In a new book, political scientist M. Steven Fish argues that pro-democracy forces need to deploy a “high-dominance” political style to defeat Trumpism. And, he says, they need to stop being so squeamish about patriotism.

Too long to summarize. Quotes:

We tell this story about how the working person is desperate. Listen to the rhetoric: “You poor, struggling working families. We’re here to get you a break so you can squeeze by.”

That doesn’t work for the folks where I grew up, and it doesn’t work very well anywhere else, either. Working class people, like everyone else, want to be regarded as prosperous, as forward-looking, as self-reliant and living lives that are full of possibility. The Democrats’ message often ignores the human need for respect.

  • “Own” the libs? Nobody ever owned FDR, JFK or MLK. And can you imagine Lyndon Johnson having accomplished what he did, this historic legacy of progressive reform, without his high-dominance style? We need to recover that tradition.

  • Democrats need to overmatch Trump’s dominance, not emulate his style.

  • There is absolutely no contradiction between collaboration, cooperation and empathy on the one hand and dominance politics on the other.

  • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
    1·
    4 months ago

    It is the same thing. And I think the author’s statement that it’s can’t be toxic masculinity because women do it too clearly shows he has no clue about toxic masculinity, or how this plays into it.

    I fear the article triggered you to only hear the word “dominate” with the most negative of connotations when that isn’t what this is about.

    I explicitly said

    I have no issue with the message that Democrats need to fix their horrible messaging…, my issue is with the rhetoric of “domination”.

    He is trying to create a ‘brand’ as it were, using the word dominance, to sell books. This isn’t a term in actual rhetoric and speechcraft.

    And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he explicitly ties it into patriotism (the “virtue of the vicious”, as it were), and makes an appeal for Democrats to turn to pro-patriotism rhetoric.

    Patriotism is a poisoned concept. Even in MLK’s time, it had taken on the meaning of love of the State as a political apparatus (which was explicitly pushed during the Cold War; being patriotic only meant loving Capitalism and American Democracy, and MLK’s so-called ‘Critical Patriotism’ was a round rejection of this stance). It’s only gotten worse since then, and no politician is going to move it back towards being about a love of the country as a community of peoples.

    The interviewer rightfully asked him about patriotism and nationalism in the same question, but he only answered about patriotism.

    One of the most striking ideas in Comeback is that liberals, over the last half-century, have made a grave error by abandoning patriotism and rejecting nationalism. In essence, you say, they’ve ceded the flag to the right, at great cost.

    Are the Democrats bad at messaging? Yes, absolutely. But it’s not because they’re not waving enough flags, and cheering on The American Nation enough. It’s because they’re ignoring the realities of who is harming us. He talks about FDR pissing off the plutocrats in his speech; that’s what we need more of now.

    Crowing about policy changes without being truthful about the reason we need them is the problem. Trump pointed that finger at The Swamp, meaning coastal elite politicians. He was half-right, because many politicians are perpetuating the policies harming everyday Americans, but he was ignoring the corporate money influencing them to do so.

    We need to be pointing the finger at the corporatocracy.