A sickening diary, by the way, with observations applicable even outside politics.

Sickening, perhaps, but in the same way looking at a particularly disgusting microbe is sickening. To cure, you must first understand.

And these tactics work. Never, ever forget that. I might do a diary later on some of the lessons we can learn from them. Suffice is to say that there are some of them that I think progressives should simply adopt, lock stock and two smoking barrels (mostly the last four, but a couple of the middle four as well).

It's time we stop thinking about politics as if it were a civilised exchange of ideas. It's not. It's a propaganda battle. And we're losing. I'd like to change that fact, and I think the first step is to understand why the bad guys are winning, and then swipe as many of their winning tactics as we can. No need to re-invent the wheel, after all.

Obviously, there are some tactics we can't use effectively. Muddying the water, for example, should not be a deliberate tactical goal for progressives - because fog of war favours the guy with the biggest soapbox, and that's not us right now.

But that doesn't mean that we should fall for the temptation to incessantly try to clarify when the right muddies the waters (I plead guilty). If the bad guys deliberately muddy the waters, it's almost always a sign that they're going to try to shout us down. So you don't try to clear things up. You try to shout louder. Trying to clear things up is a waste of time, because a single fool can stir up more shit than ten wise men can calm down. And the wingnuts have full-time, well-paid shit-stirrers.

- Jake

Ceterum censeo Chicago esse delendam