[jessaustin]

Sure, but don't we hear the same "propaganda" every time any group gathers anywhere? If it's not Soros, it's the Kochs; if it's not unions, it's the Russians: whatever boogieman gets you going. In future, can't we just take it as read that some percentage of any group is paid to be there and some higher percentage is accused by someone else of being paid to be there? Is it something we have to worry about?

[breatheoften]

Unfortunately yes we do have to worry about propaganda.

An example: In Colorado where I live a large number of people contacted their republican senator Cory Gardner to express their disapproval of Betsy Davos for Secretary of Education.

Gardner publicly ignored these voices with the claim that they were "paid protesters". Widespread claims that protesters can be ignored because of a claimed "paid protester" taint should be challenged when false because these claims spread and make it easier to normalize this kind of democracy eroding response from representatives.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58937d6ee4b07595d05a5087

[jessaustin]

Frankly I would have expected most R's to vote for the confirmation of R cabinet nominations. One needn't invoke complicated rhetorical scenarios to explain such an action.

Some reportage of confirmation hearings might have left the impression that this particular nominee is some unhappy amalgamation of Satan, Brandine Spuckler, and Richie Rich as interpreted by Robot Chicken. That seems pretty unlikely! Probably this is a simple political disagreement, filtered through whatever media process maximizes those clicks and eyeballs.

[breatheoften]

I brought up this situation because it's an example of a "paid protesters" claim being falsely used in other contexts as a reason to ignore actual human interactions.

I think you are trying to invalidate the notion that there can be a reason for people to disagree other than media manipulation.

I disagree with that argument and I will not attempt to engage with you on the basis of fact until and unless you walk it back.

[jessaustin]

Uhhh... I'm not sure how to proceed here. I don't intend to upset anyone. My point was that R's will vote for R's. If that weren't the intention of the electorate, they would have elected a D. (Isn't the "two-party system" fun!) I don't why we'd need to invoke a conspiracy theory, even one offered up by the R in question, to understand why an R would vote for an R. That is, don't believe everything that politicians tell you, even (especially?) about their motivations for the actions they take.

Perhaps mistakenly, I anticipated an objection to this simple scenario along the lines of "this person is really extra super bad, so normal Congress-critters even from the same party would never have voted for her without being fooled by evil memes, and that's why we should believe that this Congress-critter really does believe in the evil meme of the Soros Army". If you wouldn't have objected thus, I apologize for making an uncharitable assumption.

[breatheoften]

I definitely will agree with you about the existence of horrible flaws in the "two-party system" - I don't want to put words in your mouth but if you have it, then I share the belief that large improvements to our voting processes are possible. For my part, I'd like to see innovations like instant run-off voting, mathematically fair drawing procedures for the regional boundaries that determine the shape of geographic voting precincts, strict campaign finance regulations, and deployment of an automatic methodology to turn certain flavors of congressional deadlock into public referendum rather than the baroque set of tie-breaker rules/conventions dominating the strategy behind congressional procedures (in my opinion, the possibility of injecting a little bit of stochastic noise from the electorate into the law-making process would provide a much better incentive structure for how congress critters should think about their differences than the overly deterministic incentives currently in place).

But back to the point - I brought it up not to argue that this particular appointee was any better or worse than some standard, but to support the notion that it is correct to object to propaganda that attempts to discredit voices due to false accusations that those voices are only the voices of paid protesters with a corrupt financial agenda rather than the opinions of actual people who formed those opinions based on their real-life experiences. Deploying this strategy falsely to discredit legitimate opposition groups is inherently anti-democratic, corrupt, polarizing, and very dangerous (in my opinion).

You responded to this expression with a claim that I interpreted as expressing that the only possible disagreement about a particular appointee is a product of partisan media manipulation and therefore its fair game to insinuate that any opposition voices are entirely partisan in nature. Within the context of the thread, I understand you attempted to establish that point in order to suggest that it is 'OK' to spread false caricatures of the opposition voices to the portion of the electorate that is prepared to receive that message regardless of veracity.

I understand the desire to be jaded about politics -- I typically try to ignore as much of politics as I can and tend to think that's the best possible strategy for me. It appears to me though that you take your cynicism further by asserting that there is basically no role in the political process for decision making beyond the level of team sports. All disagreement between members of A and members of B is inherently only about media manipulation rather than the possibility that such disagreement could express something rational about the real world.

I think that world-view (as understood by me) is inherently anti-rational-discourse and is worth disagreeing with.

[jessaustin]

Your "team sports" caricature isn't completely inaccurate, if only because my perception of D-vs-R is that of two ants contending furiously over a postage stamp, while a whole continent of political possibility languishes unnoticed. Sure, if we look close enough, there's probably a difference between one SecEd and another. She'll open a few more charter schools, so a few hundred kids will get a slightly better education and a few dozen teachers will be replaced by their essentially indistinguishable equivalents. That's probably an improvement, on balance, but not one to celebrate in the context of all the rest of the crap that rolls downhill from our rulers.