Back at Spinsanity, I wrote a lot about the way Republicans used the phrase "political hate speech" to try to silence criticism of President Bush by equating it with racism (here and especially here). This is one of the many PR-influenced tactics that politicians and pundits now use to try to achieve a blatantly undemocratic goal: suppressing speech they don't like.
Now Democracy for America, the influential liberal group founded by Howard Dean and run by his brother Jim, has picked up on the term. DFA executive director Tom Hughes sent an email (PDF) to supporters today (also posted on the DFA blog) that was as blatant an attempt to silence speech as I've seen in a long time:
A couple of weeks ago a right-wing front group called "USA Next" made national news when it started its anti-Social Security campaign with a bigoted, hateful ad. Immediately, tens of thousands of DFA grassroots supporters created a backlash so strong that USA Next spent the next few weeks licking its wounds.
But now they're back. USA Next is set to go on the air with its political hate speech in the next two weeks. Please act now -- petition media outlets to keep bigotry and distortions off the air:
First of all, it's questionable whether the original USA Next ad, which attacked the AARP by falsely suggesting that the group supports gay marriage, constituted hate speech. Though it clearly appealed to anti-gay sentiment, it didn't say anything explicitly hateful.
But it doesn't actually matter what you think of the original ad. Watch how this works -- in the online petition, DFA leverage a single example of disreputable speech to condemn all forthcoming USA Next ads as "hate speech" and demand that they be kept off the air:
Stop 'USA Next'
The right-wing fringe has declared war on Social Security -- and USA Next, a front group for radical conservatives who want to dismantle Social Security, has led the fight with bigoted, hate-filled ads.
You won't be surprised to hear who they hired to publicize their efforts: the same team of hatchet men that ran the swift boat smear campaign against John Kerry. Now they are targeting the AARP, a group that millions of seniors rely on to defend their interests.
We must stop these people … now.
This petition will be delivered by DFA Meetup groups to every TV station that tries to air the USA Next attack ads.
I demand that you keep political hate speech and false claims off the air.
Signed, (...)
Note the claims being made in the petition above: (1) USA Next poses a dire threat that must be "stopped" by silencing the group and (2) that DFA already knows that the as-yet-unpublicized USA Next ads contain "political hate speech" and "false claims."
This is exactly what Republicans did in 2003-2004 -- use isolated examples of outrageous attacks on President Bush to try to delegitimize all criticism of him. Ironically enough, DFA is working right out of the GOP playbook, but they're not alone. In fact, they're just one of many liberal groups that are increasingly adapting the worst tactics of conservative spinners (see the conclusion to All the President's Spin for more). The potential for the downward spiral of distortion grows every day...
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