Mau-Mauing and the Dominant Thesis

Mau-mauing is a great word from the 1960s which deserves to make a comeback.

The word first came into use to describe liberals pressuring the government for civil rights. It was a term of derision, used by conservatives to try and take the sting out of the technique, by associating it with African terrorists.

It worked in the 1960s not because the civil rights movement was right — which it was — but because the mau-mauers were appealing to a dominant thesis in American politics. The political assumptions behind the pressure enabled minority stands to gain policy support. It was, in fact, a rather simple form of political terrorism, as people like Tom Wolfe (above) understood.

This is precisely what the Right is up to now. Last week’s events are a perfect example. The whole MoveOn contretemps was a classic bit of mau-mauing, and followed a script which has been used repeatedly throughout the year.

1. Find an angry statement from the other side.
2. Ignore the real issue and direct all your fire against the person making the statement.
3. Associate everyone on the other side with the angry speaker.
4. Use the faux issue as an excuse to stand firm against majority opinion.

Digby calls this the "fainting couch"
approach and she is bitterly angry that it continues to work even after
it’s exposed. But in mau-mauing the Left in this way, the Bush
Administration is throwing its last bullet in the ideological conflict,
just as leftists did in the 1960s. An appeal to assumptions only works
so long as those assumptions are believed.

Those assumptions are not believed by the American people,
not any more.  Each time they’re used now, they hurt Republicans with public opinion. But they are believed, still, by the Washington
Establishment, because while Democrats have a majority in Congress,
those who reject the thesis’ assumptions remain a minority, and there
are almost no reporters left who remember a time when the thesis did not hold.

The right action for those who reject the thesis is to refuse support
to anyone who accepts it. Don’t give money to the Democratic Party as a
whole. Give it to people you agree strongly with. Give it to people who
reject the Thesis, and starve those who are still capable of being
mau-maued. This is why, as a new Thesis rises, it’s often pushed toward what looks like the political extreme by events, when in fact it’s just re-defining the center.

And let’s remember some history here. The first step of a new Political
Thesis is always to mau-mau the followers of the old Thesis. Franklin
Roosevelt directly attacked wealthy Republicans with his New Deal
rhetoric. Spiro Agnew directly attacked followers of the New Deal with
his early rhetoric. This is the nasty part of a political reversal,
where those who were at the front of the advancing parade suddenly find
themselves being abandoned by their fellows, and those who had spent a
generation in retreat howl in glee at every rhetorical advance.

In the 1930s Hollywood played its part in mau-mauing the Republican
wealthy, not just in dramas but especially in comedies. Watch My Man Godfrey or It Happened One Night some time, with your political eyes open.  Once the former mau-mauers become objects of ridicule their days are over.

Think Jesus’ General deserves a movie deal? I do.  And I’m certain Digby will be thrilled to death when the Agnews she reads are for her.