child-molesting murderers on death row.
Liberalism’s leverage is not that it has broad support but precisely that it doesn’t. Who listens to NPR? Who, outside of New York City, reads the New York Times’? Who claims to be “frightened” of George W. Bush? The answer: People who are desperately eager to associate themselves with “respectable opinion”—as opposed to actual, widespread, local opinion believed by the riffraff. Broad societal prejudices are nearly irresistible. They fill a psychic need by creating a “majority” opinion and eliminating the need to process new information. Propaganda “greatly simplifies [the individual’s] life and gives him stability, much security, and a certain satisfaction.” 12
Liberals need not bother with logical persuasion as long as they can prey on people’s sense of weakness. “Any statement whatever, no matter how stupid, any ‘tall tale’ will be believed once it enters into the passionate current of hatred.” 13 They don’t need arguments, they’ve got Gwyneth Paltrow.
If liberal propaganda didn’t work, it would be impossible to comprehend bimbo starlets and uneducated slobs attacking the intelligence of the man who won the Cold War. On the occasion of Reagan’s ninetieth birthday, for example, Michael Moore opined on ABC’s Politically Incorrect: “Personally, the problem with Reagan, as I see it, is that he was the beginning of the depleting of the political gene pool, when Americans settled for somebody who really wasn’t and shouldn’t have been in that office, wasn’t quite there all the time.... Here’s what Reagan did: He gave weapons to the Ayatollah, so that he could raise money for the contras, which then helped bring a crack epidemic into the United States. That’s what Ronald Reagan did and that’s his legacy! That’s his legacy!”
To point out that Moore is a college dropout is not to adopt the classism and snobbery of the left. A lot of people who went to Southwest Texas Junior College are shrewder than Yale graduates. But try flipping around that scenario. Imagine a no-account college dropout attacking Al Gore’s intelligence on national TV. The audience wouldn’t get that. It would be strange and confusing. Larry Flynt, who never finished grade school, 14 said of President Bush (who was graduated from Yale College and Harvard Business School): “He is the dumbest president we have ever had.” 15 Actor Martin Sheen, who never went to college after flunking his college entrance exam—”intentionally,” he claims 16 —said Bush is “a moron, if you’ll pardon the expression.” (Strictly speaking, “moron” is a word, not an expression.)
When Reagan was president, there wasn’t a college campus in the country where the mere mention of his name failed to inspire cackles of hateful laughter. (Except probably Hillsdale College and Bob Jones University.) Now it’s “Bush” that prompts the knowing giggles. At law schools “Rehnquist” inspires the canned laughter. It seems unremarkable that Hollywood zeros and college dropouts sneer about the intelligence of the guy who won the Cold War.
Liberals bully people with their veiled class bigotry. They are snobs even when championing a grade-school dropout like Flynt, whose self-described first sexual experience was with the egg sac of a chicken. 17 In an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer,™ redneck pornographer Flynt is described as a cross between George Washington and Bill Gates. He is a “radical,” a brainstorming “rebel,” and a “shrewd businessman.” Flynt has savoir faire and a devil-may-care attitude: “It’s a little past 6 p.m. and Larry Flynt is already courting eternal damnation.”
By contrast, the attorney who prosecuted Flynt for obscenity offenses— a former Marine, no less—is described as “dowdy” and a “moral crusader.” Flynt’s opponents “shout,” while Larry “smiles and nods,” “quips,” and “argues.” Negative
Liberalism’s leverage is not that it has broad support but precisely that it doesn’t. Who listens to NPR? Who, outside of New York City, reads the New York Times’? Who claims to be “frightened” of George W. Bush? The answer: People who are desperately eager to associate themselves with “respectable opinion”—as opposed to actual, widespread, local opinion believed by the riffraff. Broad societal prejudices are nearly irresistible. They fill a psychic need by creating a “majority” opinion and eliminating the need to process new information. Propaganda “greatly simplifies [the individual’s] life and gives him stability, much security, and a certain satisfaction.” 12
Liberals need not bother with logical persuasion as long as they can prey on people’s sense of weakness. “Any statement whatever, no matter how stupid, any ‘tall tale’ will be believed once it enters into the passionate current of hatred.” 13 They don’t need arguments, they’ve got Gwyneth Paltrow.
If liberal propaganda didn’t work, it would be impossible to comprehend bimbo starlets and uneducated slobs attacking the intelligence of the man who won the Cold War. On the occasion of Reagan’s ninetieth birthday, for example, Michael Moore opined on ABC’s Politically Incorrect: “Personally, the problem with Reagan, as I see it, is that he was the beginning of the depleting of the political gene pool, when Americans settled for somebody who really wasn’t and shouldn’t have been in that office, wasn’t quite there all the time.... Here’s what Reagan did: He gave weapons to the Ayatollah, so that he could raise money for the contras, which then helped bring a crack epidemic into the United States. That’s what Ronald Reagan did and that’s his legacy! That’s his legacy!”
To point out that Moore is a college dropout is not to adopt the classism and snobbery of the left. A lot of people who went to Southwest Texas Junior College are shrewder than Yale graduates. But try flipping around that scenario. Imagine a no-account college dropout attacking Al Gore’s intelligence on national TV. The audience wouldn’t get that. It would be strange and confusing. Larry Flynt, who never finished grade school, 14 said of President Bush (who was graduated from Yale College and Harvard Business School): “He is the dumbest president we have ever had.” 15 Actor Martin Sheen, who never went to college after flunking his college entrance exam—”intentionally,” he claims 16 —said Bush is “a moron, if you’ll pardon the expression.” (Strictly speaking, “moron” is a word, not an expression.)
When Reagan was president, there wasn’t a college campus in the country where the mere mention of his name failed to inspire cackles of hateful laughter. (Except probably Hillsdale College and Bob Jones University.) Now it’s “Bush” that prompts the knowing giggles. At law schools “Rehnquist” inspires the canned laughter. It seems unremarkable that Hollywood zeros and college dropouts sneer about the intelligence of the guy who won the Cold War.
Liberals bully people with their veiled class bigotry. They are snobs even when championing a grade-school dropout like Flynt, whose self-described first sexual experience was with the egg sac of a chicken. 17 In an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer,™ redneck pornographer Flynt is described as a cross between George Washington and Bill Gates. He is a “radical,” a brainstorming “rebel,” and a “shrewd businessman.” Flynt has savoir faire and a devil-may-care attitude: “It’s a little past 6 p.m. and Larry Flynt is already courting eternal damnation.”
By contrast, the attorney who prosecuted Flynt for obscenity offenses— a former Marine, no less—is described as “dowdy” and a “moral crusader.” Flynt’s opponents “shout,” while Larry “smiles and nods,” “quips,” and “argues.” Negative
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