Think about the school bully. You may have been bullied. You may know someone who was bullied. You are at least familiar with the ever-present phenomenon of the school bully.
Here’s an analogy to think about. Victim comes to school one day and bully boy steals his lunch. As they pass each other in the hallway bully boy shoves victim up against the lockers. In P.E. during “Dodge Ball” bully boy hits victim in the head with the ball. Next day in the Boy’s Room bully boy puts victim in a half nelson. Victim pleads with bully boy to “listen to his better angels.”
Victim’s parents complain to school administration. Nothing changes.
Then one day as bully boy approaches his victim, victim throws a right overhand punch breaking bully boy’s nose. Bully boy never bullies victim again. Because victim is expelled from school.
For decades we have waited for Democrats to fight back, as Republicans demonstrated the truth of Rabelais who said “Appetite comes with the eating.”
With each election cycle, as the appetite for dirty tricks grew, and increasingly became more routine campaign behavior, and as ad hominem and indecent attacks on opponents and their policies became the norm, Democrats kept insisting on taking “the high road.”
Perhaps the best description of this failed strategy was Michelle Obama’s very decent but bad advice: “When they go low, we go high.” This approach is also known as the “bringing a (butter) knife to a gun fight” strategy.
Think of the “Main Stream Media” as the school administration in this analogy. The Democratic Party, as victim, does not get much help from them. The MSM gets labelled as “liberal” mostly because, at least when it is legitimate, it deals with facts and “facts have a liberal bias.” In an attempt to avoid this charge, the MSM bends over backward to represent that “both sides do it,” it’s called “both siderism,” giving equal time to both fact and fiction, as if political arguments are all just political party and policy spin and “opinion.”
Here one might suggest that if two sides differ on the facts, one side is likely wrong, and perhaps lying. The job of the MSM is to report truth and facts, not “both sides.” Only during the past year has MSNBC and CNN and other MSM news programs been reporting on the lies FOX “reports,” and confronting lies directly in interviews.
Here’s a both siderism example: The MSM “got its panties in a bunch” and was “clutching its pearls” a year ago when Biden said that MAGA Republicans were “semi fascist.” “See!”, they all but yelled, “he talks mean too, and he promised to bring us together!” Well, presently almost all Republicans are MAGA, and any that aren’t are swiftly “excommunicated.” The MAGAs are by no means “semi,” and if they put their bully boy in the White House “Bully Bull Pit,” we will certainly all find that out.
So, Democrats have been backed into a corner in late rounds by an unwillingness to play by any other than Marquess of Queensberry Rules, while Republicans use low blows along with the brass knuckles of voter suppression, gerrymandering, dirty tricks (mastered by the likes of Lee Atwater and Trump-pardoned convicted felons Roger Stone and Paul Manafort), corrupt judges, and corrupt campaign financing.
And now, as their wannabe dictator leader is at last being held accountable for a lifetime of indecency, crime and conning, the Republican party has launched a full-scale attack on the nation’s judicial system and those who serve it. The top leadership of the Republican Party and its elected “leadership” are putting those who serve in our federal and state law enforcement and legal systems in serious emotional and physical peril.
Did you like this analogy, and do you think it makes any difference?
In any event, analogies are fun to play with and are similar to metaphors and also like similes. A metaphor, Judy Garland tells us, is “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries” or as the Dread Pirate Roberts says “Life is pain Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
Whereas, a simile is like “Trying to Organize Democrats is like herding cats.”
Finally, do you like W. C. Fields?
One of his more famous movie lines was something like: “I am a master of metaphor, why metaphors just roll of my tongue like…. like…. like…Ah, it appears metaphor escapes me now.” He also said he liked metaphors because: “they are… like… something.”
And now, as that “personified” pig, Porky would say: Th-Th-Th-That’s All Folks”
Henry G. Marks, of Frankfort, is a retired state employee. He can be emailed at henrygmarks@aol.com This commentary frist appeared in the Frankfort State Journal.