The Method of Aggravation by Maverick Adulation

No jokes now, folks.  It’s zero flak time.

First, a little history.  This site was created to help defeat a very successful McCain tactic, and here’s the short explanation of it.  Since 2000 or so, McCain has been courting the media, and he hasn’t cared much how he went about it.  Not only did he damage your 1st  Amendment rights with McCain-Feingold for their benefit, but he constantly  goaded conservatives like me into helpless rage and frustration because it made said media happy.

In return, they built his fake maverick credentials, made him a media darling for years, and helped him win the 2008 Republican presidential primary.  Yes, they turned on him in the end, but they generated a lot of benefit for him in the meantime.  Enough for other Republicans to stand up and take notice.

The point is that you can’t get mad at John McCain.  The media loves it when he makes you mad.  This means he can use your rage, frustration, and criticism to curry favor with them, thereby building up both himself and his career.  He covers it with spin like “I put my country first”, “I’m bipartisan”, and my personal favorite, “I’m a maverick”, but it was never more than all about him and him alone.

Fortunately, there is a countermove:  don’t get mad.  It works like this:

• John McCain has a working tactic, but he also has an ego the size of a continent, like many politicians.  In his case, a huge ego surrounded by a boatload of arrogance and a short temper.
• That ego, arrogance, and temper is a very, very bad combination to have if someone starts mocking him.  Yes, he’ll get mad and may act on it, but what’s he going to do, be himself?  He can’t do that until he’s re-elected in 2010 or he’ll infuriate Arizona voters, and he’ll do it anyway once he’s re-elected regardless of whether you supported him or not.  Of course, if you torque his ego, he may just get mad enough for his facade to slip before its time.
• If someone should turn The Maverick into a laughingstock, his ego will stay torqued, which will keep him mad, frustrated, and stupid.  If that happens, all that puff press he received won’t mean that much anymore.  That’s the premise to this site, and it has a name:  maverick adulation.

Read through the pages here, and at first glance, they seem clownish. I’ve received comments ranging from “You’re an idiot” to “I laughed so much, thank you”, but they miss the point.  The point is to successfully counter a politician who’s selling out all efforts to make the country a better place, in this case McCain. 

The technique?  You pretend to support someone while mocking everything they do.  Unlike criticism, maverick adulation can be delivered with humor (“You’re so mavericky!”), dismissiveness (“Oh, such and so did something.  Was I supposed to care?”), or ridicule (“I bet you thought of that all by yourself.  Here’s a cookie!  A-goo-goo-goo.”).  That’s what defeats the “I can use your rage as my stepping stone” technique McCain and other politicians like him can employ to self-aggrandize at your expense.  You never need to show any rage while you’re attacking them.

Furthermore:

• Instead of McCain using us, he’s experiencing what he’s inflicted while his colleagues watch and learn from the example.  The one thing Republicans respond to without fail is fear, which the Democrats have known and exploited for years.  Not patriotism, not what’s best for America, not facts, and not votes.  Just fear.
• It’s really hard to get re-elected if you’re reduced to a laughingstock by maverick adulation.  There are no public appearances, no fundraising dinners, no big donations, because no one takes you seriously and are prone to laugh you off the stage.
• This premise can be used on any politician who’s turning on conservative attempts to solve problems in exchange for puff press, and not just McCain.  Since they’re now in the news, you can ride on their limelight, insuring that your maverick adulation has a better chance of being noticed and therefore working.  The more press they get, the better this works.
• This form of dissent is very, very hard on egomaniacs, which infest Washington in annoying numbers.  Even if they don’t get voted out of office because of it, they still must endure it whenever they do sell out for puff press.  Generic criticism may not hurt your average politician, but taking a proverbial mallet to their egos certainly will.
• Done with enough humor, there is the possibility of going viral and successfully reducing someone to said laughingstock.

Yes, the concept is experimental, and tough to do successfully.  Keeping your temper in check enough to use maverick adulation is no mean feat, because the boobs who deserve it are rightfully due some scorn.  I’ll even grant that I’m not yet as successful as I would like to be.  However, the premise takes advantage of some very real conditions, and so I believe it to be sound.

Uh-huh. Let’s cut to the chase. The same-old, same-old isn’t working. Yes, we have facts, we argue them well, and we love our country, but we still lose.  One of the big reasons for this is the media’s carrot of lavishing praise on Republicans that undermine our efforts from within, the best example of which is John McCain.  One or two such sellouts can defeat initiatives that could have kept this country on the right track, which was demonstrated often during the Republican majorities between 2000-2006.

I’ve seen enough of it.  America is teetering on the edge of not being America anymore, and it’s time to take the carrot away from the media.  Oh, they can still lavish puff press on petty milquetoast Republicans if this works, but if it results in stylized ridicule riding on that very same puff press, it’s not so bright and shiny anymore.  So I give you the concept of maverick adulation as the countermove to John McCain and people like him.  You can decide for yourself if you want to use it or not.

Filed under: Zero Flak on April 18th, 2009 No Comments