Congressman Mike Rogers told Face the Nation that “you can’t base your policy on what’s trending on Twitter”. Talk about a succinct soundbite.
Time and again this is what the White House does. Though in many cases it drums up the social media on a particular topic, then plays off the stir it creates.
Before Speaker Boehner acted on a Select Committee, there were calls for him to do just that. However, when you looked at his twitter feed, it was littered with liberals saying he needs to “act on UI”, the most important issue at the present — unemployment insurance extension. It was offset by an equal number of calls to raise “minimum wage now”.
Mark Steyn has an excellent column talking about Michelle Obama’s appeal to terrorists to let the girls go, again via the hashtag. Stein posits #Bring Back Our Balls, which says more on foreign policy in Hashtag form than anything the White House demonstrated.
The first actually morphs into the other two: (know which one is real?)
Remember, it was even NYT’ David Brooks, who said Obama has a manhood problem.
“And let’s face it, Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I’ll say it crudely — but a manhood problem in the Middle East,” he continued. “Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin? I think a lot of the rap is unfair, but certainly in the Middle East there is an assumption that he’s not tough enough.”
“From Yalta to health care,” Mr. Brooks interjected, receiving laughs. [ha ha]
In the Ukraine and Russia debacle, you had the State Dep. say Russia, i.e. Putin, is not honoring the hashtag. So “hashtag” has become an pseudo-icon, euphemism for policy. A place where having millions of followers, and composites, in social media somehow translates to political power.
A similar strategy in Egypt during the Arab Spring movement, wherein the US using social media thought it could influence politics and policy. The Egypt thing worked rather well.
Social media is the pseudo-replacement for diplomacy and getting tough policy. Or as Steyn so eloquently puts it: #BringBackOurBalls
“It is hard not to have total contempt for a political culture that thinks the picture at right is a useful contribution to rescuing 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by jihadist savages in Nigeria. Yet some pajama boy at the White House evidently felt getting the First Lady to pose with this week’s Hashtag of Western Impotence would reflect well upon the Administration. The horrible thing is they may be right: Michelle showed she cared – on social media! – and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?
Just as the last floppo hashtag, #WeStandWithUkraine, didn’t actually involve standing with Ukraine, so #BringBackOurGirls doesn’t require bringing back our girls. There are only a half-dozen special forces around the planet capable of doing that without getting most or all of the hostages killed: the British, the French, the Americans, Israelis, Germans, Aussies, maybe a couple of others. So, unless something of that nature is being lined up, those schoolgirls are headed into slavery, and the wretched pleading passivity of Mrs Obama’s hashtag is just a form of moral preening.
But then what isn’t? The blogger Daniel Payne wrote this week that “modern liberalism, at its core, is an ideology of talking, not doing”. He was musing on a press release for some or other “Day of Action” that is, as usual, a day of inaction:
Diverse grassroots groups are organizing and participating in events such as walks, rallies and concerts and calling on government to reduce climate pollution, transition off fossil fuels and commit to a clean energy future.
It’s that easy! You go to a concert and someone “calls on government” to do something, and the world gets fixed.
Is it any wonder why they need skilled fiction writers and talking-point editors in this regime? Maybe in Africa or the Middle East they are just having a hard time reading our #Hashtags ? Just saying.
Never mind how dumb or stupid it looks and sounds. Progressives never cared about that, which goes to the next point. The prior post shows MoveOn.UG has its panties in a bunch drawing their own red lines. Do not label Boko Haram a terrorist organization, they say. No, if you don’t think kidnapping over 250 girls and the unlimited violence and killing qualifies as terrorism, not to mention their aspirations, then you sir might qualify as a liberal progressive.
As my friend Just Gene says, ‘it’s so easy to be a Democrat: they don’t have to worry about hypocrisy and can repeal reality whenever they chose.’ What does truth mean to them anyway? There is no accountability if you are a liberal. Something is whatever you want it to be. Or hashtag #Eatyourheartout , I’m a Democrat, able to solve foreign crises with #hashtag#.
I almost long for the days of Baghdad Bob, when everyone chuckled and agreed it was propaganda. Today we have Jay Carney still at the podium. Yet no hook comes from the wings to yank him off stage. On the contrary, Obama just hired better writers.
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