feed the trolls”.
That’s pretty funny. The GOP still doesn’t understand the internets, which is why they posted stock pictures. Their craftiness meets the ceiling at the intertubes.
“Republicans listen to Spotify”…..”Republicans shop at Trader Joe’s”…… “Republicans put together Ikea furniture”…..All true statements. But, here’s something Republicans generally don’t do. “Republicans don’t buy advertising in the Tucson Weekly”. Which is probably part of the reason why your paper is not much bigger than a penny shopper lately.
You’ve just got to love people that reference their intellect and then spend time trying to discredit me.
Would you call them a wise-guy?
I’m still checking into the possibility that my posting name is intellectual property that may have been tarnished.
The problem with today’s politics is really yesterday’s politics. We’ve emerged from a long period when liberals tried to encourage cooperation by example, using kindness, open-mindedness, and teaching. We thought welcoming could integrate right-wing anarchists into the larger, more cooperative society.
The net effect of this thirty year experiment was to mainstream, crazy, distopian, and selfish ideology in service of the notion that “everyone’s contribution is valuable.” We encouraged a massive political shift rightward by honoring disreputable views simply because they were someone’s views.
Most liberals now recognize that Ghandi was the wrong example for our two-party system. As more people call out today’s “conservative” ideology as repugnant, we’ll hear more of this Republican wailing about victimization. The important thing is not to be fooled by it.
That’s all you can do when “feelings” are used to measure success.
Successful people measure results.
Ghandi is the perfect example for those folks that should stay up on the curb, where they’re safe.
Fooled? Never.