Defeating MSNBC. (With the military?)

It's an ideological battle for America between conservative free market principles on one side and socialists, liberals and the media on the other side. And it's on. It's been on for decades but only the liberal side seemed to realize it. Defeating MSNBC (as a representative of the mainstream media bias) should be one of the highest priorities for conservatives. But how?

I've always been an advocate of bypassing the mainstream media. Ronald Reagan managed to do it once he became President. But he had an advantageous position to do it from at that point. It's a position the GOP no longer possesses. It's a position the GOP squandered for the better part of eight years with the Bush bunker-mentality that served to greatly embolden the liberal media to create their own tangent for every story and mold situations to suit their own storyline.

It happens to be the biggest factor the GOP needs to overcome in order to regain control of the House, Senate and White House. Of course it's not impossible. Bush was able to beat Al Gore in 2000, despite an antagonistic press. In the past I'd recommended different ways to bypass the MSM. Those approaches, including community outreach, community activism (Tea Parties), and finding alternative channels to promote and even explain conservative principles, should not be abandoned.

But looking at the shortcomings of that approach is only reasonable. In deciding how to re-assert conservatism in America every possible approach should be considered. Is there a better way to accomplish that goal? A military analogy serves this discussion well. If this were a military campaign, there would be several different strategic approaches to accomplishing a victory over a well defended position. And make no mistake, the Obama administration and the Democratic majorities will be a fiercely well defended position come election time.

An entrenched, established defender can still be overcome. If not, military engagements would typically have one outcome - a defender victory. But how does a smart general overcome this? There are many ways.

Outflanking the defender - this approach of bypassing the strong suit of the defender is essentially what I have argued in the past. In order to defeat the Democrats, the GOP must find other ways to get it's message to Americans, and do so in such a way that the message sticks. This involves using face-to-face discussions, lectures, community programs. Avoiding the heavily fortified defenders worked for Hannibal, Napoleon and Julius Caesar, and in the realm of ideas it worked for Ronald Reagan.

The links above outline more details on this approach.

Force concentration - Summarized from Wikipedia;

Traditionally it is accepted that a defending force has a 3:1 advantage over an attacker. In other words, a defending force can hold off three times its own number of attackers. However, as the defensive line increases ...in length, the advantage slips from the defender to the attacker. The longer the line to be held the thinner the defenders will be spread. With the defender having sacrificed his mobility to dig in, the attacker can choose where and when to attack...Thus, concentrating divisions and attacking at a single point generates a far greater force than is achieved by spreading... into a line and pushing forward on a broad front.

In other words, by finding the weakest link in the mainstream media and focusing all of the messaging efforts at overcoming that point, the GOP could poke a hole in the media's protection of the Democrats. In theory proving a media bias or outright fabrications, would certainly help the cause of conservatism as people would eye the MSM with some suspicion. People might look for alternative sources for their political coverage. But is that a long term win, or a temporary gain that could be large enough to sway an election? After all, you've defeated the media in that case, not the Democrats.

Well timed force concentration, focusing on the right weak point could be enough to tilt a Presidential battle in our favor.

Overwhelming the defenders - This approach is one of sheer numbers or overwhelming force. When there's just too many attackers, the defenders can't cope. The GOP isn't in a position to overwhelm the media. But conservative activists and bloggers might be. Taking an approach of dividing into 100 or more small super-cells who are responsible on a bi-daily basis coming up with talking points or new items of investigation that the media, hopefully cannot choose to ignore. The next layer down would require a layer of ordinary cells to take these issues on and carry the message further by disseminating it as much as possible. This layer would have to include some key conservative pundits, who carry more weight in legitimizing some of the issues that deserve to be made legitimate. Taking a blitzkrieg approach of finding an issue or controversy, blowing it out into the Internet and then moving on, leaves the media responsible for picking up the pieces or explaining away the controversy. By the time they've picked up the pieces, 1 or 2 more new issues should have bubbled to the surface. This keeps the media on the defensive if nothing else, and keeps it from setting or managing the agenda.

Use of stealth attacks - No. Guerrilla warfare has it's place, but being stealthy here isn't going to be of much use unless it involves converting John Warner to ideological conservatism, it isn't going to amount to much. Unless it involves discovering a direct connection between Obama and Blagojevich, it's not going to help.

The situation facing the country requires a massive push towards a conservative victory, not a series of micro-skirmishes. The only real way stealth could be useful is in conjunction with the tactic of deception. The GOP, pretending to be flat on it's back while it rebuilds it's strength for a sudden realization of power.

Exploiting the prevailing weather - this approach has a dependency in a political battle. The prevailing weather could be a headwind instead of a tailwind. Or the prevailing weather could be a non-factor. President Obama used his tailwind in 2008 to try to keep most of his weaponry holstered and thereby avoided shooting himself in the foot. If Obama's recovery plan flops, there will certainly be prevailing weather that the GOP should be able to exploit. The question is, how? The obvious way would be to keep the pressure on the attack on the problems, while concurrently offering solutions to the same problems. Don't let the defenders try to change the focus of the debate, because this one is a winning issue. Perhaps THE winning issue.

If you keep the Democrats on the defensive on an issue they can't counter with a good new approach because they used it to get into the mess. Either that, or if they can argue their way out of it, then they were asleep at the wheel when they should have been working to prevent the problem.

If they are on the defensive on a big issue, they will be back on their heels and not able to counter anything else. It opens up multiple options for the GOP, and gives them more room to maneuver.

Finding the high ground - This works well in military situations. The political equivalent would be to be up in the polls. Clearly you have to fight your way up that hill first before you can claim it. Therefore for this to even be an option for the GOP in 2010 and 2012, they have to start chipping away at the Presidential poll numbers right now.

Some might argue that the high moral ground would help in that regard. Yes and no. Yes, being above corruption and reproach will help. But being unable or unwilling to bloody your knuckles in a political punch-up will get you McCained.

Deception - No matter what battle is being fought, deception is important. Not perfidy. But misdirection, diversionary attacks, feints, and decoys are all acceptable. Clinton had a War Room. Why? Because politics is war. Knock-down, drag-out, street fighting war. In politics, if you are unwilling to fight by anything other than the Marquis of Queensbury Rules, you are going to get a knife in the stomach. You can't win by playing nice. You'll get McCained.

So how do you deceive your enemy? That's not easy. And certainly doesn't merit exposure here, it gives away too much. It would be like telling the terrorists that waterboarding is off the table. That's pulling an Obama. However, one thing is patently obvious. The less your opponent knows about your true intentions, the easier it will be to misdirect their energies. It would be profoundly well played to misdirect both the Democrats and the media.

Which tactic is best?

Thinking in terms of the long war for hearts and minds, I still think the community outreach approach has to be a big part of the tactics. Perhaps a mix of the other tactics would compliment that approach. The battlefield has yet to be fully drawn - figuring out the best approach at this point would be premature. But given the economic policies being put in place by the Democrats, the battle field map is definitely starting to be filled in. So somebody had better be thinking about this stuff already.