One of the most pernicious lies perpetuated by Democrats and their fellow travellers is that Republicans (in contrast with noble and high-minded liberals) are “mean-spirited”, dirty, gutter-fighters. The myth of liberal victimhood practically oozes from their version of history. “McCarthyism”, “Willie Horton”, and all the other Democratic bloody shirts are waved about with a depressing regularity. Democratic organs regularly recite the fable about how the Republican Party captured the South by appealing to “racists.” Republican campaign treachery is a sacred tenet of liberal orthodoxy: it’s their “stabbed in the back” theory which explains why, at the national level, Democrats can only win when they’re cross-dressing as conservatives.

The American people, you see, desperately want liberalism. If given a fair choice, they’d vote for universal health care, gay marriage, slavery reparations, unilateral disarmament, and abortion on demand along with pretty much everything else that presently comes within reach of the left only during their wet dreams. So, why don’t they? Why, because they’re being tricked, of course. Mean and clever Republicans come along and, in the memorable phrase of Howard Dean, convince them to vote on the issues of, “race, God, guns, and gays.” This, at its core, is the liberal view of the American electorate and the Republican Party. Or, at the very least, it is the one to which they publicly subscribe.

Anyone who has spent any time in conservative politics knows what malicious nonsense this is. The greatest flaw of 90% of conservative politicians, commentators, and strategists is their reluctance to even resort to the knife, let alone use it to bring about the evisceration of their enemies. At the same time the Democrats use the cover provided by the Republican’s reputation to launch attacks which are actually vicious and mean-spirited.

In 1990, Jesse Helms ran a campaign ad against affirmative action which showed a pair of white hands crumpling a job application white a voice declares, “You needed that job- but they had to give it to a minority.” Tough? Sure. But was it a fair criticism of affirmative action? I think so. Fourteen years later, we’re still hearing it citied as an example of Republican “racism.” It was sixteen years ago that the first President Bush ran ads pointing out that, when he was Governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis had granted a furlough to convicted murdered Willie Horton, who went on to rape a woman (an incident which, you may recall, was originally raised by Albert Gore). Frankly, I fail to see why the fact that a soft-on-crime Governor let out an obviously evil man to commit more atrocities ought not be a campaign issue. However, through the persistent efforts of Democratic activists, the very name of “Willie Horton” has become shorthand for Republican “racism.” Apparently, in the eyes of some, being upset over the release of murderers who then rape women is “racist.”

Contrast this with the Democratic record. In 2000, the Democrat-affiliated NAACP produced commercials which, in essence, suggested that blacks would be lynched in George W. Bush were to be elected President. Did this attract much censure from the mainstream media? Did it enter the textbooks? Of course not. The big ad flap in 2000 revolved around a Republican ad in which the word “Democrats” flashes on the screen and, at one point, the letters “DEMOC” are cut off, inadvertently displaying the word “Rats”. This, naturally, set off a multi-day firestorm over “subliminal advertising.” Yeah, sure.

In 1964 the Democrats accused Barry Goldwater of being cruel, heartless, evil, etc. for joking that he wished that he could saw off the Northeast part of the country. At the same time, they ran an ad whose message can be summed up as follows: “If Barry Goldwater is elected President, your children will die in a nuclear war.” But, of course, it is the Republicans who are “mean-spirited.”

The greatest problem with too many Republicans is that they fail to see this dichotomy. Because, in general, fairness is a desirable character quality, a great many Republicans have a basic sense of fairness that inhibits them from doing things that they see as somehow “unsporting”. The result is that too many Republicans, faced by Democratic attacks, behave like the Medieval British General who, upon catching a group of Viking raiders who were in an extremely vulnerable state, allowed the Viking commander to play upon his sense of fair-play and, as a result, waited for the Vikings to form their troops up. The British were then slaughtered.

In the past I have related what I’ve dubbed “Yoshida’s First Law of Politics” which is as follows, “If you are going to be successfully blamed for something, then you might as well do it.” I’ve used this in the past to explain why government that plan on making cuts in the social services might as well make big cuts. Similarly, if Republicans are going to get blamed for campaigning dirty and being “mean” then they might as well campaign dirty and be mean because, regardless of whether they are these things, they are going to suffer the negative consequences as being seen as such. If they are not actually these things, they get the blame without the benefit: so they might as well grab what they can.

Too many Republicans recoil from this idea because they want to be accepted by polite society. They say things like, “well, I’m a Republican- but I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh” in order to give them a fig leaf to use for cover. I call these people “Cannibal Republicans” because they seek to eat their own in order to save themselves. They generally support the GOP, but they’re always ready to denounce one of their own if they think it will score them some brownie points.

What is called for is, for lack of a better term, a “Popular Front” among all Republicans. Attacking one’s fellow Republicans is pointless, time consuming, and ultimately self-destructive. We need to stop trying to make ourselves look “moderate” by jumping upon our own.

In this spirit, I’m going to proclaim Yoshida’s second law of politics, “There’s no point being nice to people who aren’t going to vote for you anyways.” Take homosexuals, for example, they’re virtually all going to vote for Democrats anyways and so are all of the people who are willing to change their vote over pro-gay issues. This shouldn’t be received as bad news: it’s an opportunity. There are, I think, a fair number of Democrats who might change their vote once they were made fully aware of the Democratic Party’s embrace of homosexuality. After all, what price is there for being “anti-gay”: the possibility that the media will brand you as “homophobic”? They’d do that even if President Bush divorced Laura and married Dick Cheney.