From SDA......

Standing Up

In a piece published today in American Thinker entitled "Comedy, Bullies and American Politics," Rosslyn Smith writes about the media entertainment industry's ongoing portrayal of the Democrat/left as informed and just, and the Republicans -- and their family members -- as ridicule-worthy:

The entertainment industry has been bullying Republicans for most of my adult life and I am 56. It started with stereotypes in movies and TV shows. The small town prude, the uncultured suburban hypocrite, the greedy capitalist, the perverted man of God, the southern white bigot. By the 1980s among the self described elite, the very name of Ronald Reagan was treated like the punch line to an inside joke, the way to get a laugh those rubes who supported him could never even begin to understand.

(Along the same lines as what Smith describes, British comedian Alexei Sayle, a member of the Marxist-Leninist faction of Communist Party of Britain, no less, lamented back in the Thatcher era that the lamest comedians extant could get laughs by simply saying "How about that Margaret Thatcher, eh?")

By the 1990s the assault began in earnest....While Republican men would routinely be portrayed as slow-witted slugs, the worst vitriol was reserved for Republican women and minorities, those who refused to adopt the mantle of victim and the spoils of affirmative action.

...It became a firestorm of rage with the nomination of Sarah Palin, an effective administrator who governed from the libertarian side of the party while following social conservative principles in her personal life, and thus would appeal to many voters. But attacking Palin wasn't good enough. The attack was carried to her children.

Smith sees the grassroots view in this blog comment: "The anger over this is....more than just about Sarah Palin. It's about years of being told we are intolerant and intolerable when we are not, and having to eat anything an everything an elitist liberal media culture throws our way," but she sees a lack of desire among urban Republicans and party insiders to stand up to the assaults and believes this reluctance has consequences:

....By letting the bullies dominate the cultural debate, Republicans have allowed the worst of the stereotypes to rule in the minds of those economically upscale members of urban and suburban America who are mostly passive users of political information....

She concludes,

No matter which way I look at it, while turning the other cheek in the face of the relentless media entertainment industry bully may be good for one's soul, it has turned out to be a terrible way to build a political party.

The whole thing is definitely worth reading, and is relevant in a Canadian context as well.

Posted by EBD