THE MAN OF THE HOUR

THURSDAY NIGHT RNC SPEECHES

LESSONS IN MEDIA BIAS AND LEFT-WING HATE

The first two active nights of the RNC in Tampa were certainly an eye-opener.  Anyone listening to the speeches could not help but be moved by the personal stories and the pride in American exceptionalism they conveyed.  And if hearing the speeches wasn't enough to convince someone of their effectiveness one only has to take a quick look at the frantic response from the Left, particularly in the Establishment Media, to recognize the unmistakable stench of desperation. 

I enjoy seeing the repeated meltdowns by members of the Establishment Media who are horrified at the damage done by basic reality to their carefully crafted but generally false narratives. But I also find it nauseating, quite frankly, to see such raw hatred, racism, bigotry and lying erupt from them, especially since they claim sole ownership of the "civility" issue.  They are "civil?"  Nothing could be further from the truth.  

So, what did we learn on Tuesday and Wednesday nights?

Juan Williams disgraced himself Tuesday night by making a snarky, angry comment about Ann Romney.  Even though he was supposed to be talking about her speech performance, he instead chose to dismiss her as looking like "a corporate wife" and somebody who is "taken care of."  Williams is not exactly a novice here.  He knows perfectly well what he did and it's apparent that he couldn't care less.  

It's ironic that according to the bizarre "logic" of the Left, the fact that Williams is black and Ann Romney is white would qualify his statement as "racist."  In other words, if a white commentator were to make a similar statement about Michelle Obama is it even remotely possible that the Establishment Media wouldn't totally freak out? Since the talking heads at MSNBC and CNN (and basically the entire Obama Media Group) are already obsessed with the "dog whistle" meme, they would be all over any white male commentator who "went there."  In fairness to Williams, his comments were hardly the most offensive example of the Left's hatefest.

Lawrence O'Donnell at MSNBC also jumped at the chance to take some shots at Ann Romney.  But to do this he had to interpret her speech in outlandish ways in order to make it fit The Narrative.  Compared to O'Donnell, Juan Williams was a model of decorum and objectivity!  But then again, Williams does work for FOX.

We learned that MSNBC is so desperate to protect The Narrative, namely that the GOP is hopelessly "monochromatic" and hostile to minorities, that they deliberately cut away from the speeches whenever a minority speaker came on stage. Mia Love? Ted Cruz? Artur Davis? Nikki Haley? Susana Martinez, the first female Latino governor in U.S. history?  It doesn't matter what their accomplishments are.  The Obama Media Group can't allow their viewers to get too big a sampling of this new reality or else those viewers might start questioning The Narrative itself.

Now if you want to argue that the Democrats have more minority members; more blacks and Hispanics, more homosexuals, etc. then that would certainly be an undeniable truth.  There's no question that in terms of volume, the Democrats have more.  But that's not the claim - accusation, really - that Democrats are making.  They repeatedly insist that the GOP is a party of "old white men" and lacks diversity.  And that's simply not true.  

The GOP is without question diverse, not only in terms of race, gender, religion, income levels, etc. but also diverse in ideas, outlooks and life stories.  Minorities are always welcome in the GOP because they share common Conservative values.  In fact, minorities are particularly valued by the GOP precisely because it is so hard for minorities to break away from the hive and follow their values rather than simple PC conformity. On top of everything else they have courage and conviction to go along with their Conservative views.

Who is it that makes life difficult for minority members of the GOP?  Not the Republican "old white men" that the Left is constantly whining about but rather the whites and blacks of the Left.  It's white liberals who are hateful and racist in their attitude towards black people who don't do as their told.  It's black liberals who are disrespectful and close-minded when dealing with their fellow blacks who are Republican.  It wasn't "old white men" in the GOP who were playing the ridiculous "negrospotting" hashtag game Tuesday night.  It was white liberals and black liberals.  They did this even though they would certainly be the first to howl if they ever caught white and black Republicans playing the exact same game.  The hypocrisy and blatant double standards are simply unacceptable and must not be allowed to stand or impede true progress in this nation.

It's the same story with every minority group or segment of the Republican base.  Latino Republicans are dismissed as "window dressing." They are accused of selfishly working against the interests of "their people."  Conservative women, gay Republicans, young Republicans, the spouses of politicians and even their children are targets of the Left's irrational hate and exploitation. It's as never-ending as it is bizarre. Not only has the Reactionary Left fully embraced all of the old forms of rhetorical hate but they've simultaneously expanded the language of "racism" using the "dog whistle" meme to the point where - as we've just learned - references to golfing and "holding down the fort" are included.

It's really hard to decide which is more outrageous and shameful: the reactionary and bigoted attitude of the Democrats or their breathtaking hypocrisy. It begs the question, "If the GOP is so hopelessly "racist" then how could any members of a minority group belong to it?  The logical and rational answer is that it isn't "racist" at all.  However, the answer the Reactionary Left comes up with is to accuse those minority members of being "sell outs" or "Uncle Toms" or "house niggers."  The Democrats of 2012, despite of all that tremendous "diversity" about which they like to boast, is still talking the same hateful, divisive and reactionary talk that it did in the 1950s and 1960s.  The circumstances are different but the end result is the same: bitterness, division and disappointment.

We had further confirmation of the outrageous bias of the media when Yahoo! News bureau chief David Chalian got caught on a hot mic mocking Mitt and Ann Romney with regards to the convention and hurricane Isaac:

"They aren’t concerned at all.  They are happy to have a party with black people drowning."

As Newsbuster's Matthew Sheffield noted, this is " the perfect example of the pervasive anti-Republican bias Mitt Romney faces in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama."

Fortunately, Chalian's hateful and pointless mockery was hammered repeatedly on Twitter.  To it's credit, Yahoo! did the right thing and fired him yesterday.  And as expected, the Establishment Media Collective, led by Gwen Ifill of PBS, then leaped to Chalian's defense rather than deal honestly with what he did and why he did it.  But Conservatives celebrated Chalian's new career opportunities now that the mask has dropped and his credibility as a "journalist" is gone.

The most vile statements imaginable are routinely uttered by people on the Left who claim to be blessed with extraordinary amounts of "empathy" and "tolerance."  It's a joke and would be hilarious if it wasn't so completely disturbing, disgusting and dishonest.  But that's what happens when one side - the Democrats - have become totally reactionary and committed to protecting The Narrative and stubbornly clinging to the status quo.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT RNC SPEECHES

TUESDAY NIGHT RNC SPEECHES

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

As the desperation among Democrats grows, seemingly by the hour, so does the level of hysteria among Obama's supporters in the media and entertainment industries.  Since Obama has a record of failure that he simply can't face, much less run on, the only strategy left for his campaign is to send in the clowns and let them do performance art masquerading as "journalism" or hurl accusations at Romney and Ryan.  The accusations are as vile and hateful as they are moronic and misleading.  And the ultimate irony is that if Republicans resorted to the same tactics and tone, the very media that is enabling and encouraging the attacks would be outraged by such reckless talk.  But because the targets are Republicans everything is fair game.

If you want to see Hollyweird in all it's unhinged glory, just have a look at Michelle Malkin's newest website, Twitchy.  There you will find a plethora of aging stars who apparently have nothing better to do than to put their political ignorance and clueless viewpoints regarding the real world (that they pay handlers to protect them from) on display while attacking Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and and any other Republican they can think of.  The latest to weigh in is actress Jean Smart, best known for her role as "sweet-natured but somewhat naïve office manager Charlene" on the TV show "Designing Women." Yesterday she called in to Current TV's "Talking Liberally with Stephanie Miller" to share her thoughts on the "mean spiritedness" of the Right.

"It’s interesting that the side that is always waving the Bible and calling themselves Christians are the ones who don't live their lives or speak like Christians," she said, noting that the philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans come down to believing that either one is his brother’s keeper or not.

"It's hard for me to even forgive anybody anymore if they even align themselves with the Republicans," she continued. "I don’t know how you can be even a thoughtful, intelligent person … and say I'm a Republican."

As is frequently the case, the trap that Jean Smart falls into is the one in which the commenter begins with a false premise and then starts ad-libbing from that starting point.  The longer the improvisation continues the more bizarre it becomes.  In this instance, the premise is that all Republicans are callous, unintelligent and hypocritical.  Nothing says "I'm a clown" like uttering a sweeping generalization about an entire group of people based on nothing more than a personal opinion.  

Then Ms. Smart demonstrates her Christian values by refusing to "forgive" anybody who belongs to the Republican Party. This begs the question: is Jean Smart not smart enough to recognize the contradictions in her rant?  Or does she simply lack the intellectual honesty to care about being a hypocrite herself by using mean-spirited rhetoric to complain about Republican "mean spiritedness?"

CLUELESS JOE'S GREATEST HITS

SMEAR PORN FOR DESPERATE DEMOCRATS

THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE AND DISHONORABLE DICLOSURES

JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF NY TIMES BIAS

In the New York Times yesterday there was an article written by Rebecca Berg that dealt with "the myth of the swing voter."  The article was based on the premise that the hype surrounding the need to capture the elusive swing vote is completely overblown and that most voters are partisan and will reliably vote for one party or the other.  In other words, this year's election outcomes will be determined by the bases of the two parties.  

Why is this significant?  Well, because Team Obama is currently engaged in a ferocious attack on the opposition clearly designed to fire up the party faithful.  Many knowledgeable people have and will continue to point out that the extreme negativity will hurt Obama among independent or swing voters and, therefore, is a major strategic mistake on the part of the Obama campaign.

Cue the spin doctors and propagandists.

Because the true believers in the Obama Media Group can't have their man criticized in such a dangerously objective manner they feel compelled to leap into the fray in defense of him and his actions.  In Berg's case, the need to bolster Obama's strategy called for the repeating of the claim that independent voters, swing voters, undecided voters are all a big myth (no doubt perpetuated by "dangerous right-wing types") that needed to be squashed. She wrote:

About one-third of Americans describe themselves as independent voters, creating a widespread impression that a large group of Americans will provide the decisive swing votes in this year’s election. But that impression is misleading, polling experts and political scientists say.

Many self-described independents — close to half, according to surveys — reliably vote for one party or the other. And many true swing voters live in states, like California or Texas, where no analyst doubts the outcome in November.

In spite of clichés about Nascar dads and Walmart moms, the actual share of voters nationally who are up for grabs is probably between just 3 percent and 5 percent in this election, polling experts say. The Obama and Romney campaigns are expected to spend on the order of $2 billion, in part to try to sway this tiny share of the electorate.

So, case closed, right?  I mean, the unidentified "polling experts" have spoken.  But stop and use the common sense that Rebecca Berg obviously doesn't think you possess and consider this:  If approximately 33% of the population self-identifies as "independent" then shouldn't that be taken seriously?  Instead, Rebecca Berg dismisses this, apparently because those people are clearly too politically ignorant or just plain stupid to know how they really think. "Those people" (Nascar dads and Walmart moms) have to be shown how to think correctly by self-congratulating "intelligentsia" such as Ms. Berg and her employers at the New York Times.

It's also important to note that she uses the phrase "reliably vote for one party or another."  This is a phrase that sounds official, maybe even scientific.  But what does it really mean?  The fact of the matter is that the American people vote in many elections, in different years and for different things.  Municipal elections, district elections, state-wide elections, etc. There is, however, only one national election and it only happens once every four years.  In other words, the election of a U.S. President is really rather unique; enough so that the usual rules are much less likely to apply. To pretend otherwise, as Ms. Berg did, is naive enough to be suspicious.  Is she really unaware of the well-known and historically proven reality of Reagan Democrats and the less-well-known but still significant Clinton Republicans? 

I don't believe Ms. Berg is really that naive.  Which means the only other possibility is that she deliberately adopted this view in order to promote the agenda that I mentioned at the top of the article: to give aid and comfort to the Obama campaign during this period of extreme and well-earned ridicule for the outrageous comments and assertions being made by members of the campaign, up to and including Vice President Joe Biden.  

If you doubt me, then have a look at this tweet by Ms. Berg. She is bragging about the article she wrote in which she deliberately refrained from using the word "gaffe" and also chose to alter Biden's comment from "gonna put y'all back in chains" to: "They’re going to put you all back in chains."  In other words she refused to characterize what he said as a mistake and deliberately sanitized the quote of it's ridiculous and insulting fake Southern accent. In another tweet she tried to defend her decision by claiming that the "y'all" was neither newsworthy nor stylistically appropriate.

She even tried to spin away Biden's other gaffe, namely confusing which state he was in. She did this by helpfully pointing out that Danville, Virginia, is really, really close to the North Carolina border.  Apparently close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and now Joe Biden.

Another point Ms. Berg made was that many of the so-called swing voters reside in states such as California and Texas, where we can all agree the outcomes are entirely predictable.  California will go with the Democrat and Texas will go with the Republican.  Again, that sounds reasonable and logical.  But wouldn't that statement also be true of the magical Latino vote that the Democrats are forever touting?  Isn't it also true that many eligible Latino voters reside in California and Texas, where the eventual outcomes are not in doubt?  And yet I don't expect to see any articles from Ms. Berg in which she pooh-poohs the significance of the Latino vote.

Also, her anonymous "experts" tell her that perhaps only 3-5% of the voters are truly up for grabs.  Her description of those voters as a "tiny share of the electorate" is yet another hint at her personal bias.  Surely she's aware of the presidential elections of 1876, 1948, 1960 and 2000.  Surely she understands that a decisive swing by 5% of the electorate in either direction is more than enough to decide the outcome.  If she isn't too ignorant to be aware of this then why on earth would she be so anxious to dismiss it?  Because it serves her purposes to do so.  To her credit, she does at least provide one quote from the Romney camp:

“There’s a very small slice of people who are genuinely undecided, but it’s enough to win the presidency,” said Rich Beeson, the political director for Mr. Romney’s campaign.

 Later in the article she gives herself away once again:

Myths about the behavior of these voters are pervasive and persistent: For example, that undecided voters break for the challenger as Election Day nears. (Data have shown this is often not the case.) 

This is a swipe at Dick Morris, the pollster and campaign architect, who is well-known for insisting that undecided voters do ultimately vote for the challenger.  Obviously in 2012 such an outcome would probably win the election for Mitt Romney.  Naturally Ms. Berg can't tolerate that kind of talk and so must disparage and dismiss it. After all, what could Dick Morris possibly know about running a presidential campaign? But there's a reason why "myths" and "cliches" exist in the first place: because there is truth to them on some level that cannot be denied - at least not honestly.  And Morris, whatever your opinions of him, knows that truth. He is predicting that Romney will win rather comfortably in November.  Ms. Berg's article is an attempt to refute that.

I have no doubt if Rebecca Berg were to read what I'm writing she would object to the suggestion that she harbors a liberal bias or that her employer is in any way biased on behalf of Democrats in general and Barack Obama in particular.  Of course it's rare when a journalist is willing to admit to his or her bias, so that would be par for the course.  But when one reads the words objectively - and without benefit of Kool-aid intoxication - it's not hard to spot the subtle but obvious signs of a deliberate effort to influence the thinking of the readers, the talking heads and, ultimately, the voters.

PAUL RYAN: MAN OF UNDERSTANDING AND VISION

The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal

The GOP path to prosperity - Ryan article in Wall Street Journal

WHY PAUL RYAN IS THE RIGHT MAN

This election year is vital to the future of the country we love so much.  It has now become a campaign of ideas and visions (at least for Republicans) and Mitt's tapping of Paul Ryan as his VP draws a line in the sand.  This is just a taste of what is to come! Well played, sir!

REDSTATE'S ERICK ERICKSON < ANDREA SAUL

So Romney press secretary Andrea Saul made a mistake while responding to a question about the latest outrageous ad put out by an Obama superpac in which Mitt Romney is essentially accused of killing a woman. 

For the record, I think that Andrea Saul should lose her job over it.  Or at least be reassigned.  She should have handled the response much better and if this is where her head's at, then she needs to go.

Having said that, however, I find Erickson's ridiculous response to her mistake to be even more damaging to the Romney campaign.

Then the Romney campaign decided to sabotage itself with a mind numbingly bit of spin that may mark the day the Romney campaign died.  

Are you kidding me?  

Yes, Saul stepped on the message and failed to maximize the blowback to Bill Burton's shameless ad.  But in my opinion the embarrassing hysteria demonstrated by Erickson is so over the top that it can only be understood as a veiled threat to withhold support for Romney, which can only help Obama get reelected. Talk about sabotage and giving aide and comfort to the enemy! It's almost as if Erickson is HOPING it's true. I would think that Erickson would be a little more concerned about his OWN credibility.  He's the one playing Obama's game...

Why is Erickson's statement worse than Saul's gaffe?  Because it's based on the false premise that Conservatives would and should stay home on election day because of dissatisfaction with Romney.  Or at least withhold their support for him and focus on other races.  The fact is that it's every Conservative's duty to support the only man who is in the running to defeat Barack Obama.  All of this "Ooo, please Mitt Romney, say something that will 'inspire' us because otherwise we are just incapable of coming up with any reason to vote if you don't" sentiment is pointless, dishonest and harmful to the effort to get regime change in November.  The people who think like this should be ashamed of themselves.

Furthermore, it plays right into the hands of the Dim-o-crats, far more than anything Saul said.  They would love for Republicans to fight each other rather than fighting together against Obama and the Dims.  So even hinting that "the base" (whatever that means) would not fully support the GOP nominee only encourages the Dims to find other ways to create division.

So I unfollowed Erickson on Twitter earlier and I now award him the Private William Hudson Award for his pathetic whining and chicken-little attitude (if not actual sabotage) in the face of adversity.

 

TWITTER AS TEACH-IN: MAXIMIZING THE POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL MEDIA

It should be quite obvious from the very title of this blog that I'm an advocate for appropriating the language of the New Left as a way of highlighting the fact that in many areas of our culture they themselves long ago became the New Reactionary Establishment and that the methods they used as young people in the 1960s was not unique or exclusive to them and can be used to bring them down in their turn.

In furtherance of this goal, I will now present my case for the Conservative "teach-in" for which I think Twitter is a particularly useful social media tool.

The essential purpose of a teach-in is to provide information and raise awareness about subjects that the mainstream media and/or academia either refuse to cover at all or cover with such outrageous subjectivity that the reporting cannot be trusted.  The teach-in is, therefore, an alternative method of educating people on certain issues that are uncomfortable or even damaging to the Establishment.

As I have stated on more than one occasion the Establishment in academia, the news media and Hollywood entertainment is in the business of promoting and, when necessary, protecting a narrative that is at best "liberal" in outlook and frequently full-fledged Leftist in ideology. To promote and protect the narrative means making highly subjective decisions as to which news stories will be covered and how they are covered, as well as what constitutes "normal" and what constitutes "fringe" activity and thought. 

For instance, the media narrative regarding high-profile Conservative women is that they are either ignorant, crazy, racist or frequently all the above.  "Liberal" women, on the other hand, are well-meaning, intelligent and perfectly "PC" in their thinking.  Understanding the often extreme bias of the Establishment media will cause a thinking person to question the validity of the content produced by so-called "journalists" who harbor such bias.  The same is true of the tenured radicals who constitute the Academic Establishment in our schools and on college campuses across the country.  It's also true of the Left-wing propagandists in Hollywood who churn out one travesty after another in an effort to herd the people into a certain politically correct point of view.

The first major teach-in was organized by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on March 24–25, 1965. The event was attended by about 3,500 (including student radicals/future domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn) and consisted of debates, lectures, movies, and musical events aimed at protesting Lyndon Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam.  Similar events were held in New York City at Columbia University, in Washington D.C. and the largest of them all, in Berkeley at the University of California.

It was at these events and others like them that students, faculty members and others became radicalized and were given the talking points they would need to recruit their peers into the movement. Because they mostly occurred on college campuses and included faculty participation, the indoctrination sessions maintained a veneer of intellectualism and academic propriety that afforded the movement a significant measure of credibility.  They helped to discredit the Johnson administration to the point where he eventually refused to run for a second full term.

I.F. Stone (right) at the UC-Berkeley Vietnam Day teach-in, May 1965

So now here we are in 2012, faced with a Democrat in the White House whose policies have failed and whose extreme Left-wing ideological viewpoint is hostile to the cherished tradition of American exceptionalism.  He has proven willing to govern by fiat whenever the Legislative or Judicial branch does not kowtow to his demands.  He cannot be trusted to play by the rules since he is a product of both the corrupt Chicago Democrat political machine and an upbringing that was corrupted by Marxist anti-Americanism.  He is motivated by bitterness, resentment and all the negative aspects of Marxist ideology.

And yet while the 2008 Democrat primaries offered glimpses of the real Barack Obama (mostly because Hillary Clinton, an Alinsky afficionado herself, was perfectly aware of it and used it), thanks to the remarkable (and deplorable) efforts of the Establishment Media it was effectively glossed over, minimized and occasionally defended to the point where it was buried beneath an avalanche of bogus "hopey changey" rhetoric designed to bamboozle the middle class. 

Glenn Beck recognized what was going on and was disturbed by it.  On his daily show on FNC he would conduct what I would call teach-ins.  The famous chalkboard sessions are classics and even though he is no longer on FNC they still aggravate the Left to a remarkable degree.

The real reason the Left despises Beck so much is not because he's a "crazy bigot" or "racist" but because they know that he was exposing them in ways that they never thought anybody in the media would dare to do.  Why would the Left assume that nobody would dare to expose the inner workings of the Democrat Party and it's Left-wing agenda?  It's because they assumed that the tactics of marginalizing, ridiculing and demonizing individuals or organizations that threaten the narrative had put the fear of God (or whatever) into them so that they'd never dare try it.  

It's intimidation, pure and simple and it's because of the educational efforts of Glenn Beck and a handful of others that we now know that there's a word for it: Alinsky.  The danger of being portrayed as extreme, unstable, ridiculous or hateful by the media is part of a strategy promoted by the late Saul Alinsky.
 

Glenn Beck's chalkboard sessions functioned as teach-ins

Of course, Alinsky didn't invent any of the tactics that are associated with his name.  They are as old as politics and culture itself.  What he DID do, however, is to capture and crystallize the techniques and the mindset behind them in an easily-digestible book that could be passed around from person to person among impressionable, naive baby-boomers who were anxious to find new ways to urinate on the legacy for which their parents, the Greatest Generation, had worked so hard and sacrificed so much to provide them. 

Nowadays, we don't have to literally pass a book hand to hand among our circle of friends.  We have the internet and social media. Which brings me back to Twitter.

THE VALUE AND IMPORTANCE OF RETWEETING

When a new tweet lands in your timeline, there are several things you can do with it.  You can read it, obviously.  You can read it and look at the attached article, photo or video.  Then you can favorite it, which can be seen by the person who originally tweeted it and also by anybody else who “expands” the tweet.  This is all well and good.  Certainly the tweeter would like to see the appreciation or at least acknowledgment that the tweet was noticed.  You can reply to the tweet which, depending on whether or not the tweet was appreciated and agreed with or unappreciated and objected to, could lead to further interaction and thus additional tweets. 

Maximizing means doing it all! But especially ReTweet!

But if you value the tweet and whatever it contains then the best thing you can do is to RETWEET IT!  There’s a reason why the bio blurbs of well-known tweeters often indicate that a “retweet does not necessarily mean endorsement.”  It's because a retweet has intrinsic value.  In other words, when a tweet is retweeted it’s usually a sign of approval by the retweeter.  But it could also mean that it is not appreciated to such a degree that the person thinks his/her followers should see it for themselves.  However the “retweet” feature is used there is no disputing that it is the single most effective way to utilize twitter.

For instance, if you have 1,000 followers and each of your followers also has 1,000 followers of their own, just think of the impact your great tweet can have when all of your followers and all of their followers ect. retweet it.  The more people that see what you’ve tweeted the more impact it can have.  If you merely “favorite” it then that’s essentially an interaction between two people, you and the person you follow.  If you reply to the tweet then it is between you, the person you follow and whoever might follow both of you or just happens to spot it in their timeline.  But when you retweet you are theoretically sharing it with every single one of your 1,000 followers, which then gives them an opportunity to share it with all of theirs.  Think of the ripple effect when you drop a pepple into the water.  This is the principle behind a video going “viral” on the internet.  It’s not merely the number of people who stumble across the video by chance; it’s how many times the video is shared with others via Facebook, Twitter, ect.  

And the best thing about all of this is that it never has to be simply one thing or another.  You can do “all the above” for any tweet.  You can favorite a tweet, retweet it and also reply to it directly.  That would be a case of maximizing the effectiveness of the tweet.

Of course, the impact of the tweet is also tied to how many followers a person has.  If you have only 50 followers and they mostly have a similar number of followers then the impact will be less than if you have 3,050 followers and many of them also have large followings.  Top celebrities and athletes have the most followers and it can be hundreds of thousands.  Writers, journalists, politicians and others who have some independent way of gathering followers will also have considerable numbers of followers.  The average anonymous internet user will never have those kinds of eye-popping numbers. But I know from my own experience that it is possible to build up a nice-sized number of followers by maximizing your tweets. 

And how does one maximize a tweet?  Make it a tweet that people will find interesting enough to share with others.  It could be a quote, a witty observation, a photo, a video or a useful, instructive article.  If you produce a tweet that can entertain and/or inform others then you will have produced a tweet that will be retweeted, possibly many times.  This should be everybody's goal because anybody can do it.  Read articles online and then tweet them to your followers.  If somebody you follow tweets an article, read it and then RETWEET IT!  The same goes with humorous photos, campaign ad videos...anything that helps raise awareness, promotes solidarity or otherwise helps the cause. 

The more times your tweet gets retweeted the more followers you will have.  People will follow someone whom they believe will provide further excellent tweets. And these followers will be like-minded and serious about helping the cause as well.  And now you are building a useful and supportive online community.  Solidarity, like knowledge, facilitates praxis, which is an old Greek word that simply means "the practice of" or "action."  And in this election year the ultimate praxis is to argue with the other side, to promote our views, to motivate the electorate to get out and vote; all of which - hopefully - will result in regime change in November.

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH!

ANOTHER COUPLE OF EXCELLENT VIDEOS!

CHICK-FIL-A APPRECIATION DAY!