Over the next few days and weeks, I will be writing about some of the rules the Democrats, and liberals in general, will need to follow in order to make sure that we stay on top. Karl Rove knows the rules - and we can win with them too. The rules aren't pretty, and many are downright Machiavellian, but they're the way power had been won and kept throughout all of history.
My rules, in many ways, have been inspired by reading books such as The 48 Laws of Power and The Art of Seduction, as well as the Art of War, The Prince, and The Analects of Confucious.
RULE THE FIRST: The Two Evils - Controlling the Options...
Controlling the options means to give the other person a choice. It's a favorite tactic of Karl Rove, and it was also a favored tactic of Henry Kissinger (remember him?) and General Sherman in the American Civil War.
What does it really mean when you're Controlling the Options? It means that you're making it unclear who is in charge. By forcing the Democrats to play by his rules (i.e., gay marriage, abortion, etc.), Rove was able to make it so that he's not the CLEAR SOURCE of the punishment. In fact, one of the key things that controlling the options creates is that it makes the rival who suffered misfortune seem as through they brought the misfortune upon themselves! How much time have we spent saying "Oh, we messed up there" or "We should have done this differently!"
So what do we, as Democrats have to do? We have to steal back this power. Part of the secret of the power is that people don't realize they're being deceived. It sounds awful, but people resist when they're forced into a position - which it seems was, in some cases, what happened. When you innudate people with phone calls or tell them that they've got to "Vote or Die", they steel themselves against the choice. People want to believe they have some freedom, especially if they're beset upon - even if it means giving up their freedom.
Who has done it? Kissinger used to Color The Choices. Coloring the choices meant that he pushed Nixon into doing what he wanted by presenting him with options, several of which were wrong and the one that Kissinger wanted to have happen.
Rove does it in sort of the same way General Sherman did, by placing the Democrats between A Rock and A Hard Place. It's something we've also learn about in law school, particularly in classes on litigation, and something that John Kerry and John Edwards should have recognized. When you're between a rock and a hard place, you're given two possible outcomes, two possible explainations. Both of them poke a hole in the story or leave one staring off a precipice. It denies the ability to create an escape!
How did Rove do it? One example - Mary Cheney. Immediately after Kerry mentioned her (which was a good idea) Rove and the Repugnicans seized on it. If Kerry had fought back, it would have shown him to be much stronger - but from what I read and saw, it didn't seem like there was any fighting back. Rove placed the Democrats between a rock and a hard pace. If Kerry apologized, he'd seem weak and unwilling to stand up, and they could do it that way. If Kerry struck back, he might have alienated some of the people who voted for him.
Machiavelli states that "[f]or the wounds and every other evil that men inflict upon themselves spontaneously, and of their own choice, are in the long run less painful than those afflicted by others."
What happens to be the scariest part of this is that since a lot of people voted for Bush, they might resent him less for the horrors he unleashes on the country - after all, they voted for him. The way to to stop this is to convince them early of their wrongs - but also to Control their Options
Antithesis - It's not always wise to limit the options, because oftentimes that limits one's own choices. In some sense, the Democrats might be better served by giving the Repugnicans some freedom while controlling other options. By controlling, one loses the ability to observe their strategy and make decisions. But we've seen how well that works...
This is my first shot. I can assure you that these will probably become better as I organize my ideas better and write more of them.