Marianne Ayala/Insider
- The right argues against ideas that don't exist, because they can't argue against the ones that do.
- Fabricating problems and attaching them to liberalism makes it easy for Republicans to engage with their audience.
- Without any merit to their actual politics, this is the only way they can maintain their followings.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
The Democrats are about to change life as we know it. Nancy Pelosi and her socialist comrades are gearing up to make it illegal to pretend that you're looking for a random item at the grocery store, when in reality you're waiting for another shopper - who's blocking the item you actually want - to move. Under new legislation, the Democrats would force you to ask the other shopper if they could step aside for a brief moment as you procure your goods.
This is unconscionable, true Americans should be able to fake peruse and avoid awkwardly reaching around someone to grab the Lucky Charms if they want to.
However, if you donate to my campaign, or subscribe to my newsletter, or purchase any variation of my "Closed Mouths Get Fed" merchandise, you can play a role in helping me make sure that we don't have to talk to anyone we don't want to.
While the above scenario is a parody, it is, sadly, not too far off from America's grifter reality.
A growing number of Republicans - elected officials and pundits alike - have started to go after Democrats for things they don't even believe. Instead of working to distort their opponents' message, conservatives have decided it's easier to just fabricate.
The right is arguing against ideas that don't exist, because they can't argue against the ones that do. For a movement that's finding it difficult to win on policy, attacking liberal boogeymen is the only way to recruit.
You versus the man that doesn't exist
On July 27, conservative pundit Ben Shapiro took to Twitter to complain about something, as he does from time to time. In this instance, he was angry with the CDC's updated guidance on masks, which recommended that even fully vaccinated people should think about wearing masks in some indoor settings, given the rise of the COVID-19 Delta variant.
In response, Shapiro tells the CDC - an organization that is seen by the right as an arm of the Democrats - to "shove it," declaring that he and his family will not wear masks in their own home. Through this bold declaration, Shapiro joins...the entire rest of the country in not wearing a mask at home, because that is not a rule and it never was. Instead, the CDC recommended that you should wear a mask in a public indoor setting, especially if you live with someone who is immunocompromised or unvaccinated.
Shapiro's attack on the CDC would be welcomed if it were true that we had to wear a mask while washing dishes, watching TV, or sleeping. That would be outrageous. And it's this outrage that Shapiro utilizes to drum up support for conservatives, as is illustrated by many of the replies to his tweet.
Shapiro is far from the only pundit on the right engaging in attacking the non-existent. Last year, at the height of the discourse surrounding the murder of George Floyd, conservative commentator Glenn Beck opined that Black America had likened Floyd to Rosa Parks, implying they were wrong for doing so.
But of course, there wasn't a soul in the world saying that George Floyd should be likened to Rosa Parks. There's a difference between a hero and a martyr, but by muddying that line, Beck was able to argue against a position that didn't exist, and thus, he came off as the only sane person in the room.
As NPR noted in a recent analysis, the point of this shtick is to generate outrage about something that liberals are doing (but not actually doing), and then use that outrage to grow one's brand. This business model is incredibly effective, as evidenced by the fact that Shapiro's The Daily Wire publication blows even legacy news outlets out of the water in terms of social media engagement - a platform tailor-made for outrage.
Reactionary recruiters
It tracks then that the media-lawmaker feedback loop in the GOP would recycle this tactic of inventing a straw man to fight. They may not have a controversial publication to promote, but building a brand is important for Republicans looking to win elections, too.
Take former Ohio congressman and current candidate for Ohio's open senate seat into consideration. On August 1, he tweeted a series of photos of him and his family fishing, accompanied with the caption: "Family. Fishing Freedom. Why do liberals hate this so much[?]"
The result of these absurdities is a strategy that has perpetuated, for example, the idea that Joe Biden is some kind of raging communist scholar of Karl Marx, instead of the centrist, borderline conservative politician he is. Mitch McConnell has stated several times in recent months that he will do everything he can to stop Biden's "socialist legacy."
But the logic doesn't need to make sense, it just needs to sway enough of the right kind of people towards a cause.
The entire Tea Party movement for example, was founded on ideas that simply weren't true: that Obama was a radical, that his healthcare plan was communism, and that any spending by the government was going to end our country as we knew it. None of these fears came true, so the GOP had to move on to even more esoteric fears to keep their base engaged.
Likewise, the campaigns, platforms, and constituencies of elected leaders like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Madison Cawthorn, Lauren Boebert, and others, are fueled by the fear of monsters that don't exist. They only have room to grow in an environment where attacking imaginary things gains you followers.
This is illustrated by Greene's now infamous suggestion that space lasers (not real) were responsible for California's wildfires in 2018. Or Cawthorn's assertion that Democrats were trying to cancel the publication of Dr. Seuss books (made up). Or Boebert's attack that liberals believe "knife fights" are allowed in peaceful protests (this is getting ridiculous).
The danger is that we've lost the chance at anything remotely resembling good faith. Divisiveness is the goal, and one side of our country's political spectrum is gaining influence by widening it. The incentive - more money, more traction, and more followers - is too great to pass up on, and so bereft of any merit on actual policy, the right will continue to utilize their fake outrage.
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