Tea at Trianon: A New Anti-Republican Attack Machine

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

A New Anti-Republican Attack Machine

From Bloomberg:

With his Citizen Strong partners, all veteran researchers, Burton has spent the year choosing his targets. In February he decided to focus on districts that leaned slightly right—ones like Rohrabacher’s that haven’t been competitive but would be if a Democratic wave emerged. That bet looks prescient. A recent New York Times poll showed Rohrabacher, a 15-term incumbent, tied with his Democratic challenger. Control of Congress will hinge on whether Rohrabacher and other endangered Republicans can withstand a midterm wave. Citizen Strong’s October surprises will make survival that much harder.

Burton has a trove of anti-Republican material. The art of oppo lies in culling and distributing that kind of information to tell a particular story—a negative story—that will tarnish the incumbent and weaken his or her support. Sometimes researchers will quietly slip it to reporters, hoping it will yield a story and gain the imprimatur of a nonpartisan news outlet. Other times, oppo can be the basis of an ad campaign or used to build a website voters and the media can scrutinize—a bit like WikiLeaks. (Burton says none of his material is obtained through hacking or other illegal means.) With the midterms looming, he’s begun disseminating his “citizen oppo” in three Senate races, 22 House races, and 133 state legislative races across 13 states. He’s hoping these last-minute attacks will help push many of these races into the Democratic column, flipping control of the House—and possibly even the Senate—as well as state legislatures that will play a critical role in redrawing congressional lines in 2020, a process that will shape national politics for the next decade.

While the story of the Resistance tends to focus on the positive—the revival of civic activism—Burton has the hard-bitten perspective of someone who’s fought in the campaign trenches and knows that placards and pussy hats aren’t enough to beat Republicans. “John is willing to go where we need to go,” says his friend Laura Moser, a former Democratic congressional candidate. “He knows we’ve got to play dirty to win.” (Read more.)