| I wonder how successful she is at converting neutrals or opponents...or does her acid style even drive some people away
Suppose Ann Coulter is not trying to convince liberals of anything. She is instead a munitions manufacturer for the vast right wing conspiracy. The wall-to-wall blanket liberalism that smothered this country for decades left a lot of people who leaned conservative almost ashamed of their beliefs. Around the office, they wouldn't say a word about their politics. All the jokes, all the TV shows, the whole zeitgeist was pushing leftward all the time. The problem for conservatives was, there was no good ammo. Rush Limbaugh has done the most, I think, to provide Joe Everyman Conservative with the ammo he needs to hold his own around the water cooler. Limbaugh has since been joined by many others. It's a different world out there, and the liberals are reeling. One of the liberals' big icons has been Joe McCarthy. There has always been a sizeable number of people running around saying, "Psst... McCarthy was right," but for 90% of the culture, the term "Joe McCarthy" has come to mean "Mysterious bad guy in the 1950's who persecuted people." So Joe McCarthy has become a handy cudgel that liberals use to silence anything they don't like. "You sound like Joe McCarthy, that's just more McCarthyism." He's a meme. We need to knock down some of their memes. McCarthy has been a useful one for them. When all the shouting dies down, the lasting effect of this latest book will be that the "Joe McCarthy meme" has been fuzzed up in the minds of lots of people. Some may not believe a word Coulter said, but they know there's another side. Memes become useless unless their meaning is transmitted instantly; any fuzz at all about what they mean, and they aren't memes anymore. So on that level it doesn't matter whether Coulter convinces anyone with this book. She provides ammo that Joe Everyman can take to the water cooler, and she sows doubts in liberal minds that they can use Joe McCarthy as a conversation stopper. There's a third thing. She makes liberals go berserk, which is fun to watch. We see pontificating liberal columnists writing, "This loudmouthed b*tch is not engaging in civil discourse like we do." Heh. |
The world is not so simple as "our guys, their guys, and the people in the midddle." It's a spectrum, and no matter where you are on the spectrum, there are going to be people slightly on either side of you who will find you convincing. People farther away on the spectrum -- in either direction -- will think you are a nut. You can't worry about that.