Dark Arts Politics:
The Beginning
The next post here at The Dark Wraith Forums will be the first in a new series entitled "Dark Arts Politics." Articles in the series will objectively describe what are commonly called "dirty tricks" and related political activities. Topical subjects will include push polling, false opposition support, challenge lists, media manipulation, and other tactics, some proactive, some reactive, some legal, some not. Even though this is the stuff of a degraded political landscape far from the ideals of fair, decent, and honorable campaigning, I make no apology for writing and publishing the articles.
This series will not be favored by everyone. In fact, it is sure to offend those who hold hope of a better nation, one where candidates for public office can set forth their positions openly in reasoned and dignified ways, allowing their opponents the same right of honorable discourse unfettered by the shadows of lies, intimidation, and fear. This series is not for those who believe that candidates always win by taking the high road against vile opponents; neither is this series for those who believe it is better to lose than to take the low road against a hateful opponent who has no problem with vicious campaign tactics. It is certainly not for those who hope for a better future of political activity in America. This is a chronicle of how to survive and flourish in a degraded land. It is not, however, an invitation to engage such an awful place.
To give readers a feel for what Dark Arts Politics has to offer, this series will begin with an article describing a specific tactic I call "firebreaking." The second article will step back and lay out important prior matters, including technical issues of organization and action. Subsequent articles will return to specifics. All descriptions of activities should be viewed as entirely academic: readers are at their own risk in actually transforming words into deeds.
If you choose to go from reading about dirty tricks to actually trying some of them, you face legal risks if what you do is contrary to applicable local, state, or federal law. Improperly executed, your efforts damage your own candidate's chances of winning. You also face risks from the opposition, such risks running the gamut from mere exposure of you on through to physical violence against your property, your person, and your friends and family. In other words, if you actually take the giant step from learning to applying, you could go to jail, you could get beaten, and people you know and love could get seriously harmed. Yes, it's that dangerous.
Even if you survive a campaign in which you have been a practitioner of dirty tricks—even if your candidate wins in part due to what you've done—you could get burned long afterward. Statutes of limitations leave lots of time for sore losers to scream bloody murder until someone hears them. The risks are real, and retribution can be shocking in how disproportionate it may seem.
Fortunately for the continuation of our spiral into the degraded American political landscape of the 21st Century, some people don't want to live forever anyway.
The Dark Wraith will soon publish the first article of Dark Arts Politics.
Published 7/07/2006 02:24:00 PM
<< 18 Comments Total
Good afternoon Mr. Wraith,
I'd venture a guess that ALL of your yet to be published dirty tricks have been used by one politician or group within what, the last day? One thing is for certain, you will have plenty of real situations to use as examples.
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
No doubt about it: there's nothing new under the sun; and I would certainly not be one to sell the tried-and-true as innovation.
But the devil is in the details; and besides, sometimes what's old news to some is pretty new to others; having been a teacher for many years, I can attest to what I know as old and sometimes perhaps even tiresome in repetition being new and exciting to the occasional, bright student.
Besides, that devil is fun to toss around: you never know when a variation on the well-known twirl could produce some magic.
But as I implied in the article above, I would certainly not want people actually using the knowledge I might convey.
The Dark Wraith expects progressivism to stay above the politics of destruction.
Good Afternoon Dark Wraith:
I can't wait to read about your Dark Arts Politics. I'm sure you'll expose plenty of dirty tricks that I may not be aware of, have heard about, or am pretty much not surprised over, considering the stuff I've read about regarding this current Republican Party and Bush White House PR-spin machine under the control of ubber-slime Karl Rove. Either way, it will certainly make for some interesting conversation.
I am not surprised if candidates from both political parties engage in such dirty, negative and dark campaigning. This type of campaigning reduces itself down to the lowest common denominator of wretched mudslinging, catcalls and insults. In a sense, such political campaigning is similar to watching The Jerry Springer Show on television. On Jerry Springer, you are confronted to learning about the most ridiculously asinine, issue-oriented topic that has absoloutly no importance to our society--although the topic will have some reference of sexual content with either family members or farm animals. Springer's "guests" are selected on how loud and foul-mouthed they could get in presenting their anger against each other over this "topic." And of course, the greater the breast-size of the female guests, the greater the chance that such female guests would show them off to the audience, resulting in yet another on-stage fight by these "guests," who would make white trailer trash seem like British royalty. And while all this is happening, the studio audience is transfixed by this outragious display of crass incompetence and stupidity--and the audience continues to goad these "guests" on for more outragious display.
Now we come to our American political landscape--brought to you by the Jerry Springer Show. We have political candidate "guests" who attack each other onstage with their negative ads, insults, and unsubstantiated charges--and I won't even go into the area of sex and politics. The political issues are issue oriented--gay marriage, flag burning, school prayer--that have no bearing to the serious political problems that our country faces. The corporate media is Jerry Springer and his TV cameras--ready to capture this entire charade for ratings and corporate profits. And the American voters--also known as the studio audience--remains transfixed by this bombastic circus, unaware that the studio around them is burning down to the ground.
The sad thing here is that I can turn off the TV when Jerry Springer comes on. But I can't take Jerry Springer out of the American political landscape.
Good evening, Eric.
And you know the worst thing about it? Jerry Springer makes an absolute fortune at what he does. Adding insult to injury, his audience isn't as low-brow as some people might think, either.
I am reminded of the Carol Burnett Show. The variety-show format that had been her bread and butter for some years was beginning to sag in the general television viewer trends, and her creative writers desperately reached for the angle to keep their middle- to upper-middle-class audience from slipping away: it was the character skits generally referred to as "Eunice." They were darkly vicious, biting, and nasty; they usually had some kind of ugly climactic scene involving bitter argument, yelling, and sometimes even screaming. Although critics of the skits were many, a major swath of Burnett fans adored them: these fans were the with-it, hip types who thought they were the ones above it all who could look down on the lesser "trash" of society and have a good, derisive laugh. "Yep, that's how those people are. God! but they're pathetic. Let's watch 'em some more; it's better than going to the zoo."
That was an early entry on an arc that would go clear through to Jerry Springer, creating major entertainment spurs along the way in such diverse expressions as Roseanne and Seinfeld: intense attachment to the lower classes of society counterpointing intense detachment in the upper reaches. It continued straight into the 21st Century with such laugh-fests as "Everybody Loves Raymond," where people get to be mean to each other, but the audience gets to cover its butt with the obligatory, half-hearted afterthought of vestiges of humanity in the closing minute of most episodes. It also shows up in the audience pleasure of watching a pig like Donald Trump destroy little wannabe piglets.
We no longer need television inviting us to our better nature: all we need is validation that somewhere out there, someone is even more injured than we have been by this age.
Politics of our day is not a cause of anything; it's just one more symptom of a disease of disengagement that forestalls for us the brutal alternative of genuine alienation: disengagement demands nothing but our acquiescence; alienation, on the other hand, would almost assuredly compel us to action or despair. We of the post-modern America will take the corrosive gate that leads down the slide into tyranny every time when the alternative would invite us to face head-on our own beaten lives instead of those of our straw-man lessers.
I'll write the Dark Arts Politics as a person would call to action those who want to shift the ground under which this nation would otherwise come to be buried. If everyone knows how to do battle on the shattered landscape, it becomes unproductive to do the battle because the best outcome that could then happen would be stalemate. At that, perhaps people of differing opinions but good will might step forward and bring the land back from its tormented form.
Otherwise, with everyone knowing how to play dirty, we can just destroy our republic once and for all. Perhaps the Seinfeld generation will find that a real knee-slapper.
The Dark Wraith will enjoy stirring the pot.
Know how to play dirty, huh?
Do you mean you might be going to post on things that are little too far over the top like this crap?
Well, at least (the empty suit with the big wallet and no plan) DICK (boo - hiss) saw fit to denounce it.
Granholm for MI Gov.
I do look forward to reading this series of posts, DW.
(Carol Burnett? Fun enough, but SOAP did have great giggles, too.)
Oh, yes, I know about DICK.
Good evening, Moody Blue.
You've made a nice intro for my first article in the Dark Arts Politics series.
I'll spend a fair amount of space walking through this type of political gamesmanship. It's actually pretty fun, even if it is a defensive game the way I'll talk about its use.
The Dark Wraith does SO love friendly politics.
good evening dark wraith: whew! it's been a week of work, work, work...no complaints due to the payday, payday, payday aspect. dirty tricks and mudslinging have a long, cherished position in the history of american politics. like war, they remain and shall remain part of the landscape because, while dangerous,n they are effective. i believe it was sam rayburn who used to say "politics ain't beanbag" when confronted with some of his more bare knuckle tactics. one of the campaign songs used against lincoln involved (and i am merely citing a historical fact, not endorsing any view here) was to the tune of "yankee doodle" and called "nigger doodle dandy" a copy of the lyric can be found in "lies my teacher taught me" the mudslinging during the jefferson/adams election was truly vile and unworthy of either great man. like war, dirty campaigns and their practitiones do deserve study. not to be like that, but to know what to expect, and best ways to respond.
Good evening, Minstrel Boy.
Political mud songs and poems are quite the historical curiosity. Interestingly, the same ones show up over and over again through time, with the names changed as necessary.
There was one that's always stuck in my mind:
Hoover, Hoover,
he's our man!
Roosevelt died in an old tin can;
Hoover came along and gobbled him up,
an' that was the END of the dirty pup.
Years later came this one:
Nixon, Nixon,
he's our man!
McGovern died in an old tin can;
Nixon came along and gobbled him up,
an' that was the END of the dirty pup.
Lordy but that's some creative stuff.
Then, of course, there were several poems and songs about the "Washington Nancy" fellows. God, that was some vicious crap, and I guess the same theme was used later against other Presidents.
And if folks here have never heard the pejorative of the "Washington Nancies" (or "Washington Nancys," as some wrote it at the time), it's quite an interesting subject, and it's one you'll have to dig for.
But anyway, Rayburn was right: it ain't beanbag.
The Dark Wraith sees it more like "hand grenade dodge ball."
Hello Dark Wraith,
I apologize for the pause of my entries and comments lately, but things are back to normal. I'm looking forward to this series an to the discussions to be made from it. I would also be interesting to list examples of who has tried these tricks, to get viewers better acquainted with politicians and their history.
It should come to be fun times that will be offending others, but sometimes that's the only way people will learn. Even the moral ones are divided of what to do after an opponent has played dirty and shows no real care for the citizens.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to this! It will be amusing.
Hi Dark Wraith and Friends:
I recently moved my blog to movable type.
In the process someone stole my blogspot URL.
My new URL is
http://pissedonpolitics.com/
Could you please remove the blogspot URL from your link list as well as the BBA list? I don't want the asshole who stole my blogspot URL getting any undeserved traffic.
Thanks!
Good evening Mr. Wraith,
I didn't mean to imply your dirty tricks are old news and not worth discussing here, only that our current state of affairs in politics is so disgusting that they are common place.
As you say that devil is fun to toss around; it will be fun to try and improve a few of the old tricks.
Good evening, Dark Wraith.
The information you plan to discuss will be definitely be worthwhile. There are so many (nasty) things that go on in the background that many of us have no clue about. I can hardly wait to read your next post!
Good evening, Mr. Goat.
Not to worry. I do think just about everything I'll show has been tried, but I certainly think I have a duty to pass along to new generations the benefits of the Wisdom of the Ages.
Lord knows, I consider it a sacred honor to pass down to others the highest and most dignified of activities.
The trick will be to keep everybody's attention as I play this series out in the two-part article style I'm going to use.
We shall see.
The Dark Wraith does enjoy the round-about way of making a point.
An education in any Dark Arts that don't actually involve necromancy will be welcome, Mr. Wraith.
On the other hand, I'm not so sure all of the opposition will be so scrupulous.
Good evening, Kelley B.
I promise that I shall explain tactics every bit as ethical as anything, say, Karl Rove would use.
That's my commitment to high-minded and honorable politics.
The Dark Wraith figures lightning hasn't blasted Rove to Kingdom Come, yet, so it can't be that dangerous.
Good Evening Dark One:
I note that your slant is toward defence. Recalling what happens in the Harry Potter series to all the Defence of the Dark Arts instructors, I'm quite sincerely glad that this is not Hogwarts, though I think our denizons here would be quite at home in Ravenclaw or Griffindor houses. Meanwhile, the Slytherins would quite deservedly get their collective arses kicked, were this actually Hogworts. Bush and Rove are definitely members of that house.
If I recall from an old thead on literature, I believe I'm the only regular reader here that is a Potter fan. So be it. At least in those books, the triumph of courage, brains and unselfish good over evil self centered greed is not only possible but happens. In the real world, our Voldemorts and Wormtongues are still on top, with their networks of syncopants either too scared or too greedy to put paid to their masters, while our "heroes" are still hoping against hope that someone else will clean up the mess instead of just doing what is right.
Yeah, I can see you as DOD instructor easily....Of course, one had to leave when he was discovered to be a werewolf, so I'm thinking your wraithlyness would end up disqualifying you also, so the analogy holds..
Yes, Wild Clover, the analogy does, indeed, hold.
Although I'm still not much of a Harry Potter fan, I've become much mellower about the series of books. Pedantic as the writing style is, and thin as the plot lines go over a given number of pages, in their aggregate the books have the necessary qualities to be considered the newest entrants into what we in academia call the "Western Canon."
Besides, I finally got the authentic Harry Potter chess set. You know: like the one in the movie. The queen was so cool, the way she held her sword.
Now, if only I could find a chess player who was really good who was nevertheless willing to play me with such a cheesy set.
The Dark Wraith will just have to sit and admire his great chess set as it rests unused in its original box.