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>Yet, I continue to be surprised that a majority of voters seem to understand it. Despite the entire media conglomerate covering for them, most Americans understand that Dems are just saying what they must in order to remain viable.

Very insightful post!

Still, I think you may be underestimating the effectiveness of leftist rhetoric and the tools the Left has available (another way of putting that being that you are overestimating the American public's ability to see through the Left message.

You're right, the Left and their media allies keep pulling the same playbook... But the Left doesn't require to the mainstream of the American public to be excited over their program, whose goal is not really to solve problems imo.

The goals of Left programs in foreign policy are to establish the perception of authenticity of their good intentions, and they've succeeded in that.

The gay agenda, Kyoto, affirmative action, the minimum wage, going easy on crime, Kerry's "global test", even their pro-choice agenda with abortion--- each of these work as a public and private relations move; each of these things establish their promoters as good people, to the American public and to themselves.

Kyoto shows the left cares more about conserving nation than cowtowing to business interests, and the fact that it would disproportionately hurt America only further establishes the Left's sincerity.

Promoting the pro-choice agenda shows that the Left wing isn't sexist, that they respect the choices of women.

The global test and the Left's like proposals show they respect other nations.

Affirmative action shows the Left it is not in the hippocket of racists, which means the Left cares about women and minorities, especially blacks.

Similarly, the minimum wage shows it is not in the hippocket of business, which shows it cares about workers, especially poor workers.

Conservatives haven't convinced the mainstream of the country that they aren't racistsbigotshomophobes, not to mention sexists.

I mean, generally when a conservative politician wants to show he's none of those things, he makes concessions to the Left agenda. That shows the tremendous symbolic power of that agenda, to which conservatives have no symbolic counterpart of their own.

What you call and in fact has been Hillary's lying on Iraq is, in symbolic propaganda terms, a sign of her moderation. Having no alternative to Leftism, the only choices are "moderate" incremental leftism or revolutionary leftism. The "sane" supporters of Hillary see her deceptions re Iraq as not only clever political strategy, but as a sign that she is practical in addition to being good-- it's a sign of her "nuance".